From exclaim.ca:

No self-respecting crystal ball would predict that Victoriaville, a small industrial city located 160 kilometres northeast of Montreal, would host North America’s premier international festival of pushing-the-envelope improvised music. Festivalgoers hear the whole spectrum of improv music: avant-jazz, experimental rock, Euro-improv, leaps of non-Western music into the 21st century, and other adventures that defy any ready label.

Songlines is releasing a new album, entitled Genera, from Francois Houle.

The Insub Meta Orchestra has a new CD out, available for free download.

The Sam Savage Band plays PAX in Miami on May 30.

Guitarist James Moore of Dither will perform the entirety of “The Book of Heads” by John Zorn at June Days festival, Saturday, June 16th, 8:00 pm, Incubator Arts Project, St. Marks Church in the Bowery, 131 East 10th Street, New York, NY, 10003.

Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble, Inc. will present the world premiere of a commissioned piece by Matt McBane, winner of its 2012 Composer Search paired with a work by Andrew Sterman, MCCE’s Composer-in-Residence for 2005-06. The concert will take place at The Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art on Sunday, June 3, 2012 at 3pm and features MCCE members Tamara Keshecki (flute), Clarice Jensen (cello) and Anthony Turner (baritone) with guest artists Andrew Sterman (alto saxophone), Oren Fader (guitar), a guest bassist and percussionist. The performance will be livestreamed from www.mcensemble.org.

From Arts for Art:

Monday Evolving Series
LES Gallery
Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center,
107 Suffolk Street (between Delancey & Rivington)

Monday May 28
Eastern Fluence

7.30 Tiffany Chang’s Free Association
Jonah Parzen-Johnson – baritone saxophone
Ross Edwards – piano/keys
Evan Crane – bass
Tiffany Chang – drums
8:30 Pet Bottle Ningen
Nonoko Yoshida – alto saxophone
Dave Scanlon – guitar
Dave Miller – drums
9:30 Rema Hasumi Trio
Rema Hasumi – piano
Darius Jones – sax
Carlo Costa – drums

Monday June 4
All About Sound

6:00 EDUCATION PANEL
The Future of Music/Jazz Education- improvisation, Collaboration, Innovation- Jeff Lederer moderator
William Parker, Warren Smith, Matt Wilson, Don Burwasser, Charles Bartlett
4 years ago Arts for Art began meeting with educators to encourage innovative music as part of curriculum. This program is now called T.I.M.E. (Teaching Improvised Music Effectively) Teachers discuss their findings and ideas for creating a future of innovators and improvisers.

SOUND CONSTRUCTIONS
8:00 The Sound Band – De-Constructed – Part 1
Tor Snyder- guitar, harmonica
Zak Sherzad – sax, didgeridoo
Nicole Federici – viola
Tom Zlabinger – guitar
David Moss- bass
Tiffany Chang- drums
guest Eric Salazar – violin
9:00 The Sound Band – De-Constructed – Part 2
Matt Lavelle – alto clarinet, trumpet
Ras Moshe – Sax, flute.
Tom Zlabinger- Trombone
Max Johnson – Bass
Tiffany Chang – drums
Guests: Catherine Sikora sax and Lee Odom:clarinet
10:00 The Sound Band – Re-Constructed by Max Johnson
Zak Sherzad – sax, didgeridoo
Ras Moshe – Sax, flute.
Matt Lavelle – alto clarinet, trumpet
David Moss,Max Johnson – bass
Nicole Federici – viola
Tom Zlabinger – trombone /guitar
Tor Snyder- guitar, harmonica
Tiffany Chang – drums

From Gapplegate:

Kidd Jordan, On Fire
Odean Pope Quartet, Fresh Breeze, 2008
Michael Vlatkovich Ensemblio, An Autobiography of a Pronoun

From The Squid’s Ear:

Kidd Jordan – On Fire (Engine)
Ingebrigt Haker Flaten – Steel: Live in Bucharest (Tektite Records)
Zeitkratzer – plays PRES (Bolt)
Kuchen / Rodrigues / Rodrigues / Santos – Vinter (Creative Sources)
Luis Tabuenca and Wade Matthews – Punto Cero Aragon (Aural Terrains)
eRikm / Norbert Moslang – Stodgy (Mikroton Recordings)

From Monsieur Délire:

CRAIG PEDERSEN QUARTET Days Like Today (Craig Pedersen)
MSV BRECHT / Hippie Tunes (Unit Records)
JOHANNES WELSCH / Sound Creation (Deep Listening)
ACCORDION TRIBE / Sea of Reeds (Intuition)
BLACK CRACKER / Incisions (It’ll Be Awesome)
ADAM FAIRHALL / The Imaginary Delta (SLAM Productions)
PHILIPPE PETIT / Eugénie (Alrealon Musique)
PHILIPPE PETIT / Extraordinary Tales of a Lemon Girl, Chapter 2: Fire-Walking to Wonderland (Aagoo)
MATS/MORGAN / Trends and Other Diseases (Cuneiform)
MERZBOW / Merzbuddha (Important)
PJUSK / Tele (Glacial Movements – merci à/thanks to John Bourke P.R.)
FRANCES WHITE / In the Library of Dreams (Pogus)
EDOARDO MARRAFFA, CHRIS IEMULO & STEFANO GIUST / Live at Crash (Setola di Maiale)
NILS GEROLD, NICOLA GUAZZALOCA & STEFANO GIUST / Transition (Setola di Maiale)

Related articles

• Merzbow and Wold schedule a rare NYC show (brooklynvegan.com)

From DC’s Transparent Productions:

The Reggie Pittman Band featuring Lottie Porch
Reggie Pittman – trumpet, flugelhorn
Lottie Porch – vocals
Bob Butta – piano
Mike Bowie – bass
Harold Summey – drums
Sunday, June 3
7pm (w/a brief intermission)
$15 advance / $20 at the door
For a full evening & night of
original & creative music

Jean Cook/David Brown, Janel & Anthony (Sunday, June 24)
Jean Cook – violin, looper
David Brown – percussion, piano
&
Janel Leppin – cello
Anthony Pirog – guitar
Advance tickets at www.bohemiancaverns.com
Bohemians Caverns
2001 11th Street, Wash DC 20001
(202) 299-0800

If Bwana (Photo credit: kubia)

From Dusted:

Artist: Jeff Parker Trio
Album: Bright Light in Winter
Label: Delmark

Artist: Eyvind Kang
Album: The Narrow Garden
Label: Ipecac

Artist: If, Bwana and Trio Scordatura
Album: E (and sometimes why)
Label: Pogus

Artist: Pauline Oliveros
Album: Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1963-1970
Label: Important

Artist: Monolake
Album: Ghosts
Label: Monolake

Artist: The Thirteenth Assembly
Album: Station Direct
Label: Important

English: Franco Donatoni (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From NYTimes.com:

Deviant Septet (Thursday) An exciting young ensemble that proposes to realize the promise Stravinsky saw in his instrumentation for his “Histoire du Soldat,” the Deviant Septet presents the premiere of 12 new pieces inspired by Stockhausen’s “Tierkreis” and its astrological associations. At 8 p.m., Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, West Village, (212) 242-4770, greenwichhouse.org; $15, $10 for students and 65+. (Steve Smith)

Lukas Ligeti (Thursday) This composer and percussionist has many musical interests, and composes in a variety of styles, unified by his clear personal voice. This time Mr. Ligeti is experimenting with jazz, playing drums in an ensemble that includes Leron Thomas on trumpet, Travis Sullivan on saxophone and Evan Lipson on bass. At 8 p.m., the Stone, Avenue C and Second Street, East Village, thestonenyc.com; $10. (Kozinn)

Locrian Chamber Players (Thursday) This ensemble has a rigorous definition of “new music” — only performing works composed in the last decade. Here they offer recent pieces (including two premieres) by Judith Weir, Ned Rorem, Jason Freeman, Russell Platt, Rita Ueda, Yao Chen and David Macdonald. At 8 p.m., Riverside Church, 10th floor performance space, Riverside Drive, at 122nd Street, Morningside Heights, (914) 923-5511, locrian.org; free. (Schweitzer)

New York New Music Ensemble (Tuesday) To close its 35th anniversary season, this virtuosic ensemble offers a program that includes two scores written for the ensemble in the last five years — Anneliese Van Parys’s “Fragrances” (2008) and Philippe Hurel’s “Step” (2007) — as well as a pair of older scores, Franco Donatoni’s “Ave” (1987) and Gérard Grisey’s “Vortex Temporum” (1996). At 8 p.m., Merkin Concert Hall, 129 West 67th Street, (212) 501-3330, kaufman-center.org; $20, $10 for students. (Kozinn)

Prism Quartet (Thursday) This consistently stimulating saxophone quartet ends its season with a characteristically enterprising overview of Minimalism, featuring works by two founding fathers of the style, Terry Riley and Philip Glass, and by two latter-day composers who applied its lessons, John Adams and Michael Torke. Completing the program is a new piece by Samuel Phillips-Corwin, the winner of the Prism Quartet/Walden School Commissioning award. At 7:30 p.m., Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, at 95th Street, (212) 864-5400, symphonyspace.org; $21, $15 for students and 65+. (Smith)

Stefano Scodanibbio Tribute Concert (Friday) Until his death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) in January, Stefano Scodanibbio was widely admired among new-music circles as a prodigious double bassist, a fascinating composer and a bold improviser. Honoring him here are the bassist Scott Dixon, the violinist Benjamin Kreith, the bass-flutist Matteo Cesari and the Del Sol String Quartet. At 8 p.m., the Stone, Avenue C and Second Street, East Village, thestonenyc.com; $10. (Smith)

Talea Ensemble (Sunday) As part of the Roger Smith Hotel’s informal Inside Out series, this enterprising new-music band is presenting its cellist, Chris Gross, in a daunting program of unaccompanied works: Helmut Lachenmann’s “Pression” (1968), Milton Babbitt’s “More Melismata” (2006) and Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Sonata for Cello Solo (1960). At 4 p.m., Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Avenue, at 47th Street, 16th floor, (212) 339-2092, taleaensemble.org or rogersmithlife.com; $15. (Kozinn)

English: Guillermo Klein, moers festival 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From NYTimes.com:

Downtown Music Gallery’s 21st Anniversary Show (Friday) Downtown Music Gallery, an essential avant-garde record store, celebrates its legal age with an amiable collision of temperaments, featuring the unlikely pairing of the guitarists Nels Cline and Julian Lage; and Kalabalik, a free-improvising collective made up of the guitarists Raoul Bjorkenheim and Anders Nilsson and the drummer Gerald Cleaver. (The occasion doubles as a party for Kalabalik’s self-titled debut on DMG ARC, recorded live at the Downtown Music Gallery last year.) At 6 p.m., Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, near Thompson Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 505-3474, lepoissonrouge.com; $20 in advance, $20 on day of the show. (Chinen)

Bill Frisell’s Beautiful Dreamers (Friday through Sunday) Mr. Frisell, a guitarist inexorably drawn to the rustic byways of American music, recently released the album “Beautiful Dreamers” (Savoy), featuring a springy trio with the violist Eyvind Kang and the drummer Rudy Royston. At 9 and 11 p.m., Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037, villagevanguard.com; $25 cover, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)

Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos (Tuesday through June 3) The pianist and large-ensemble composer Guillermo Klein has a new album, “Carrera” (Sunnyside), that reflects his recent state of mind on returning to Buenos Aires after a long stretch in Barcelona. He draws from the album here with his flagship band, stocked with improvisers from multiple coordinates, including the trumpeters Taylor Haskins and Richard Nant and the saxophonists Chris Cheek, Bill McHenry and Miguel Zenón. At 9 and 11 p.m., Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037, villagevanguard.com; $25 cover, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)

Matana Roberts (Friday) Ms. Roberts, an alto saxophonist of probing insight, leads a flexible and responsive ensemble in this second of three performances at the Jazz Gallery, as part of an extended residency. Her band mates are the guitarist Liberty Ellman, the bassist Kevin Tkacz and the drummer Ches Smith. At 9 and 10:30 p.m., Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, at Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063, jazzgallery.org; $20, $10 for members. (Chinen)