Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark (USA, 1964) is a renowned avant-garde composer, improviser, saxophonist/clarinetist, curator, and writer. He has collaborated and recorded with key figures from the AACM (Fred Anderson), FMP (Peter Brötzmann), British improvisation (Paul Lytton), post-punk (Terrie Ex), Ethiopian music (Getachew Mekuria), and Japanese free jazz (Akira Sakata). Since 2012, he has directed the Catalytic Sound cooperative and runs Audiographic Records (founded 2014). In 1999, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his contributions to music.
Calendar
7:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Gothenburg, Sweden: CLUB iDEAL
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
7:30 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/London, England: Cafe Oto
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
8:00 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/London, England: Hundred Years Gallery
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
7:30 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Brighton, England: safehouse w/Metcalfe, Edwards, Somervell
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
8:30 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Munich, Germany: Halle 6
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
8:30 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Schorndorf, Germany: Manufaktur
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
7:30 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour; St. Georgen/Gusen, Austria: Jazz im Bäckerhaus, Kulturverein Tribüne
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
8:30 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Warsaw, Poland: Pardon, To Tu
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
8:00 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Krakow, Poland: Alchemia
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
8:00 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Oslo, Norway: Kafe Hærverk
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Stockholm, Sweden: Rönnells
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
6:00 pm
Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark European Tour/Helsinki, Finland: We Jazz Festival, Café Shade
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together for more than two decades, touring in Europe, the United States, Japan, and […]
Latest Releases
October Flowers for Joe McPhee
Ken Vandermark
El Infierno Musical II
Christof Kurzmann, Katinka Kleijn, Lia Kohl, Dave Rempis, Ken Vandermark
Pivot
Mats Gustafsson, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Ken Vandermark
Fourth Atlas
Ken Vandermark & Tim Daisy
Broadcast Transformer
Edition Redux
This Is Not A Holiday!
Terrie Ex & Ken Vandermark
Recent Posts
Update: November 9, 2025
About to embark on a tour in Europe with Paal Nilssen-Love and organized by him. This means lots of intense and inspiring music (13 concerts), lots of traveling (8 […]
IN ROTATION & IN ADDITION: Winter 2024-Summer 2025
I like to keep track of the ideas and work in this journal as a reference to what has influenced and affected me over time. Alongside the collaborations I am […]
Edition XL & poets at The Green Mill: night one
Edition XL and the poets Ed Roberson, Ken Taylor, and Kai Ihns will be back at The Green Mill tonight- Saturday, August 2nd, at 8pm- for our second series of […]
Instagram Feed
Musician (improviser/composer) who plays saxophones and clarinets, and works with a variety of styles and artists.
![November thoughts pt. 3: There was a smaller celebration the next evening in Sawyer, Michigan that was, for me anyway, just as significant. It was held at Out There, an outstanding venue and restaurant. After traveling and being hosted in Europe and China for most of October, to be treated with such respect at a place so close to home on my first visit to the space meant an immense amount. I played the compositions from “October Flowers” with Joe and Paal in the audience, alongside John and Jim from CvsD. Though the setting was more intimate than the one from the night before, it was also more intense to be standing there alone, presenting music written for the person who inspired it in the room. Joe and Paal played breathtaking music during their set together.
There was something extraordinary and personal that took place that Sunday: in February of 1996, Joe’s solo performance and trio set with Kent Kessler and me toward the start of the series at the Bottle really helped launch it; it also launched years of opportunities to collaborate with Joe in a variety of contexts, with the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, the trio with Susan Alcorn, and recording duo improvisations for his album of poetry, “Musings of a Bahamian Son (CvsD) among them. As I sat with Joe while he packed up his horn at the end of the night and before I traveled with Ben Hall to work with him in Detroit, it wasn’t as if things had come full circle after nearly three decades, the motion was centrifugal, continuing to move out, like the piece “Shakey Jake”; recorded by Joe in 1970 at Vassar College in his hometown of Poughkeepsie for a small label called CjRecord Productions that ended up on the soundtrack for an internationally viewed and acclaimed show, “Severance”, more than a half century later.
[photo by Dawid Laskowski]
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