2003 Summit
Program
Thursday, July 17
Luggage Store Gallery
Heavy Guerrilla
O‘Rorke/Eubanks/Shiurba
Recursive Heretics
Friday, July 18
Community Music Center
Matthew Goodheart
Scott Looney
Gust Burns
Saturday, July 19
Music Union Hall
Mrlectronic
Burns/Smith/Durouche
Sunday, July 20
Music Union Hall
KliP Trio
Tri-Cornered Tent Show
About Edgetone Records
Founded by saxophonist/composer/producer Rent Romus, Edgetone Records originally began in 1991 to support modern jazz. In 2000 the label expanded to support the many unsung or under appreciated artists of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond by encompassing experimental, avant guard, new sonic, and postmodern jazz.
Unlike many music corporate structures that mimic a parasite, Edgetone is dedicated to a symbiotic relationship between artist and company by releasing music by musicians who are “self-producers”, with a mind for business, and not just looking for the enslavement of the “deal”. Musicians who do not want to compromise their music to fit into a narrow definition of "commercially viable”, and those that double their efforts to support their ideas and dreams define what we are all about. Although there are many artists that need the administrative strong hold of a major label to run their lives, there are many like the artists of Edgetone that have what it takes to stand on their own.
It is the desire of Edgetone to make available recordings and creative products that act to support diverse creative music and art that is otherwise being pushed aside, misunderstood or, under represented by standard media. Aside from modern jazz, the new sonic series is the flagship and guiding light of Edgetone including the new Razor series pushing the envelope into the new century.
About the Founder
Rent Romus is a force spanning over seventeen years of creative improvised music. The current director and producer of Edgetone Records, the SIMM Music Series at the Studio 6 Musicians Union Hall, and co-curator of the Luggage Store Gallery Series with Ernesto Diaz-Infante in San Francisco, Romus has introduced countless musicians from the world over and multimedia events to the San Francisco Bay Area culture and throughout parts of the world.
During the mid 80’s, Romus enhanced his studies at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University, where he was blessed with the wisdom and guidance from Stan Getz, guitarist Bruce Forman, Dizzy Gillespie, Mel Martin, and drummer Eddie Moore. In 1984 at the age of 16, Romus re-organized directed NAYJE (the North Area Youth Jazz Ensemble), a seventeen piece big band featuring some of the best young high school and college bay area musicians at the time. In the fall of 1986, while attending the University of California at Santa Cruz, he formed the group Jazz On The Line which became the focus for his compositions and productions. JOTL was an acoustic jazz sextet that fused jazz, blues, gospel, and hip-hop into original compositions. Romus produced three albums for this group including his critically acclaimed CD Jazz On the Line with Chico Freeman, In The Moment on Edgetone Records soon to be reissued. Mid span the group changed it’s name to 2AM, and was considered one of the founding bands of the “acid jazz” scene popular in the early nineties parallel to Charlie Hunter and the like.
In 1993 seeking a more expanded format to explore, Romus formed the modern music group RKZtet, which featured ex-ESP recording artist and drum master James Zitro and former Sun Ra Arkestra cellist Kash Killion, both noted for their contribution to the development of the “new jazz” of the sixties. Later in 1994 Romus renamed the group, The Lords of Outland, and brought in soon to be film music composer Vytas Nagisetty (Brock Lee) on bass, Andrew Borger (currently drummer for Tom Waits) and Jason Olaine (Jay O), (currently AR director for Verve Records Universal) on trumpet. The Lords of Outland recorded their first album You’ll Never Be The Same, Jazzheads Records JH9493 in 1995, and were featured on the then fledgling BET Channel National Network Show, “Jazz Central” as part of the Jazz Discovery program. That same year Romus self-produced his first overseas national tour of Denmark which featured many of Copenhagen’s young improvisers discovering such musicians as pianist/trumpet player Jonas Müller who has recently moved the S.F. Bay Area, and drummer Stefan Pasborg.
In 1996 Romus returned to Denmark for his second tour with Jonas as the Rent Romus Sound Cirkus. The group also included San Francisco basists George Cremanchi and saxophonist Alex Weiss. After returning to the U.S. they continued on to the Bay Area to finish the tour. During that year he also assisted bluesman Paris Slim produce his first major American release with guitarist Joe Lewis Walker and Sonny Rhodes. In 1997 Romus had the honor of recording with tenor sax master John Tchicai. Tchicai is best known for his work with the NY Art Quartet, NY Ear and Eye Control, and his recordings with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. The CD of this recording, Adapt…or DIE! was released at the end of 1997. In 1998 Romus released Blood Motions featuring his young Danish protégés Stefan Pasborg and bassist Jonas Westergaard.
In 2001 Romus re-opened his avant, free music lable Edgetone Records, where his current release can be found, interweaving science fiction, horror literature, improvisation, Finno-Ugric music traditions, and the inspiration of Albert Ayler.
