In March 2019 Roughhousing's seventh tour was in Europe for two weeks, performing at the Pied Nu Festival in Le Havre, then in Rouen, Caen, Paris; Helsinki, Pori and Tampere in Finland; and Copenhagen. This follows two duo tours in Europe, Jack/Zach, and Jack/Evan.

Here's a recording from the festival: Pied Nu and from Fall US Tour 2018: Cleveland

"A truly unique and incredibly talented free improv trio consisting of Evan Lipson (bass), Zach Darrup (guitar and objects) and Jack Wright (saxophones) - A multi-dimensional sonic experience to behold - Improvisational music containing sometimes rapid, and at other times glacial-paced shifts in tone, texture and atmosphere. Their chemistry together is only matched by their individual skill and ingenuity as all three members individually contain wide vocabularies and deep musical experiences spanning jazz, modern composition, writing, noise, film scoring, electronic music and more across countless numbers of solo works, group sessions and collaborations. Essential, modern, free music."

Creative Loafing of Atlanta says this: "Roughhousing, defined as a form of boisterous play among friends, is the perfect moniker for a trio of these transcendent improvisers, hardened veterans of the free improv scene. They are driven by a fierce belief in the power of their cabalistic craft. Together, the trio conjures unadulterated, alchemical experiences that demand deep, in-the-moment listening. Taking the stage, the only thing up the trio's collective sleeve is a musical surprise, the texture, color, and shape of which they don't know until it's been rendered unto the listener by their fingertips, lips, and lungs. As the 76-year-old Wright says in his recently released book, The Free Musics, free improvisation "exposes the gap separating human beings at play from musicians functioning as entertainers."

"Roughhousing manages to be completely inventive every single second, an astonishing feat." Free Jazz Blog, reviewing the CD You Haven't Heard This (Spring Garden Music)

Sept. 2018 was in Canada, where they played the Toronto Intersection Festival, in the states it was Buffalo, Grand Rapids MI, Muskegon, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Toledo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh.

Here's what they did in a bowling alley in Cleveland OH: Roughhousing at the Maple Lanes

 

In Columbus Ohio, 2017

Their full performance in Johnson City TN in Sept. 2016 has been released on a CD "You Haven't Heard This" together with Jack Wright solos and available free with orders for Wright's new book, The Free Musics

April 2018 was the Roughhousing California tour: Oakland, Santa Cruz, Sunnyvale, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Los Angeles, Ojai, San Diego (UCSD), Santa Rosa, Oakland again, and The Soundings festival in Joshua Tree.

Before that came November 2017, Roughhousing Goes Western, a loop from the Southeast through Texas, New Mexico and back through Missouri and Tennessee. Meanwhile, Jack and Zach had just gotten back from Europe Sept. 2017. And in Feb. 2018 Jack and Evan toured the West Coast from Vancouver to the California Bay Area.

These three have all been residents of the Spring Garden Music House in Philadelphia, Zach presently. Jack and Evan have been playing together for over ten years, most recently in Wrest, with percussionist Ben Bennett. Zach and Jack started playing in June of 2014, an intense engagement since then, the most regular musical activity for both of them, releasing Meet and Greet on the Spring Garden Music label; reviewed here. Their Nov. 2015 tour took them through the midwest and southeast, where they met up with Evan, living in Chattanooga.

In Athens OH they became cowboys

Described 25 years ago as an "undergrounder by design," Jack Wright is a veteran saxophone improviser based mainly in Philadelphia. Since the early 80s he has been touring through the US and Europe, finding interesting partners and playing situations. Now at 77 he is still the "Johnny Appleseed of Free Improvisation," as guitarist Davey Williams called him back in the 80s. He continues to inspire players outside music-school careerdom, playing sessions with visiting and resident players old and new. His preferred partners over the years have been mostly unknown to the music press, and too numerous to list here. He's said to have the widest vocabulary of any, an expert at leaping pitches, punchy, precise timing, sharp and intrusive multiphonics, surprising gaps of silence, and obscene animalistic sounds. (Someone heard a recording and asked if it was a baby elephant. Others say it's electronics.) A reviewer for the Washington Post said, "In the rarefied, underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist Jack Wright is king." Wright has written a book released in Jan. 2017, The Free Musics. For more info, discography and sounds go to www.springgardenmusic.com and for other writing try this: http://jackiswright.wordpress.com/ Also check out his interview in Cadence Magazine July 2017, p. 55-73

Zachary Darrup is an improvising guitarist currently living in Philadelphia. During his early teenage years in the rural coal region of Pennsylvania a strange boy appeared like an angel, carrying a large cd booklet of wild musics of all sorts. This chance meeting at a pizza shop, plus tumultuous relationships with his home turf, school teachers, and other agents of law and rule enforcement led Zach to drop out and skip town, devoting himself to following music wherever it would take him--somewhere else. His techniques are informed by the musical possibilities of film language, jovial mockery and mimicry of plants, animals, and audience members, thoughtful room listening, word play, colors, and culinary experiments.

Evan Lipson (b. 1981) has operated as a musician since adolescence—intuitively seeking the liminal zones in which intellect and instinct, history and myth, and creative and destructive force intersect. Drawn towards aberrant perspectives at an early age, his formativeexperiences were primarily rooted in extreme and often discordant forms of rock, free improvisation, modernist composition, jazz, outsider pop, soundtracks, noise, and electronic music. Lipson has written music for several films, as well as a new collaboration with Duplex Planet-creator David Greenberger and Bob Stagner of the Shaking Ray Levis. Lipson also may or may not have some degree of involvement or association with an organization known as Meinschaft. Past units include Normal Love, Satanized, Dynamite Club, Femme Tops, Psychotic Quartet, and the Weasel Walter Trio. Lipson has performed throughout North America, as well as Brazil, Taiwan and Japan. His music has been released on several imprints including SKiN GRAFT, UgEXPLODE, High Two, Public Eyesore, Badmaster, Caminante, New Atlantis and Damage Rituals. Lipson is currently scheming to actualize an all-in-one dystopian tiki lounge, mystical grotto, and occult ritual chamber. He has concocted over 70 original faux-tropical cocktails since 2013.

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for bookings: jackwri555 at gmail dot com