"Frank Rosaly (Francisco Javier Rosaly Amoros Rosello - b. 5/30/74 Phoenix, AZ) is a drummer and composer living in Chicago. He has been involved in the improvised and experimental music community since 2001 where he has become an integral part of Chicago's musical fabric, navigating a fine line between the vibrant improvised music, experimental, rock and jazz communities. He contributes much of his time to performing, composing, teaching, as well as organizing musical events, while also touring regularly domestically and internationally.

Frank is currently active in many projects throughout Chicago as well as New York and in Europe. Some groups include Bobby Bradford/Frode Gjerstad Quartet, Matana Robert's Chicago Project, Rob Mazurek's Mandarin Movie, The Rempis Percussion Quartet, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten Quintet, Scorch Trio, Nicole Mitchell Ice Crystal Quartet, Jason Stein Quartet, Jeff Parker/Nels Cline Quartet, Josh Abrams' Natural Information Society, Fred Lonberg-Holm's Valentine Trio, Keefe Jackson's Project Project, The Fast Citizens, The Jeb Bishop Trio, Jason Adasievicz's Rolldown, Jorrit Dijkstra's Flatlands Collective, Chicago Lucern Exchange, Hearts and Minds, Slow Cycle, Outskirts, Darren Johnston's Chicago Quintet, Anchor and others."

"Fred Lonberg-Holm (born 1962) is an American cellist based in Chicago. He relocated from New York City to Chicago in 1995. Lonberg-Holm is most identified with playing free improvisation and free jazz. He is also a composer of concert works. As a session musician and arranger, he is credited on many rock, pop, and country records. Lonberg-Holm currently leads the Valentine Trio, with Jason Roebke (bass) and Frank Rosaly (drums). This jazz trio performs original compositions as well as tunes by both jazz composers (e.g. Sun Ra) and pop songwriters (e.g. Jeff Tweedy, Syd Barrett). The group released its first album Terminal Valentine, in 2007, which was reviewed by AllAboutJazz critic Nils Jacobson.

He coordinates and directs performances of his Lightbox Orchestra, an improvising ensemble with a flexible, ever-changing membership. Lonberg-Holm does not play an instrument in this group, but rather conducts its non-idiomatic improvisations via the "lightbox" and by holding up handwritten signs. The lightbox contains a light bulb for each musician which Lonberg-Holm switches on or off to suggest when they should play. Collective groups of which Lonberg-Holm is a member include Terminal 4 who released an album, in 2003, called When I'm Falling that received four and a half stars, and AMG Album Pick by Allmusic, and it was reviewed by Allmusic's Joslyn Layne, The Boxhead Ensemble, Pillow, the Lonberg-Holm/Kessler/Zerang trio (with Kent Kessler and Michael Zerang), and the Dörner/Lonberg-Holm duo (with Axel Dörner).

Among groups led by other people, he is a member of the Vandermark 5, the Joe McPhee Trio, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens, and Ken Vandermark's Territory Band. When he lived in New York, Lonberg-Holm frequently collaborated with the rock group God Is My Co-Pilot pianist and composer Anthony Coleman as well as multi-instrumentalist Paul Duncan of Warm Ghost. In Chicago, he has worked with Jim O'Rourke, Bobby Conn (on "Llovessonngs" [1999] and "The Golden Age" [2001]), The Flying Luttenbachers, Lake Of Dracula, Wilco, Rivulets, Mats Gustafsson, Sten Sandell, Jaap Blonk, John Butcher, and a great many others.

Lonberg-Holm's concert works have been premiered by William Winant, Carrie Biolo, the Austin New Music Co-Op, Subtropics Ensemble, Duo Atypica, the Schanzer/Speach Duo, New Winds, Paul Hoskin, Kevin Norton, the E.S.P. Ensemble, and others. His scores for dance have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Dance Theater Workshop as well as many other venues. He is a former composition student of Anthony Braxton and Morton Feldman. He performed improvised music in the role of a troubled composer who finds inspiration in the love of a couple he spots on the street in a short film for the Playboy channel."

"Jason Roebke is a double bassist, improviser and composer living in Chicago. He was born and raised in tiny Kaukauna, Wisconsin in 1974 and began playing electric bass at age 14. His first fascination was with Motown bassist James Jamerson. Roebke's first introduction to jazz was at a summer jazz camp run by local legend, pianist, John Harmon. Here he heard recordings of Charlie Parker and a life long fascination with music was begun. His high school band director had a small jazz CD collection which included Ornette Coleman's "The Art of the Improvisers" and Charles Mingus "Mingus Ah Um" which he listed to endlessly for years.

Entering college at the University of Minnesota for an extremely short stay, he returned to Wisconsin, graduating from a small liberal arts university in 1996. Roebke moved to Madison, WI to study with legendary saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell. There he worked as Mitchell's music copyist for 18 months, spending nearly everyday at Mitchell's home reworking orchestral and chamber music scores with the composer. In 1998, Roebke entered the University of Michigan where he studied with bassist Rodney Whitaker.

In 1999, Roebke moved to Chicago and quickly began working with a new crop of young improvisers. There were early associations with saxophonists Aram Shelton, Dave Rempis and Matt Bauder (also a Michigan alumnus); drummers Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly and cornetist Josh Berman. Soon after his arrival in Chicago, Roebke organized his first quartet with Bauder, guitarist Jeff Parker, and drummer Chad Taylor. He also began playing with a large improvising ensemble Chicago Improvisers Group with Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Michael Zerang, Jim Baker among others. He made his first recording as a leader in 2003 with "Rapid Croche" on 482 Music. A trio session with saxophonist Aram Shelton and drummer Tim Daisy, the recording was a critical success. Also during this time, Roebke began his long and continuing association with Fred Lonberg-Holm. Roebke played, toured and recorded with Lonberg-Holm's Terminal 4 and Valentine Trio. Roebke was the instigator of three recordings and a tour with the improvising trio tigersmilk, with cornetist Rob Mazurek and Vancouver drummer Dylan van der Schyff.

In recent years, Roebke has been playing with Jason Adasiewicz's Rolldown, Jason Stein Trio, Jeb Bishop Trio, James Falzone's KLANG, Jorrit Dijkstra's Flatlands Collective, Pillow Circles, and The Whammies, Keefe Jackson, and Mike Reed's People, Places, and Things. The trio of Nate Wooley, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Roebke released two recordings "Throw Down Your Hammer and Sing" and an untitled LP. Roebke and Berlin-based tenor saxophonist Tobias Delius released a duo CD on Nottwo Records in 2012."

"Jeb Bishop was born in Raleigh, North Carolina during the Cuban missile crisis. He began playing the trombone at the age of 10, under the tutelage of Cora Grasser. Other influential teachers during junior high and high school included Jeanne Nelson, Eric Carlson, Richard Fecteau, Greg Cox, and James Cozart.

He majored in classical trombone performance at Northwestern University from 1980-82, studying with Frank Crisafulli. Deciding he did not want to pursue a career as an orchestral musician, he returned to Raleigh in 1982 and took up engineering studies at NC State University. Raleigh's developing underground rock scene attracted him, and from 1982-84 he played bass guitar in rock bands in the Raleigh area.

At the same time, he developed an interest in philosophy, eventually majoring in the subject, and spent 1984-85 studying philosophy at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

Returing to Raleigh in 1985, he spent the next few years working at menial jobs and playing guitar, bass, cheap keyboards, drums, etc., in rock bands including and/or, the Angels of Epistemology, Egg, and Metal Pitcher.

In 1989 he left Raleigh to pursue graduate studies in philosophy, first at the University of Arizona, then at Loyola University of Chicago (where he was awarded the Crown Fellowship in the Humanities). During 1991-92 he returned to Europe, spending the summer of 1991 studying German at the Goethe-Institut Iserlohn (now closed), and then pursuing independent studies in philosophy at the French-language division of the University of Louvain.

Returning to Chicago in 1992, he completed his M.A. at Loyola in 1993. By this time he had already begun to make connections with improvising musicians in Chicago, having joined the Flying Luttenbachers as bassist (later adding trombone) in late 1992, and playing guitar occasionally in a quartet with Weasel Walter, Ken Vandermark, and Kevin Drumm. Other bands during this period included the Unheard Music Quartet (with Vandermark, Mike Hagedorn on trombone, and Otto Huber on drums) and the Rev Trio (with Walter and saxophonist Joe Vajarsky). Bishop played electric bass in both these bands.

In late 1995, Bishop joined the Vandermark 5 as one of its founding members, and remained with the band through the end of 2004. During this period he also became associated with many other groups, including the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, School Days, Ken Vandermark's Territory Band, and his own Jeb Bishop Trio, and became a very frequent participant in ad hoc and free-improvised concerts in Chicago. Bishop performed in the inaugural concerts of two of the longest-running free-music concert series in Chicago: the Myopic Books weekly concerts (originally at Czar Bar; with Rev Trio) and the Empty Bottle Wednesday night concert series (with a quartet of Terri Kapsalis, Kevin Drumm, and Jim O'Rourke). He curated the monthly Chicago Improvisers Group concerts at the Green Mill from 1999-2002, and co-curated the weekly Eight Million Heroes concert series at Sylvie's in 2005-6.

Bishop has made dozens of recordings with many different groups, has toured North America and Europe many times, and maintains a busy performing schedule."

"The music of saxophonist and composer Jorrit Dijkstra (Eindhoven, Netherlands, 1966) draws from the jazz tradition in spirit and sound, but has crossed stylistic and cultural borders in order to express a strong, evolving personal vision. He spent his formative years in Amsterdam's vibrant improvisation community playing jazz, free improvisation, and world music. Since moving to the United States in 2002, Dijkstra has deepened his affinity with the experimental forces of American music, while staying in touch with his Dutch musical roots. Jorrit works as a composer and is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and a faculty member of the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Dijkstra's recent projects include The Whammies play the Music of Steve Lacy, with leading Chicago, Boston, and Amsterdam improvisers, and duos with drummer/composer John Hollenbeck and trombonist Jeb Bishop. In Boston he leads the free improvisation quartet BOLT. In his solo project, he incorporates an array of electronic effect devices to process his saxophone improvisations live on stage. Dijkstra's use of analog electronics - including the Lyricon, a vintage electronic wind instrument from the seventies - extends his already flexible saxophone style into an idiosyncratic mix of cool jazz, free improvisation, and electronic minimalism.

Jorrit's work as a composer balances between similar stylistic boundaries. Commissioned by the North Sea Jazz Festival 2009, Pillow Circles brings together eight top improvisers in a mesmerizing sound world filled with indie guitar-rock and free jazz influences. His ongoing project Music for Reeds and Electronics explores the sonic possibilities of reed and electronics players in different improvisation communities in North America and Europe. Dijkstra has received other commissions from the David Kweksilber Big Band, Tetzepi Big Band, Amstel Saxophone Quartet, Kaida Duo, Duo X, The Harvard Jazz Band, electric guitarist Wiek Hijmans, saxophonist Ties Mellema, and bass clarinetist Fie Schouten. His commissioned works often incorporate electronic soundtracks and various forms of improvisation. Dijkstra's work has won him a Fulbright grant and the prestigious Podium Prize for jazz musicians in the Netherlands.

Jorrit has released eighteen CDs as a leader, and has participated in projects ranging from Anthony Braxton's Ghost Trance and Guus Janssen's opera Noach to a rare live performance of Texas outsider musician Jandek. He studied improvisation and composition with Misha Mengelberg, Steve Coleman, Steve Lacy, Bob Brookmeyer and Lee Hyla. He is co-founder of the artist-run label Driff Records. Jorrit is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and a faculty member of the New England Conservatory in Boston."