2007: Jim Ryan’s Forward Energy

Jim Ryan, Robert Jones (OR), Andrew Wilshusen (OR)

Jim Ryan, the Bay Area's grand master of free jazz founded Forward Energy ten years ago playing with various bay area musicians using the free jazzRobert Jones improv style he learned during a year-long participation in Steve Lacy’s weekly open sessions in Paris during the early 1970’s. He has honed his style to a sharp precision and will present his trio performing sound from their new CD FE3. &ldquo...Forceful, immediate, inventive.” —Signal to Noise

“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.” —Massimo Ricci

Robert Jones learned to play the double bass from Winston Budrow at Michigan State University. He received his BA in contrabass performance and worked as an extra in several Midwest symphonic groups before moving to Portland, Oregon where he works with many improvisational ensembles including The Evolutionary Jass Band, Thee Oregon Artificial Limb Co. and Eternal Tapestry.

Andrew Wilshusen started drumming at ten but it got serious when he heard a Max Roach recording. He then listened intensely to late 40’s & 60’s jazz. He practiced the drums obsessively while obtaining his BA. He played in rock bands but was captured by avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical music. In 2000 he moved from the Midwest and immersed himself in the free jazz & improv music scenes of the San Francisco bay area. In 2005 he relocated to Portland expanding his work to accompany dancers and to cull new sounds from drums and found objects.

Artist (photo by Photographer)