Stein / Smith / Shead Trio is a long-standing working ensemble featuring Jason Stein (bass clarinet), Damon Smith (double bass), and Adam Shead (drums). The trio is dedicated to extended collective improvisation, long-form development, and a deep commitment to listening, allowing form and structure to emerge organically through duration, density, and group decision-making. Their work has been featured in The Wire, Point of Departure, Free Jazz Collective, All About Jazz, The Chicago Reader, and The New York City Jazz Record.
Across four albums, the trio has developed a sustained practice rooted in continuity rather than isolated projects, cultivating a shared language that privileges risk, restraint, and structural clarity. This approach is especially evident in their ongoing collaboration with NEA Jazz Master Marilyn Crispell, which has resulted in two acclaimed recordings. The trio has also worked with Roscoe Mitchell, situating their work within a lineage closely connected to the Midwest’s history of creative music while maintaining a distinctly contemporary voice.
At the center of the ensemble’s sound is Jason Stein’s bass clarinet, marked by physical engagement with the instrument, an expanded timbral palette, and the ability to sustain narrative over extended durations. Damon Smith and Adam Shead complete the trio with a rhythm section defined by elasticity, precision, and acute responsiveness to subtle shifts in time, texture, and density. Together, the Stein / Smith / Shead Trio creates music that reflects a commitment to exploratory practice, lineage-aware experimentation, and artist-driven music-making.
Jason Stein is an internationally recognized bass clarinetist and composer and is among the handful of jazz musicians who play the bass clarinet exclusively. Stein leads the acclaimed trio Locksmith Isidore as well as his own quartet, and he is an indispensable contributor to several of the leading bands on Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scene. Stein has been named on both the Downbeat Critics Poll and the El Intruso International Critics Poll, having won the latter from 2017-2020. Stein’s playing showcases an extraordinary expertise on the bass clarinet, ranging from powerful post-bop lines to ear-grabbing wails in the altissimo range. Stein is based in Chicago and has recorded for such labels as Leo, Delmark, Not Two, Atavistic, 482 Music, Clean Feed, Astral Spirits, Sunnyside, Eremite, and Northern Spy.
“Stein is the most emotionally present bass clarinet player since Eric Dolphy.” — THE WIRE
“During a career that’s propelled him to the upper echelon of Chicago’s vibrant improvised music scene, Jason Stein is doing for the bass clarinet what Steve Lacy had done for the soprano sax. By looking forward while never losing sign of tradition, he’s modeled himself after the paths of jazz innovators before him to forge his own track.”
— SOMETHING ELSE!
“Stein has perfected a style of focused yet incendiary sonic exploration.” — DOWNBEAT
Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and has had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser and others. Damon’s explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson’s Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Damon has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including: Cecil Taylor, Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra’s Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Keith Rowe, Jaap Blonk,Roscoe Mitchell, Weasel Walter, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith, Weasel Walter, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and six great years in Houston, Texas working regularly with Alvin Fielder, Sandy Ewen, Thomas Helton, David Dove & Chris Cogburn. Damon moved to the Boston area in the fall of 2016 and began working with Jeb Bishop, Pandelis Karayorgis, Joe McPhee and Ra-Kalam Bob Moses and many others. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics record label since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians.
Adam Shead is an accomplished percussionist, composer, improviser, and performance curator based in Chicago. He frequently performs with the Stein/Smith/Shead trio, microplastique, and Cellular Chaos, and is a sought-after percussionist in the Chicago jazz and improvised music scene. For nearly a decade, Shead has curated performances at notable Chicago art galleries such as Slate Arts & Performance and Comfort Station, where he helps promote both emerging and established artists, enriching the local cultural landscape. Shead has collaborated with prominent figures such as Marilyn Crispell, Roscoe Mitchell, Jason Stein, Damon Smith, John Dikeman, Angel Bat Dawid, Mary Oliver, and Molly Jones, amongst others. He has released music through various record labels, including Amalgam, Ears & Eyes, Scripts, Balance Point Acoustics, Shifting Paradigm, and Irritable Mystic. Shead is the founder and composer of the Adiaphora Orchestra, microplastique, and Adam Shead Quintet and works regularly as a sideman in such groups as Ben Zucker’s Fifth Season, the Jake Wark Quartet, and Undisclosed Sims.
https://www.jasonsteinmusic.com/
https://www.adamsheadmusic.com/
https://balancepointacoustics.com/
Live at the Hungry Brain (2025) w/ Marilyn Crispell (Trost Recods)
spi-raling horn (2024) w/ Marilyn Crispell (Irritable Mystic Records)