LSG Creative Music Series @ 509 Cultural Gallery
509 Ellis Street SF
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8pm Josh Allen/Spirit duo
9pm Marco Eneidi's Two Toe alto saxophone/drum duo series
with Donald Robinson

Born on All Saints Day, 1956 in Portland, Oregon, Marco Eneidi's life in music began at the age of nine playing the clarinet while growing up in the San Francisco East Bay area of California. During high school he started playing the guitar in the finger picking style of the southern blues legends, played gut bucket bass in a jug band, and played clarinet in a Dixieland band which performed at nursing homes and the local pizzeria.
In 1981, Marco decided to move to New York and look up Jimmy Lyons who he had met several years earlier at San Francisco's Keystone Corner with the Cecil Taylor Unit. Within several days of moving into the Lower East Side, Marco met Jemeel Moondoc along with the members of his band which included Denis Charles, William Parker and Roy Campbell. He began an everlasting relationship with some of the most important musicians of the time. Many other relationships and collaborations soon followed. They include Don Cherry, Jim Pepper, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, Earl Cross, Clarence "C" Sharpe, Dewey Redman and Wilbur Morris.
With the release of his trio LP recording "Vermont Spring" in 1987, Marco formed Botticelli Records which has since seen several releases on CD. These releases have included many of the most important creative jazz musicians in the field: Denis Charles, William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Glenn Spearman, Peter Broetzmann, Wilbur Morris, Karen Borca and Jackson Krall.
After returning to California in 1995, Marco, along with Glenn Spearman formed the Creative Music Orchestra. It was the first of many large recent orchestral works that were composed on an even larger scale, leading to the creation of the American Jungle Orchestra, which has varied in size from fifteen to fourty over the years.
Since moving to Europe in 2004, the opportunity to perform throughout the European continent has opened up with concerts at many of the festivals, concert halls, clubs and art galleries; including Nickelsdorf -Konfrontationen, Ulrichsberg - Kaleidophon, Sibiu -Jazz and More. Regular work with the Austian artist Franz West has also provided performances at international art centers including the Venice Biennale 2007, and the recent recording of John Cage's piece "Variations" to be used as a soundtrack for a film on Cy Twombly.

Joshua Allen has created his own personal language on the tenor saxophone, with an emphasis on polytonal and asymmetrical phrasing, as well as extending the range and sonic ability of the instrument. He does this with constant emphasis and study of the overtone series, and the generation of multiphonics from the application of this process. He is currently teaching Fellowship students at the Brubeck Institute at the University of Pacific. He was born in Berkeley, California in 1972. Like many of today’s prominent musicians, Mr. Allen was a product of the Berkeley public school system, studying saxophone starting at the age of nine under Phil Hardymon. He went on to study with such prominent Bay Area musicians as Bill Aron, Joe Henderson, and Rory Snyder. With his focus squarely on jazz composition and performance, Mr. Allen moved to Southern California in the early nineties to study with Rick Helzer at San Diego State. He became active in the Latin Jazz community, and worked with various musicians such as Dennis Chambers, and Eddie Palmieri. Mr. Allen’s return to the Bay Area in the mid 90s to finish his Bachelors degree at Sonoma State. His association with saxophonist Marco Eneidi led to working relationships with musicians such as Glen Spearmann, Matthew Goodheart, Damon Smith, and eventually Cecil Taylor.

Described as a 'percussive dervish' (Coda) Donald Robinson is a technical master of the drums. He is a stalwart of the of San Francisco bay area avant-garde jazz scene, playing and recording with many of the area's improvisational players, from saxophonists John Tchicai, Marco Eneidi and Larry Ochs to koto player Miya Masaoka and pianist Matthew Goodheart, and with prominent visitors like Cecil Taylor, Wadada Leo Smith, George Lewis, trumpeter Raphe Malik and Canadian pianist Paul Plimley.

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