Musician & Composer

Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark (USA 1964) is an avant-garde composer, improviser, saxophonist/clarinetist, curator, and writer whose unique history has given him the opportunity to perform extensively and record with key figures of the AACM (Fred Anderson), FMP (Peter Brötzmann), post-punk (Terrie Ex); Ethiopian music (Getachew Mekuria), and free jazz from Japan (Akira Sakata). He’s been the director of the Catalytic Sound musician cooperative since 2012, has run Audiographic Records since 2014, and in 1999 was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in music.

Calendar

16AprilApr

Svetlost with Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark

Svetlost with Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark

April 16-22, 2025 Macedonia & Bulgaria, Croatia & Hungary TBA

01AugustAug

Edition XL (Berman, Dessel, Finnigan, Macri, McDonald, Vandermark)

Edition XL (Berman, Dessel, Finnigan, Macri, McDonald, Vandermark)

The Green Mill, Chicago

02AugustAug

Edition XL (Berman, Dessel, Finnigan, Macri, McDonald, Vandermark)

Edition XL (Berman, Dessel, Finnigan, Macri, McDonald, Vandermark)

The Green Mill, Chicago

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Latest Releases

Album: Broadcast Transformer

Broadcast Transformer

Edition Redux

Album: This Is Not A Holiday!

This Is Not A Holiday!

Terrie Ex & Ken Vandermark

Koniec

Sebastiaan Janssen, Hubert Kostkiewicz, Ken Vandermark & Marta Warelis

Album: Better A Rook Than A Pawn

Better A Rook Than A Pawn

Edition Redux

Album: Distant Cousins

Distant Cousins

Paul Lytton & Ken Vandermark

Album: Snapshots: Complete

Snapshots: Complete

Ken Vandermark solo

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Recent Posts

Prime Cuts #3: “Sans Soleil” (Argos Films: 1983), directed by Chris Marker.

Prime Cuts #3: “Sans Soleil” (Argos Films: 1983), directed by Chris Marker.

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Ken Vandermark

In the Prime Cuts essays so far I’ve focused on music and how two tracks on an album placed back-to-back can impact each other (Abide With Me and Well You Needn’t from […]

Edition XL: next steps

Edition XL: next steps

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Ken Vandermark

Very happy to be working with (left to right) Erez Dessel, Nick Macri, Lily Finnegan; and Beth McDonald, Josh Berman on the ensemble project, Edition XL. I began composing for the […]

Recording “October Flowers for Joe McPhee”

Recording “October Flowers for Joe McPhee”

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Ken Vandermark

On the evening of March 17th one of the most significant recording sessions of my career took place. It was held at the Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery in front of a small audience, […]

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Musician (improviser/composer) who plays saxophones and clarinets, and works with a variety of styles and artists.

Prime Cuts #3: “Sans Soleil” (Argos Films: 198

Prime Cuts #3: “Sans Soleil” (Argos Films: 1983), directed by Chris Marker.

In the Prime Cuts essays so far I’ve focused on music and how two tracks on an album placed back-to-back can impact each other (Abide With Me and Well You Needn’t from “Monk’s Music” by Thelonious Monk; also Money Jungle and Fleurette Africaine from “Money Jungle” by Duke Ellington). The series is also meant to examine the ramifications of how two scenes in a film placed next each other create the effect of A+B=C, or why Robert Bresson’s statement from Notes on The Cinematograph, “The same image brought in by ten different routes will be a different image ten times”, is true. First up in these articles on film is a discussion of the opening sequence to Chris Marker’s essay-film, “Sans Soleil”.

(link to complete essay at kenvandermark.com in bio)

#ChrisMarker
#SansSoleil
#StanleyKubrick
#2001aspaceodyssey

With the help of colleague and Catalytic Sound co-

Very happy to be working with (left to right) Erez

Very happy to be working with (left to right) Erez Dessel, Nick Macri, Lily Finnegan; and Beth McDonald, Josh Berman on the ensemble project, Edition XL. I began composing for the group during early February in preparation for rehearsals that began in the second half of that month and have continued through March. At this point, seven pieces have been completed: one “triptych” working with different tempos that explore a generalized “jazz lexicon”, a second triptych to focuses on “free-funk” ideas influenced by Miles Davis’ “Cellar Door Sessions”, and the beginning of a third triptych that’s going to investigate different musical strategies set in motion by Cecil Taylor’s groups from the late 50’s/early 60’s.

(Link to full essay at kenvandermark.com in bio)

@54bpm
@bethtuba
@lil.g.finn
@nckmcr
@josh.berman.chicago
@ken_vandermark
#ErezDessel
#LilyFinnegan
#BethMcDonald
#NickMacri
#JoshBerman
#KenVandermark
#ImprovisedMusic
#ExperimentalMusic
#FreeJazzMusic
#ContemporaryMusic
#Avant-GardeMusic
#ChicagoMusicScene

On the evening of March 17th one of the most signi

On the evening of March 17th one of the most significant recording sessions of my career took place. It was held at the Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery in front of a small audience, with Alex Inglizian recording. The material consisted of pieces I originally wrote to celebrate the gallery’s publication of Joe McPhee’s extraordinary memoir, “Straight Up, Without Wings: The Musical Flight of Joe McPhee” (co-written by Mike Faloon) which took place on October 18th of last year. John Corbett liked the compositions and wanted to document them being played in the space that they were initially performed.

(link to complete essay at kenvandermark.com in bio)

[performance photo by John Corbett, photo of Joe McPhee by Ziga Koritnik]

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@jimddempsey
@corbettvsdempsey
@alex_inglizian
@ken_vandermark
#JoeMcPhee
#JohnCorbett
#JimDempsey
#CorbettVsDempsey
#AlexInglizian
#KenVandermark
#ImprovisedMusic
#ExperimentalMusic
#Jazz
#FreeJazz
#ContemporaryMusic
#Avant-GardeMusic

Prime Cuts #2: “Money Jungle” (Originally issu

Prime Cuts #2: “Money Jungle” (Originally issued on LP by United Artists Jazz, 1963; reissued on LP by Blue Note, 1986, first reissue on CD, 1987, corrected reissue on CD, 2002), Duke Ellington.

This is the second in a series of essays that are meant to explore the impact two pieces of music can have when lined up back-to-back on an album, and to also consider the ramifications two scenes in a cinematic montage or between films can have. I’ve selected the title track to Duke Ellington’s trio recording with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, “Money Jungle”, which is followed by another of Ellington’s compositions, “Fleurette Africaine” for this week’s article.

(Link to complete essay at kenvandermark.com in bio)

@ken_vandermark
#DukeEllington
#CharlesMingus
#MaxRoach
#MoneyJungle
#ImprovisedMusic
#ExperimentalMusic
#Jazz
#FreeJazz
#ContemporaryMusic
#Avant-GardeMusic

Through extensive help from designers Fede and Cla

Through extensive help from designers Fede and Claudio Peñalva, it’s possible to now announce the official launch of the new kenvandermark.com website. My concert schedule, album releases, and Notes from the Field articles will once again be centralized in one place. So, to both of them, ¡Un millón de gracias!

[link to site in bio]

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@federicoplva
#KenVandermark
#FedePeñalva
#ClaudioPeñalva
#ImprovisedMusic
#ExperimentalMusic
#FreeJazz
#ContemporaryMusic
#Avant-GardeMusic

Prime Cuts #1: “Monk’s Music” (Riverside, 19

Prime Cuts #1: “Monk’s Music” (Riverside, 1957), Thelonious Monk.

I thought it would be interesting to start a series of write-ups about specific aspects of recordings that I find remarkable, also regarding cinema. From my perspective there is no place better to start such a project than with Thelonious Monk’s album, “Monk’s Music”, released by Riverside in 1957, that includes Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Ray Copland, Gigi Gryce, Coleman Hawkins, and Wilbur Ware.

(Link to full article at kenvandermark.com in bio)

@ken_vandermark
#TheloniousMonk
#ColemanHawkins
#ImprovisedMusic
#ExperimentalMusic
#Jazz
#ContemporaryMusic
#Avant-GardeMusic

What Would Ellington Do? Pt. 2: As the work contin

What Would Ellington Do? Pt. 2: As the work continues on composing for Edition XL- a new project with Josh Berman, Erez Dessel, Lily Finnegan, Nick Macri, and Beth McDonald- I’ve already set my sights on the reference material for the next triptych: Cecil Taylor’s early period, before the bar line was broken, when Denis Charles was most often the drummer and Buell Neidlinger was the bassist. Though the later chapters in Taylor’s career are rightfully celebrated for advancing the field of music I’m involved with, the material he created in the late 1950’s/early 60’s has fascinated me too. And, though I’ve tried to explore Taylor’s rhythmic and compositional innovations in many of my groups, one of the challenges to the Edition XL performances at The Green Mill in August is to present music that works in that space, one of the great jazz clubs in the States. I’ve performed cutting edge work there a number of times (most recently in January of 2023, playing the music of Fred Anderson and Don Cherry with Hamid Drake, Lemuel Marc, and Tomeka Reid; but also with groups like the VWCR quartet of Sylvie Courvoisier, Tom Rainey, and Nate Wooley [2018]; and the Eric Revis’ Quartet with Kris Davis and Chad Taylor [2017]). I’ve found that exploring music that is centered around the many variants of pulse-based time, then pushing against those parameters, helps the music communicate well in the special environment that is The Green Mill.

(Link to full article, with thoughts regarding Cecil Taylor and Duke Ellington’s music at kenvandermark.com com, in bio.)

@54bpm
@bethtuba
@lil.g.finn
@nckmcr
@josh.berman.chicago
@ken_vandermark
#CecilTaylor
#DukeEllington
#ErezDessel
#LilyFinnegan
#BethMcDonald
#NickMacri
#JoshBerman
#KenVandermark
#ImprovisedMusic
#ExperimentalMusic
#FreeJazzMusic
#ContemporaryMusic
#Avant-GardeMusic
#ChicagoMusicScene

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