The Lab

The Lab is a nonprofit experimental art and performance space located in the Mission District of San Francisco.

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Phillip Greenlief and Scott Amendola + Karen Stackpole and Krys Bobrowski

  • The Lab 2948 16th St San Francisco, CA, 94103 (map)

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Doors 8pm / Show 8:30pm
$17 advance / $18 door / free or discounted for members
Advance prices include ticketing fees. Request your member DICE Code here.

Greenlief and Amendola celebrate 30 years of collaboration with the release of Stay with it on Clean Feed Records. For the last three decades, the duo has dedicated their work to the tradition of free improvisation for drums and saxophone. They are joined here for an opening set by the duo of percussionist Karen Stackpole and instrument builder Krys Bobrowski.

Scott Amendola and Phillip Greenlief celebrate 30 years of collaboration with the release of STAY WITH IT on clean feed records. They began playing together when Greenlief moved back to the SF Bay Area in 1993. They experimented with a variety of approaches, but soon dedicated their work in the tradition of free improvisation for drums and saxophone. Their first release on 9 Winds Records, COLLECT MY THOUGHTS (1995), garnered international acclaim and offered the push they needed to begin touring and deepening their musical relationship. 30 years later, the sound of the duo has changed. Greenlief's sound palette has expanded to create a theater of the unexpected, and Amendola has integrated live electronics; the duo now moves easily between free jazz and electro-acoustic improvisation traditions with a fierce dedication to the moment that overrides allegiance to genre aesthetics.

About Gliss Glass & Gongs (Gliss Glass Gong)

Krys Bobrowski and Karen Stackpole, long-time collaborators in the improvising quartet Vorticella, organically formed a duo combining Stackpole’s Gongs with Bobrowski’s Gliss Glass, an invented instrument of her own design that consists of water-filled glass vessels mounted on telescoping stands that are interconnected with tubes and valves. By varying the height of the vessels and opening and closing the valves, Bobrowski can dynamically alter the pitch of the sound by changing the level of the water as the instrument is played via friction, mallets, bare hands, and splashes. The sounds are captured via piezo pickups and amplified. The Gliss Glass blends extremely well with the sound of the Gongs played by Stackpole, who employs various techniques with friction mallets, bows, and other implements. Karen Stackpole and Krys Bobrowski create a deep sonic journey that unfurls into an engaging and transcendent soundtrack for the imagination.