Jake Wark is a saxophonist and composer based in Rochester, New York. His work blurs distinctions between jazz, free improvisation, and electronic music. Jake has released three albums as a leader, most recently Rejoinders, a collection of improvisations for solo saxophone and electronics released on Passerine Records in 2024. Jake’s solo work consists of heavily manipulated live saxophone, distorted through layered effects, looping, and sampling.
From 2014 to 2025, Jake lived in Chicago, where he appeared at many prominent festivals and venues for creative music throughout the midwest, including the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Constellation, the Green Mill, and Elastic Arts. Since relocating to Rochester he has performed regularly with his jazz trio.
“Wark is clearly a talent to watch.”-Peter Margasak, The Quietus
“With a compelling group dynamic and Wark's well-honed compositional voice, Scrawl is a testament to what an effective musical partnership can provide, as well as another strong representation of Chicago's ever-fertile avant-garde community”-Troy Dostert, All About Jazz
Michael McNeill is a pianist, improviser, and composer from Western New York. He performs in jazz settings with John Bacon, Griff Kazmierczak, Dave Phillips, and the Buffalo Jazz Composers Workshop, and in chamber music settings with Tediyra Barton-Harris, Evan Courtin, Megan Kyle, Katie Weissman, and Wooden Cities. In 2024 Infrasonic Press released his album Barcode Poetry, featuring the late pedal-steel guitar innovator Susan Alcorn, trumpeter Dave Ballou, and vibraphonist/percussionist Shelly Purdy. Critics have found in the music "a natural, almost telepathic flow that allows each composition to breathe patiently and find its organic equilibrium" (Eyal Hareuveni, Percorsi Musicali), calling it "finely crafted without the need for raucous passages… striking chamber improv" (Ken Waxman, JazzWord).
Recent projects have included reunions of chamber groups the Buffalo Bach Project and The Evolution of the Arm, as well as a solo piano recital featuring music of Alexander Scriabin and Dorothy Rudd Moore. Other recordings and projects have included the Buffalo Jazz Octet (called by Tom Hull "a remarkable large free jazz ensemble, with brisk and energetic group improv that never breaks down"), trio albums with Ken Filiano and Phil Haynes (Flightand Passageways) and with Danny Ziemann and John Bacon (Refractions).