CODA FEST: Adam Zanolini’s Heliacal Rising

Heliacal Rising of Sothis is a project dedicated to the work and teaching of Kelan Phil Cohran. Cohran was one of the co-founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) as well as the founder of the Afro Arts Theatre. His seminal group the Artistic Heritage Ensemble generated numerous recordings and launched many careers. Cohran was a prolific composer, bandleader, and father of all the members of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Phil’s exploration of culture, history, astronomy, music, herbalism, mathematics, and language was highly influential among the community of musicians that rose during the Black Arts Movement and subsequent artistic schools in Chicago. However, Cohran’s importance as a musician, organizer, teacher, and scholar has been under-appreciated. The ensemble performs works Zanolini composed whilst studying with Bro. Phil, or with inspiration from his teaching with the goal of spreading this knowledge.

The ensemble, formed in 2022, is a flexible group comprised of Adam Zanolini, Ben Lamar Gay (cornet), Fred Jackson, Jr. (sax) (three current AACM members) along with Sharon Udoh (piano) and Naydja Bruton (drums) (two participants in Elastic Arts’ Dark Matter Residency program for emerging artists of color.) The ensemble has performed at Elastic Arts, Transition East, the Promontory, Old Town School of Folk Music, Rebuild Foundation’s Kenwood Gardens, and Oakland Museum and Garden as part of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival’s Artist Corps program. In Coda-Fest, the group will perform as a pianoless quartet.

Adam Zanolini is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, ethnomusicologist, writer, and arts organizer based in Chicago. He is the Executive Director of Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago and former Associate Director of Arts for Art, presenter of the annual Vision Festival of avant-jazz in New York City. He is also co-founder of the Participatory Music Coalition (PMC), and he is an active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Adam has served on the Board of the Live the Spirit Residency, producer of the annual Englewood Jazz Festival, for over ten years. Adam plays flute, double bass, saxophone and other instruments, performing regularly with PMC, the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble, Sura Dupart’s Sidepocket Experience, with Angel Bat Dawid and the Brothahood, and with Gira Dahnee in addition to his own projects, including the Heliacal Rising of Sothis. He received his PhD in music with a certificate in Africana Studies from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2016. Adam’s highest ambition is to be a community musician: to cultivate and share knowledge through music in order to help heal, strengthen, and empower the Black community.
https://www.adamzanolini.com/

Ben Lamar Gay is a composer and cornetist who moves sound, color, and space through folkloric filters to produce electro-acoustic collages. His unification of various styles is always in service of the narrative and never solely a display of technique. A Chicago native, Ben’s true technique is giving life to an idea while exploring and expanding on the term “Americana.” By being active in Chicago’s experimental music scene and having spent a three-year residency in Brazil, Ben has collaborated with several influential figures in the world of music, including Joshua Abrams, the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Bixiga 70, Black Monks of Mississippi, Celso Fonseca, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Theo Parrish, Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, and Itibere Zwarg. Ben received a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education from Northeastern Illinois University. He has served as a music instructor in Chicago Public Schools, a guest lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a facilitator with the Chicago Park District’s Inferno Mobile Recording Studio for six years. The latter helped set the tone for a core philosophy that fuels his musicianship, a fundamental component of which explores the lineage of an idea passed from one generation to another. He aims for his work to have the same functionality as most folktales, which is to create variations on timeless themes to help people make sense of their existence and place in the world.
https://www.3arts.org/artist/ben-lamar-gay/

Fred Jackson Jr. is a saxophonist, composer, teacher, and member of the AACM. His career began in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he performed with Kafele Bandele, The Mike Foster Project, Troy Davis, Mark Whitfield, Lashawn Gary, Roland Guerin, Donald Edwards, Nicholas Payton, Brice Winston, Alvin Batiste, Doja Composure, Quamon Fowler, Wes Anderson. He migrated to Chicago and performed with Vincent Davis, Maggie Brown, Magic Carpet, Jimmy Bennington, Carrazz/Pati, Crosswinds, Corey Wilkes, Harrison Bankhead, Avreeayl Ra, Perry Wilson, Saalik Zyiad, and others. Jackson holds a BS in music from Southern University, and a Masters in Jazz Studies from Depaul University. He has studied the music of the African diaspora extensively, and had the honor of performing with some of Ethiopia’s finest musicians, including Abonesh Sedinew, Tigist, and Teddy Akililu. Jackson teaches at St. Symphorosa and St. Mary’s Star of the Sea School. He also works on his newest venture, the Spacetronic Music label, and plays with sitarist Shanta Nuerulla and his band Erudition Project. He was recently awarded a Fresh Works, New Voices grant from the Jazz Institute of Chicago.
https://www.hydeparkjazzfestival.org/fredjackson

Naydja Bruton AKA Rhythm Ninja Drums is a session drummer, teacher and composer living in Chicago who helps her students externalize emotion through music. Naydja has held the Dark Matter Residency at Elastic Arts and was the curator of the monthly Timbre Tribe series and jam session at Elastic.
https://vocalo.org/chi-sounds-like-naydja-bruton/

Ticket: $25 (one show) or $70 for all shows tonight (will get a wristband)!