Monday February 12 * 7pm * Free

Please join us to celebrate the life, music, and visual art of Jim Ryan.

". . . Forceful, immediate, inventive." Signal to Noise

Jim Ryan was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota in philosophy. Began listening to bebop at about age 15 and took up the trombone but was forced to abandon it about a year later when his parents sent him to work in an electrode factory in North Carolina. Nearing his mid-30's and living in Paris, France he picked up the flute in about '68 and shortly thereafter acquired a c-melody sax. In the early 70's he participated in a year-long workshop organized and led by Steve Lacy.

Jim formed the "Free Music Formation" about this time, and played in Paris and other European cities. He returned to the States in 1975 and settled in Washington, D.C. where he formed the Art Performance Group in 1979.

In 1987 he moved to California and lived in Marin County until 1993 when he moved to Oakland and hooked up with the Bay Area Improv Scene. In 1997 he launched his own group "Forward Energy" which performed regularly for over a decade.

Back in DC in the 2010s Jim convened DC Current among other groups, collaborating regularly with Nik Francis, Dave Sewelson, and many other East Coast improvising musicians.

To aficionados of free-form jazz, Jim's work on saxophone and flute is known through hundreds of concerts and over a dozen CD recordings issued by Edgetone Records in San Francisco.