Jim Ryan Memorial Concert
7:30 PM
Ron Heglin - voice/brass
Scott R Looney - electronics/piano
Rent Romus - saxophones, etc.

8:30 Forward Energy
Scott R Looney - electronics/piano
Rent Romus - saxophones, etc.
Karl Evangelista - guitar
Darren Johnston - trumpet
Eric Marshall - double bass
Timothy Orr - drums

Tickets at the Door: $10-25 Sliding
(no one turned away for lack of funds)

All proceeds to benefit Outsound Presents and go back into the community as Jim would have done.



~~ JIM RYAN~~
For those of you who had the immense honor to know and make music with saxophonist, poet, writer, philosopher, writer, and visual artist Jim Ryan it is with a deep heart I let you all know that on Wednesday December 27, 2023 Jim joined the ancestors.
His work, and background speak for itself (see bio below) Jim was one of the most powerful influences in my musical life and an example to live by. He reached out across generations, never said never, and was always curious. He was as generous as anyone could be to the community and to his friends. He was a pioneer in ways that go beyond words.. I cry for his friends and family, and I celebrate his incredible artistic and creative life! Wherever he went he added light to this dark world of ours, and I will miss him and will live by his example until I’m gone. - Rent Romus
Jim Ryan Bio
"...Forceful, immediate, inventive." - Signal to Noise
Poet, writer, philosopher and musician, Jim Ryan is an original member of the exploratory family of artists of the 20th century. His powerful playing style and truly original voice permeates with vibrant spirit.
Jim Ryan was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and began listening to bebop at age 15. In 1958 after obtaining a degree in philosophy from the University of Minnesota, Jim was drafted into the army and sent to Europe. After serving for 21 months, Jim found himself attending the Sorbonne in Paris France. A short time after he became involved with the beat poet community that was blossoming in France and throughout the world, rubbing elbows with such poets as Boroughs, and Ginsberg.
In 1968 Jim was given a wooden flute and shortly thereafter acquired a c-melody sax. At the same time many of the American new music musicians, Sonny Murray, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, and the AACM were given funding by the US Government and settled in Europe including France. Jim was in the right place at the right time and found himself jamming and performing with these rebels of creative music. As the migration of cutting edge American artists continued more straight ahead artists like Johnny Griffith and Steve Lacy began to arrive to take advantage of the European scene. In the early 70's Jim participated in a yearlong workshop organized and led by Steve Lacy while continuing to develop his writing.
In 1975 he returned to the United States in search of a fresh start and settled in Washington, D.C. where he formed the Art Performance Group performing throughout the area. In 1987 he moved California and lived in Marin County until 1993 when he moved to Oakland and became part of the San Francisco Bay Area improv and jazz scene. After a long hiatus, in 1997, he launched his freejazz unit Forward Energy featuring stellar artists like trumpet player Eddie Gale and drummer Donald Robinson. Jim also performed with Marco Eneidi's "American Jungle Orchestra," and Eddie Gale's "Orchestra for World Peace." In 1998 he became the editor and publisher of Outside, an underground art and music zine in Oakland, which featured such artists as Positive Knowledge, Marco Emeidi, as well as many artists of Bay Area improv scene. In the spring of 2000, he founded the Electro/Acoustic Sextet of Oakland, which was a melding of free jazz and avant academic styles. The group performed in Oakland and at the Big Sur Experimental Music Festival in May 2000. In the spring of 2000 he performed in the 401 Festival at Theater Artaud in composer Matthew Burtner's piece for nine tenor saxophones, "Portals of Distortion." In 2015 he moved back to the Washington D.C. area.
"The world needs more people like Jim Ryan. This incessantly active poet, musician, conscience agitator and visionary sax player is one of those artists who render subdivisions and classifications meaningless, in the name of a single torrential flood of creativity that mixes exuberance, enthusiasm and meditative portions of extraterritorial improvisation, the whole reinforced by a technical knowledge that only many years of playing at the forefront and on the fringes of convention can develop."
- Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
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