No Idea Residency #1: Ken Vandermark & Mabel Kwan; Monk’s Jazz Club, Austin, 7pm

7pm: Film screening of Daniel Kraus’ Work Series #2: Musician

58 mins, 2007

Daniel Krauss’ film, Musician, works with a similar methodology as Frederick Wiseman—no voice overs, no talking heads—letting the camera capture events as they unfold in real time. Though Ken Vandermark is at the center of the action, he is not the subject of the film. Instead, the subject is the work it takes for every musician, whatever genre, to get their material onstage and is a one-of-a-kind document of this process.

8pm: Mabel Kwan + Ken Vandermark Duo

Mabel Kwan and Ken Vandermark have worked together in various formats, including projects with the new music group Ensemble Dal Niente featuring new work by Roscoe Mitchell, Last Trane to Clover Five (2021), and performances at Big Ears Festival (2022). Since then they have played together in various improvised music groups; this will be their first concert as a duo.

9:15pm: Panel Discussion and Artist Talk

Vandermark’s resoluteness in managing innumerable projects function as a springboard to investigate and understand the complexities of establishing and maintaining a creative life in music. Panel members represent different aspects of Ken’s sprawling work as musician, label owner (Audiographic Records since 2014), Director of the Catalytic Sound musician cooperative (since 2012), concert presenter (Catalytic Sound Festival since 2020), and writer.

Ken Vandermark – musician
Mabel Kwan – musician
Eric Drott – Professor at UT Butler School of Music and author of Streaming Music, Streaming Capital (Duke Press)
Pedro Moreno – Founder of Epistrophy Arts, a grass-roots organization dedicated to presenting the finest in improvised music and adventurous jazz in Austin Texas since 1998.

[photo of Ken Vandermark by Andy Moor]