Larry Ochs, the stellar composer and saxophonist, and a leader in the Bay Area improvised music scene for over thirty years, returns to BAMPFA with a new ensemble. Late last year, Ochs recorded The Fictive Five (Tzadik), an album of structured improvisations mostly inspired by the work of filmmakers like Wim Wenders and Kelly Reichardt. He reprises some of that music tonight with an all-star lineup of local musicians, including Kjell Nordeson on percussion, Safa Shokrai and Scott Walton on basses, and Tom Djll on trumpet and electronics..

Styles from jazz, classical, and folk to funk, Balkan music, and blues inform Gambits, a Bay Area music collective consisting of Steve Adams on baritone saxophone, Alisa Rose on violin, Theo Padouvas on cornet, and Vijay Anderson on drums. Gambits will be performing original music based on John Cassavetes's independent film masterpiece Love Streams (screening August 14), touching on its themes of isolation, alienation, freedom, and madness, paying homage to the filmmaker’s risk-taking vision and subtle humor.

We are excited to screen a recent short work by acclaimed filmmaker Peter Delpeut in the galleries as well. One Hand Clapping is a found footage film in which the hands of five orchestral conductors, taken from historical concert recordings, perform a dazzling dance. Spread across five frames, these conducting hands perform a choreography of encouraging and holding back.

We are pleased to announce a late-breaking addition to tonight's line-up: Oakland's own artistic polymath Brontez Purnell, reading from his recent works Johnny Would You Love Me If... (Last Gasp, 2015), and The Cruising Diaries (with Janelle Hessig, Gimme Action, 2014).

We regret that Uyen Hua, previously scheduled to read, will be unable to make it.