A place to skronk: Where improvised music pops up in Madison

Madison doesn't really have any venue that fashions itself as a "jazz club"—though venues such as Restaurant Magnus and The Brink Lounge often book jazz acts. Nor does jazz have a strong presence in local rock venues. That means local musicians interested in free jazz and improvised music (or, as many practitioners call it, "creative music") will have to look elsewhere to build any kind of scene or presence, even in a town that influential avant-garde sax player Roscoe Mitchell used to call home. The A.V. Club checked out a few places recently where improvised music has improbably popped up.

Capitol Lakes Grand Hall
What it is: A performance hall inside a retirement center. It's pretty central—just a few blocks down West Main Street from the Capitol—but as a venue, it's practically invisible to anyone who's simply walking by. But since we're coming up on Ornette Coleman's 80th birthday, maybe a seniors' hot-spot isn't such a crazy choice for jazz shows after all.
The shows: Recently, the volunteer jazz promoters of the Madison Music Collective have brought in such improvisational acts as The Desert Fathers, whose long-form improvisations there on Nov. 13 paired California trumpet player Jeff Kaiser's already experimental playing—which uses notes known as quarter tones—with Madisonian Gregory Taylor's intricate laptop manipulations.
The atmosphere: Veteran sax and flute player Hanah Jon Taylor tells The A.V. Club his show at Capitol Lakes in August was among the few chances he's gotten to play in a suitable venue in Madison. "The venues that do exist here are venues that are basically set up for drinking," Taylor says, which in turn means less attention and respect for the actual music. On the downside, though, the Capitol Lakes space has the staid feel of a well-appointed hotel conference center or ballroom. The crowd at the Desert Fathers' show was a small but respectful mix of local jazz musicians and Capitol Lakes senior-citizen residents. Some of the residents peevishly checked their watches and eventually walked out, but a few were quite receptive, including one man who asked Kaiser and Taylor some great questions about minimalism and John Cage.

The Project Lodge
What it is: A small, all-ages music and art venue that's been leaning heavily on the ever-more-vaguely defined territory of "indie rock" these days.
The shows: One of the venue's new bookers, Brooke Jackson, has paired with Madison sax player Patrick Breiner and guitarist Luke Polipnick to launch a new series of improvised jazz shows on the first Thursday of each month, bringing in locals and their friends from Chicago's free-jazz scene. The Dec. 3 show features Madison's The Weather Duo, which combines chamber music with electronic and experimental elements.
The atmosphere: The Lodge's small size and casual, BYOB atmosphere only added to the immediacy of November's show, at which Breiner and Polipnick collaborated in several formations with Chicago sax player Caroline Davis and guitarist Dave Miller. The performances spanned from beautiful, melodic duo interplay to noisy bursts of effects-pedal mutilation and unruly sax squawks.

Mother Fool's Coffee House
What it is: A Willy Street coffee institution that hosts a lot of acoustic folk shows on Fridays and Saturdays.
The shows: Vortex, an improv jam held three or four times a year (the last was on Halloween, and the next isn't booked yet), brings jazz-centric improvisers into a hairy sonic cauldron with players from Madison's drone underground, who channel more of a mystic folk and noise vibe. Some of these folks also show up in such free-jazz groups as the JoAnne Powers trio and experimental drone groups like Drunjus and The Second Family Band.
The atmosphere: Mother Fool's is cozy enough that the musicians don't have to get overwhelmingly loud to make their point. That really helps Vortex's unpredictable sonic stew—incorporating everything from wild sax runs to old analog synths warped to hell through effects pedals—feel as communal and fun as it is mystifying.

Now-closed venues
Another reason that improv players feel like transients in their own town is that non-traditional venues (read: venues that don't or can't sell booze to make ends meet) face a precarious existence. Powers (best known for busking on State Street) started a free-jazz series at Escape Java Joint earlier this year, only to have the venue abruptly pull the plug on her, then close up soon after. Taylor, along with Susan Fox, tried to foster a more permanent home for free jazz and other forms of art and music at the Madison Center For Creative And Cultural Arts, but had to shut it down in 2007 because they couldn't cover the rent for the space on Dayton Street. The two still went on to bring in world-renowned revolutionary sax player Archie Shepp for the 2008 installment of Freedom Fest, a music festival they put on at the Overture Center. Taylor's frustrated that the creative-music scene doesn't have a stronger presence here, but at this point, he doesn't seem surprised: "After being here 15 years, it becomes pretty apparent that the idea of diversity in terms of venue, as well as practitionership, is very limited."