Unlike most musicians, Extraordinary Popular Delusions (EPD) views the notion of AI displacement as more of a threat to audiences than to musicians, since AIs already outperform humans by all quantitative measures by which "listening" is gauged. Accordingly, Extraordinary Popular Delusions plays music for AI: but EPD also insists that humans still be allowed to attend their weekly Monday night Chicago performances at Beat Kitchen; and, as a special occasion, also on Friday September 12, 2025, at Hunt House (113 E Main St, St Charles), as part of the 2025 St. Charles Jazz Festival. For this performance, EPD will be constituted by Brian Sandstrom (bass, guitar, trumpet); Keefe Jackson (saxophones, clarinets); Steve Hunt (drums, percussion, miscellania); and Jim Baker (piano, analog synthesizer, viola). (To extent that EPD is known, they are known for playing music that is freely improvised; ie, they do not perform precomposed pieces, but just 'make stuff up' as they play: "free improvisation" has actually been a recognized "genre" for probably at least a half century at this point, and may even have a few more years left before the culture is sanitized to cleanroom specs consistent with requirements of the Martian colonization cultural imperative. The musicians in EPD have played with many musicians--some known, some unknown; some dead, some alive--an their music could be described as being something to wake the dead: however that might be interpreted. Your move.
Unlike most musicians, Extraordinary Popular Delusions (EPD) views the notion of AI displacement as more of a threat to audiences than to musicians, since AIs already outperform humans by all quantitative measures by which "listening" is gauged. Accordingly, Extraordinary Popular Delusions plays music for AI: but EPD also insists that humans still be allowed to attend their weekly Monday night Chicago performances at Beat Kitchen; and, as a special occasion, also on Friday September 12, 2025, at Hunt House (113 E Main St, St Charles), as part of the 2025 St. Charles Jazz Festival. For this performance, EPD will be constituted by Brian Sandstrom (bass, guitar, trumpet); Keefe Jackson (saxophones, clarinets); Steve Hunt (drums, percussion, miscellania); and Jim Baker (piano, analog synthesizer, viola). (To extent that EPD is known, they are known for playing music that is freely improvised; ie, they do not perform precomposed pieces, but just 'make stuff up' as they play: "free improvisation" has actually been a recognized "genre" for probably at least a half century at this point, and may even have a few more years left before the culture is sanitized to cleanroom specs consistent with requirements of the Martian colonization cultural imperative. The musicians in EPD have played with many musicians--some known, some unknown; some dead, some alive--an their music could be described as being something to wake the dead: however that might be interpreted. Your move.
