Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark (USA, 1964) is a renowned avant-garde composer, improviser, saxophonist/clarinetist, curator, and writer. He has collaborated and recorded with key figures from the AACM (Fred Anderson), New York’s Downtown scene (Ikue Mori), FMP (Peter Brötzmann), British improvisation (Paul Lytton), post-punk (Terrie Ex), Ethiopian music (Getachew Mekuria), and Japanese free jazz (Akira Sakata). Since 2012, he has directed the Catalytic Sound cooperative and runs Audiographic Records (founded 2014). In 1999, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his contributions to music.
Latest Releases
October Flowers for Joe McPhee
Ken Vandermark
El Infierno Musical II
Christof Kurzmann, Katinka Kleijn, Lia Kohl, Dave Rempis, Ken Vandermark
Pivot
Mats Gustafsson, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Ken Vandermark
Fourth Atlas
Ken Vandermark & Tim Daisy
Broadcast Transformer
Edition Redux
This Is Not A Holiday!
Terrie Ex & Ken Vandermark
Recent Posts
Prime Cuts #5: To Live and Die in L.A. & Weekend
William Friedkin was an extraordinary film director. The French Connection (1971) is one of my favorite movies and Sorcerer (1977) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) are […]
Collaborators in 2025
Gigs with the DKV Trio concluded the music of 2025 for me, and I’d like to thank the people I was able to collaborate with last year. All of you […]
Edition Redux: OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival, Shenzhen, China, October 2025
12/23/25: On the 26th and 27th of December I’ll be playing my last concerts of the year, as always with the DKV Trio at Elastic Arts. Exactly two months ago […]
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Musician (improviser/composer) who plays saxophones and clarinets, and works with a variety of styles and artists.
![Prime Cuts #5: To Live and Die in L.A. & Weekend: William Friedkin was an extraordinary film director. The French Connection (1971) is one of my favorite movies and Sorcerer (1977) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) are also exceptional. Early on, Friedkin suggested a deep admiration for the French New Wave with a bit of French graffiti, “La Dernier Cri” (which translates to “The Latest Trend” in English), a non sequitur written on the side of a rundown city building during a scene in The French Connection. This enthusiasm pushed him to re-envision Henri-Georges Clouzot’s absolute classic, The Wages of Fear, as the fever dream Sorcerer; this task, perhaps impossible, made more so with the location shooting Friedkin used in the Dominican Republic. What I aim to drive at here is a conjecture on my part- what motivated Friedkin’s outcome of the brilliant car chase from To Live and Die in L.A.?
[Link to complete article at kenvandermark.com, with video, in bio]
#WilliamFriedkin
#Jean-LucGodard
#ToLiveAndDieInLA
#Weekend](https://kenvandermark.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)