Other names of this scene tend to use phrases such as "Creative Music"[4][5] to try to incorporate a wider focus than just the improvisational approach.
Central to the scene's conception of itself is the freedom to break rules:[10] it does not shun the conventional virtues such as melody and rhythm, but it also accepts the atonal and the arrhythmic.
Cage, Partch, Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley ... all spent formative years here doing unique and highly creative work.Vijay Iyer concurs with Gino Robair's assessment: "'The Bay Area was a really nurturing environment, where I gained my creative footing and figured out what I wanted to do as an artist,' Iyers explains.
Also, the term "Improv" has been increasingly associated with a form of comedy theater that's completely unrelated to this style of music.
Pauline Oliveros, later a member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, began playing free improvisations with Terry Riley and Loren Rush in 1958.
[22] In the early 90s, Radio Valencia in San Francisco's Mission district began its well-regarded Sunday night jazz series, curated by Don Alan, one of the proprietors of the cafe.
The founding of Amoeba Records by scene stalwart Marc Weinstein provided a significant boost to local artists, and its racks bristling with avant-garde musics of all kinds became a magnet for drawing musicians from all over the world.
Active members included Dan Plonsey, Mantra, Randy Porter, Myles Boisen, and Tom Djll.
Another characteristic venue of the mid-90s was "The Dark Circle Lounge" weekly series, run by Gino Robair at the Hotel Utah.
Originally it was largely directed by Damon Smith, though currently it is curated by Rent Romus and Matt Davignon, who are also active with the 509 Cultural Gallery.
21 Grand was awarded Best Multidisciplinary Art Gallery: Broadest definition of taste by The East Bay Express in 2007: Even in the ultracosmopolitan East Bay, it's difficult to find venues that are willing to book the kind of wacky, experimental-music shows that wouldn't go over in a place like the Stork Club — shows in which you'd expect to see Tom Djll blowing into the wrong end of a trumpet, Phillip Greenlief bobbling a triplet figure over and over, or the Moe!kestra!
Enter 21 Grand, a beloved gallery and performance space that showcases some of the best avant-garde poets, authors, playwrights, experimental filmmakers, photographers, conceptual artists, and musicians from local and national underground scenes.
[27]Some of the more significant Bay Area ensembles that have come and sometimes gone in this time period include the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Splatter Trio, Negativland, MX-80, New Klezmer Trio, Eskimo, The Molecules, Pluto, Rotodoti, Daniel Popsicle, Jettison Slinky, Caroliner Rainbow, Vacuum Tree Head, The Manufacturing of Humidifiers, Natto Quartet, Room, Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra, Rubber City, Zen Widow, Trance Mission, Opeye, Glenn Spearman's groups, the Clubfoot Orchestra, The Hub, TJ Kirk, Blectum From Blechdom, Pinkmountain, Grosse Abfahrt, Graham Connah's various groups, The Lost Trio, Spezza Rotto, Moe!kestra, What We Live, Positive Knowledge, sfSound, Oakland Active Orchestra, Brassiosaurus, Good For Cows and Ghost In The House.