Incoming! In The Flow 4 5/13 – 5/16

Mike Watt and the Missingmen are among the acts performing In The Flow 4

This month brings the fourth installment of In The Flow, a festival dedicated largely to jazz and improvisational music, from many of the west coast’s more innovative and well-seasoned performers. If the idea of nearly forty such musicians, poets, and preachers of the improvised underground doesn’t inspire visions of beautiful collaborations, spontaneous soul-baring, intuitive impressions of each individual’s world, or fun and vibrant explorations in sound, then you’re sure to have your ears opened by the vastness and diversity of In The Flow 4. The format’s been a bit different each festival prior – Ross Hammond and collaborators don’t settle for a repetition of what’s come before; this rings true for their musical taste, as well as for the ambitious, intimate, and expanding ways in which they strive to present these exciting anti-genres to Midtown.

Freedom Music is what’s been ordered, and many helpings will be served, at an impressive SIX Midtown venues, over the course of FIVE exciting days. The Press Club kicks things off Thursday night with Mike Watt and the Missingmen!) Phono Select (uber-impressive new record store on K) and Luna’s Café (long-time venue for local music and arts) host back-to-back shows Friday night (the latter being a performance of spontaneous collaborations between poets and bands; a creative pairing that began at last year’s festival). Saturday and Sunday offer huge and sometimes overlapping shows throughout the day, at Phono Select, Sacramento Art Complex (a two-story art gallery and garden at K and 21st), La Raza Galeria Posada (an art and cultural center at 22nd and J), and Antiquite (a unique venue in a historic P St. building). The large, improvising ensemble RACE!!! Orchestra will close the festival with a record release party and performance at Luna’s on Monday night, a show dedicated to Byron Blackburn and Tommy Van Wormer, two much-loved and much-missed people who co-created and invigorated the In The Flow Festival.

Join jazz and improv musicians from Los Angeles, Portland, the Bay Area, Grass Valley, Sacramento and Davis, as they explore a music of their own, in some of the many welcoming establishments that call Midtown home. This is community, and what a wonderful way to experience it! Tickets are on sale now at Phono Select, and at www.brownpapertickets.com. A five-day pass for In The Flow 4 is only $30 – the same price as last year’s three-day fest! An extensive line-up for In The Flow 4, along with more info on the venues, can be found at www.intheflowsacramento.com.

multiple venues, all ages, 21+