Duo_At_The_House is a collage video I assembled for the improvised duo music of Jack Wright (saxophone)and Grant Strombeck (drums). This music happened back in 2005 the video was created in 2007. Jack writes the following:

Like most of my partners I am rather cynical about all the credentials I can pile up; frankly, this is packaging that indicates little of what's inside. So before validating myself in that way I must say something that is more true to my nature, and would more likely attract actual listeners than funding committees. I define myself as a player rather than a performer. As such, I only want to interact with others musically and join with a community of listeners who may not know what's coming but are open to the experience:

JACK WRIGHT is either a very serious musician or else, uninterested to carry that burden, he could hardly be considered serious at all. Nonetheless, he has a huge vocabulary, which comes from reaching out as widely as possible for new experience, as if seeking to know his music for the first time, rather than demonstrating a comprehensible aesthetic or pre-constructed form. He is motivated not by the stage but by the love of playing. He has been a full-time saxophonist of strange music since the late 70's, and even began playing saxophone as a ten-year-old in 1952. He quit, basically because he couldn't play chord-change jazz. In the long hiatus that followed he studied and reflected on history, philosophy, culture, which he continues to do. He taught and quit that, engaged in radical politics and quit that when the left lost its revolutionary edge (for good reason), began playing again as a free improviser and has not stopped.

Now he is known to a few people and seeks to keep the low profile, which is why those few people tend to be other musicians of his sort. He used to rage and stomp around like a Dionysian; now he makes soft cuddly and squeaky sounds, with occasional lion roars and dog barkings that offend the aesthetically pure as intrusive. His appearance is normal--no big beard, no tattoos, usually wears shorts, always a hat. He doesn't stand when he plays but sits crouched down, with the bell of his horn pressed against his bare thigh and muted sometimes into silence. He is known to play with everyone, but in public only with people who interest him musically and personally. That's still a lot of people, since he plays a lot of different ways, from free jazz to no-recognizable-sax-sound. He may be obscure but he comes close to doing exactly what he wants in his life, and that is no simple matter for any of us.

There is much more information available at his website and even a stack of mp3's on the Sounds page. That is not a substitute for hearing him play in your concert hall or bookstore or laundromat, however. Improvisation is really only a live experience--that is its secret--played once for you and then gone for good.