Jackson/Heinemann/Shead

Presented by BlueStem Jazz and Audio for the Arts. Tickets are $15.

media release: Collaborative trio Jackson/Heinemann/Shead plays original music by each member as well as pieces by Dewey Redman, John Tchicai, Henry Threadgill, Dudu Pukwana, and David Ake. Forming during the pandemic in Spring 2021, the group has performed around Chicago and the Midwest, balancing swinging straight ahead jazz with more experimental, free form approaches.

Jakob Heinemann is an Ashkenaz bass player and composer from Madison, Wisconsin. Now living in Chicago, his work is wide-ranging, but consistently centers around both intuitive and analytical investigations into sound and the many layers lying therein. As a composer, Jakob currently works with field recordings and spectral analysis to map the pitch content of natural systems onto instruments with augmented tunings. As a bass player, he plays frequently within Chicago’s improvised and creative music circles, and has several groups considering improvisation within preconceived structures and materials. He also can be found playing with the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble and other Jewish music groups. Outside of creating, Jakob enjoys teaching in several different environments, and maintains an ongoing private lessons studio. Beginning in December 2021, Jakob helps curate the Splice Series along with co-hosts Peter Maunu and Carol Genetti. 

Adam Shead is an American multi-disciplinary artist of Armenian descent living in Chicago, Il whose practice spans the realms of music, painting, photography, and poetry. Throughout his work Shead hopes to create a sense of spatial presence in which the codification of experience is dismantled in the search of personal truth. Through this pursuit of truth Adam hopes to provide a reprieve while simultaneously challenging himself and his audience through active participation in invention, compassion, trust, and grace. Shead can be heard performing regularly throughout Chicago at such venues as Constellation, Hungry Brain, Elastic Arts, and Experimental Sound Studio; performing alongside such musicians as Jason Stein, Damon Smith, Josh Berman, Steve Swell, John Dikeman, Jasper Stadhouers, Angel Bat Dawid, Matt Piet, James Falzone, and Mary Oliver. Adam has recorded music for Amalgam Records, Ears & Eyes Records, Scripts Records, and Impermanent Records. 

Keefe Jackson, saxophonist/clarinetist/improvisor/composer, arrived in Chicago in 2001 from his native Fayettevile, Arkansas. He performs regularly in the U.S. and in Europe with many musicians including Pandelis Karayorgis, Tomeka Reid, Tim Daisy, Dave Rempis, Jeb Bishop, Jason Roebke, Jason Adasiewicz, Mike Reed, Jason Stein, Josh Berman, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Frank Rosaly, Oscar Jan Hoogland and Marc Unternaehrer. He has also appeared with Michael Moore, Ab Baars, Michiel Braam, Satoko Fujii, and Anthony Coleman. Bill Meyer (Chicago Reader): "...the impeccable logic of his lines and the richness of his tone leave you wanting more... Jackson's high-register squiggles and coarsely voiced, rippling runs push the limits of the tenor's tonal envelope." Frank van Herk, de Volkskrant (Amsterdam): "[Jackson] has an old-fashioned, warm-woolly sound, and a feeling for melodic lines that take their time in unfolding." He has been mentioned in the DownBeat Critics Poll in the Rising Star Tenor Saxophone category. Recordings are available on Delmark and Clean Feed Records.