Air Space and Jane Ira Bloom

The Grammy-winning saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom joins forces with keyboard-percussion duo Air Space (Mike Effenberger and Brian Shankar Adler).

Air Space (Mike Effenberger and Brian Shankar Adler) teams up with award-winning saxophonist, composer and improviser Jane Ira Bloom to create an unforgettable performance embracing the conversational possibilities between each other, the audience and the space-time continuum.

Inspired by the minimalist structures and analogue textures of artists like Brian Eno, Jóhann Jóhannsson, and Nils Frahm, Air Space transcends boundaries, creating an atmospheric soundtrack to the somnambulist’s night in the deep woods. 

At times sublime and at times combative, the group explores site-specific, interactive, new music. Their expansive sound comes from Effenberger’s clever use of analog keyboards, tape delays and geological specimens pitted against Adler’s genre-defying use of percussion from South America, South Asia and the sewers of Brooklyn. Blending Indian raga, post-Cageian minimalism, and lo-fi nostalgia with an occasional field recording of crickets, tiny sparks fly while the music retains a deceptively serene appearance. 

Air Space made its debut in 2022, performing in a casemate at Fort Gorges (Casco Bay, Maine). In 2024, the group released Cricket Cipher (Adhyaropa Records) and toured the Northeast U.S. The group’s performances often invite audience members to interact with the music through the use of collective drones and polyrhythms.

Soaring, poetic, quicksilver, spontaneous and instantly identifiable are words used to describe the soprano sound of saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. She has been developing her singular voice on the soprano saxophone for over 45 years. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz. Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, the Downbeat International Critics Poll & Jazz Journalists Association Award for soprano saxophone, the Mary Lou Williams Award for lifetime service to jazz and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for jazz innovation. She is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid: 6083janeirabloom). Her critically acclaimed album Early Americans received a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and made numerous year-end best lists. Her duo release with bassist Mark Helias, Some Kind of Tomorrow, was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air and received 4 stars from Downbeat magazine. Her recent critically acclaimed duo projects “Tues Days” with drummer Allison Miller and “See Our Way” with Helias and trio project with Helias and Bobby Previte “2.3.23” all appear on Bandcamp.

JIB finds inspiration in creating exploratory music with improvising musicians around the world and has participated in several international ‘remote’ events including a performance at the United Nations that linked improvising musicians in Korea, China, New York, and San Diego. She has recorded and produced 20 albums of her music dating from 1977 to the present. Bloom is a professor at New School University’s College of the Performing Arts in NYC. Nat Hentoff called Bloom an artist “beyond category.” Bill Milkowski has described Bloom as “a true jazz original…a restlessly creative spirit, and a modern day role model for any aspiring musician who dares to follow his or her own vision.”

Described as “a polyrhythmic force” (JazzTimes), multidisciplinary percussionist and composer Brian Shankar Adler transcends the terrain between genre and geographic region, asking: how can we find connection through rhythm? He has performed internationally in caves, forests, and adjacent glacial ice fields as well as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and The Stone. He has been recorded on over fifty albums including his recent works, For a Gallery on the Moon (Chant Records, 2020) and Fourth Dimension (Chant Records, 2019). His music video, “Mantra,” won best music video at Transcinema International Film Festival in Peru and an official selection at Quiet City Film Festival in New York City. Adler has worked with Kinan Azmeh, Ballet Hispanico, Jay Clayton, Guillermo Klein, La Bomba De Tiempo, Frank London, Kate McGarry, Palaver Strings, Kamala Sankaram, Elizabeth Swados, among others and has been featured in Modern Drummer Magazine, DownBeat, and NPR. He is currently on faculties at Bates and Bowdoin College.

Keyboardist Mike Effenberger has curated an unmistakably individual voice drawing on gospel, minimalism, jazz, and 20th century music. He leads Weird Turned Pro and plays with fiveighthirteen, Jazzputin and the Jug Skunks, the secular roots and gospel choir Rock My Soul, OURBIGBAND, Sad Bastards / Loose Standards, Showmen’s Rest, and Dan Blakeslee. When not in the northeast, Effenberger performs internationally with Bing and Ruth, and plays throughout the east coast with Soggy Po’ Boys. He appears on countless recordings from independent releases to larger labels, including 4AD and RVNG Intl, and is also active as a producer. His work has been reviewed in international publications including The Paris Review, The Guardian, and Pitchfork, as well as appearing on nationally syndicated media including NPR’s All Things Considered and PRX’s Echoes.

Main photo by Jake Sartorius.