Listed first are some of the most frequently participating members of Forward Energy in the Bay Area:
Stephen Flinn drums,
Eddie Gale trumpet,
Scott R. Looney piano,
Alicia Mangan tenor sax ***Others who have participated on recordings and/or gigs are: Kristjan Bondesson double bass, Bruce Eisenbeil guitar, Lisle Ellis double bass, John Gruntfest alto sax, Robert Jones double bass, Adam Lane double bass, Donald Robinson drums, Rent Romus alto sax, Dave Sewelson baritone sax, Spirit drums, Damon Smith double bass, Carolyn Torrente alto sax, Marshall Trammell drums, Peter Valsamis drums, Andrew Wilshusen drums, Dee Pop drums (NYC)
Influences
Jelly Roll Morton, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Frank Wright, Stan Getz, etc.
Bio Update 12.24.07. . . Jim's Forward Energy band played San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Santa Barbara Nov 15, 16, 17 & 18 with the fabulous Alicia Mangan on tenor sax. San Diego drummer Nathan Hubbard played the first three dates with Scott Walton(SD) and Aaron Kohen(LA & LB) sharing double bass duties . . . In Santa Barbara it was Jim, Alicia, & Colter Frazier on saxes, David Tranchina dbass, and Robert Wallace percussion. These four SoCal dates were OUTSTANDING! On December 9, 12, 13 & 14 Forward Ebergy played the Someday Lounge in Portland as well as a house gig . . . Bob Jones was on dbass and Andrew Wilhusen drums both Portland gigs. The Someday gig added Jim Knodle on trumpet and Marc Smason trombone (both from Seattle), Tim duRoche also played drums on the Someday gig. On the 13th Forward Energy went to Seattle playing the music cooperative 1412 Gallery with Jim sax, Andrew drums, Knodle and Smason tmpt & tmb, as well as Seattle bassist Kevin McCarthy. The following day this band sans Jim Knodle played Egan's in the Ballard area of Seattle . . . So, it was a busy Late Fall for Forward Energy. . . . . . . Forward Energy will embark on it's Late Winter Midwest Tour in mid-February (see show listing for dates already set . . . there will be more! . . . . . . . . THE GHOST DOG TOUR COMPILATION CD will be released on January 15, 2008 . . . check 'http://www.edgetonerecords.com/ryan.html' for purchase info and CONTINUE READING FOR FURTHER GHOST DOG DETAILS . . . Jim did his 'Ghost Dog Tour' from Oaktown to the Big Apple via the gray dog, in May and June 07. Four gigs in St. Paul (his hometown) and Minneapolis: The Black Dog Cafe (St.Paul), The CIA (Center for Independent Arists) (Mpls), The Clown Lounge (St. Paul), The Acadia Cafe (Mpls) It Was A Gas! On to Chicago Land: The Velvet Lounge and the Mercury Cafe. Dan Godston trumpet and Joel Wanek double bass played on all these gigs (in fact Dan got four of them so we played as the Stir Trio . . . cause he who get the gig name the band, o.k?) There were other fine players on these gigs too, including: Douglas Ewart, Mankwe Ndosi, Steve Hirsch, J. Otis Powell, and Jerome Bryerton. On to Champagne/Urbana where I played at the Iron Post with The Nu Orbit Ensemble, me, two synths, and a world percussionist . . . all these guys have shows on the University Radio station!!! On to Columbus Ohio and the Dog be getting tired but there was a great bunch of players at Milo Elektric, the community outside music center . . . and we WAILED . . . and then the Dog limped into the big city where Jim's Forward Energy played the Downtown Music Gallery, Jimmy's Back Room (both in the East Village), and finally ABC No Rio, a community center on the Lower East Side. IT WAS GREAT! Players on these gigs were Dave Sewelson bari, Lisle Ellis dbass, Dee Pop drums, Dave Hofstra bass, and Bruce Eisenbeil gtr. It was a great and arduous trip . . . All has been recorded . . . all 11 gigs . . . all 16 sets . . . and Edgetone records is going to put this wonderous music out . . . with a narrative by yours truly . . . but we do hope to get the first CD (a 79 minute compilation) out in a reasonable length of time . . . 6 months, 8 months, I don't know but we're going to get it done . . . and we'll announce it right here. I'm going to Southern California in mid-November and up to Portland and Seattle in December to play and record more, more, more . . . jim ryan . . . ::: . . .
Jim Ryan's FORWARD ENERGY TRIO - FE3 Oakland (Edgetone) - FE3 Portland (Edgetone) February 2007, April 07 Review in Touching Extremes – Rome, by Massimo Ricci
"The world needs more people like Jim Ryan. This incessantly active poet, musician, conscience agitator and visionary sax player is one of those artists who render subdivisions and classifications meaningless, in the name of a single torrential flood of creativity that mixes exuberance, enthusiasm and meditative portions of extraterritorial improvisation, the whole reinforced by a technical knowledge that only many years of playing at the forefront and on the fringes of convention can develop. Ryan has fine-tuned his skill with the likes of Shepp, Ayler and Braxton - enough said. The Oakland disc is probably the most satisfying as far as the recording quality and artistic level of the music go: flanked by Stephen Flinn on drums and Scott R.Looney on piano, Ryan produces the goods during outasight improvisations that move on the borders of recognizability, harmonically evolved in a short-distance biochemical combination that causes reciprocal listening and involuntary communication to produce that extroverted entanglement of anti-singalong lines and uncomparable suspended transitions that characterizes only the players at the very hilltop of unadulterated music. The Portland Trio features Ryan with double bassist Robert Jones and drummer Andrew Wilshusen. It’s the (relatively) calmer of the two recordings, a trait d’union between a symbolical - and material - communion of intents and the firing, blazing representation of those instances in which the music dictates the path to the artist and viceversa. Ryan grows his beautifully intricate lines in a favourable timbral environment, but also finds the time to elevate deep thoughts to the memory of his mentors, his music self-regenerating with every change of wind, the three players fused in a single voice, with the leader as the most visible light. There is actually no sense in listening to these albums separately, as they seem to be born together, even in their different complexion. Either way, absolutely great stuff."
In the Spring of 1997 when Jim Ryan was booking his new free jazz band into Radio Valencia (now defunct) in San Francisco, Don Allen, the proprietor, asked him what was the name of the band. Jim, responded, "Ah, er . . . Forward Motion . . . er, No! Forward Energy!" Since then it's been a varying configuration of, at first, top S.F. Bay Area players, and then embracing musicans from San Diego to Portland to Chicago and New York City. It's a high energy jazz band in the style variously called: The New Thing, Outside Jazz, Free Jazz, Avant Jazz and THE Music. Jim sometimes calls it 'underground jazz.' Forward Energy is totally improvised music flowering from over 100 years of jazz development and moving (without forgetting the roots) into the 21st Century. Forward Energy has just released two trio CDs - FE3 Oakland, and FE3 Portland. In addition to these two records, four earlier Forward Energy recordings are available trom Edgetone Records http://edgetonerecords.com/ryan.html as well as one (The Concept) from Cadence Jazz Records in New York. In the late Spring of 2007 Jim plans to bring his music to The Twin Cities, Chicago, Champaign, IL, Columbus, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York City hooking up with musicians across the Midwest and on the East Coast. It's the FORWARD ENERGY GREYHOUND BUS TOUR '07! (May 29 to June 17). Gig dates will be posted on Forward Energy's My Space site. *** About Jim Ryan = Born 1934 and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Piano lessons as a kid. Discovered jazz from radio DJ program themes, Ellington's 'Creole Love Call,' Artie Shaw's 'Summit Ridge Drive,' Teresa Brewer's 'Candy Store Blues." Encountered Be-Bop as freshman in high school, bought 78 rpms in appliance stores (record stores had not yet appeared) with paper route money -- took up trombone. Graduated in philosophy from University of Minnesota. Drafted into U.S. Army and sent to Germany. Got out and went to Paris, France to become a writer. In about 1967 began to play a wooden Indian flute after working at writing all day . . . immediate gratification. Acquired concert flute and shortly thereafter a c-melody sax. In about 1970 Free Jazz hit Paris BIG TIME. The AAMC (Chicago) BAG (St. Louis), Bobby Few & Frank Wright (Cleveland), Sunny Murray, Alan Silva . . . It became the fashion for several years. Jim engaged in a year-long weekly jam led by Steve Lacy at the American Center for Students and Artists (now for all intents and purposes defunct) and formed the 'Free Music Formation,' etc. etc. Returned to U.S. of A. in mid-70's, California in the Mid-80's and has been practicing music out of Oakland, CA ever since.
Thank you Jim, and welcome to a discussion among Music and Theater people, film makers and philosophers, painters and poets. I invite you to my current exhibitions of paintings and poems, and look forward to talking with you. There's no better place for enlightened discussion than in the presence of art.
One show in Phoenix, one in California, one in Miami: TEAPOT TOTEMS AND POEMS @ THE FIREHOUSE artspace 1015 N 1st Street, DOWNTOWN PHOENIX - Open Weekends from 1pm to 6pm
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