Whenever and wherever she plays, I'm always eager to hear soprano saxophonist and composer Jane Ira Bloom, a favorite of mine from way, way back. Despite a near-complete exhaustion that saw me nearly nodding off on the R train, I went out to the Tea Lounge in Park Slope last night to hear Bloom play with two longtime collaborators, bassist Mark Helias and drummer Bobby Previte. These are three players who've logged a great deal of time together, and their simpatico shows: Bloom tends to construct her sets these days in long trails of multiple compositions strung together, and her rhythm section matched her note for note.

Later in the set, keyboardist Ron Ray (with a technical associate whose name I didn't catch on laptop) added all manner of wiggly lines, bizarre samples and processed voices to the mix. Bloom was an early adopter of live, interactive electronic processing on her horn, and this was clearly an extension of that impulse. Sometimes it worked, as when Ray chased Bloom's playing with an invisible bass-clarinet counterpoint. Sometimes it didn't. But that's the nature of jazz: unpredictability ought to be a substantial part of the equation. Even when the results meandered, it was energizing to see Bloom still working so hard to effect change in her sound and setting.

Jazz scribe and blogger David R. Adler was sighted scribbling furious notes, so keep an eye on Lerterland for a possible report from him. Also noted: Someone near the far wall was recording the entire show on his laptop for eventual webcasting. I'm told he was in town to officially document the Vision Festival, and picked this gig up for good measure; I'll try to find out more.

Propriety dictates that I should mention Bloom's performance was the second event of the Bloom Festival, a series named at least in part in her honor. The festival was booked by my wife, Dr. LP, and Tanya Kalmanovich, a terrific violinist, violist and bandleader who'll be playing next weekend. It's neither explicitly a jazz festival (there are at least two performers coming up whose work couldn't be defined that way), nor is it exactly a women's music festival (even though every leader booked is a woman). It's meant to celebrate the "blooming" of something new and fresh, with Jane Ira Bloom rightly held up as an exemplary forebear and inspiration.

All Bloom Festival events are being presented on Thursdays and Fridays at the Tea Lounge. Sets start at 9pm and 10:30pm; suggested donation is $10–$20. Here's the remaining schedule:

June 11    Sarah Deming (author, blogger, boxer, gourmand) with Peekaboo Pointe (burlesque artist)
June 12    Tanya Kalmanovitch and Balaclava
June 18    Kris Davis
June 19    2 Sisters, Inc. featuring Claire Daly
June 25    Monika H Band
June 26    Emily Hope Price

Playlist:

Rapoon – Raising Earthly Spirits (Staalplaat); Vernal Crossing (Staalplaat); Fallen Gods/Cidar (Staalplaat); The Kirghiz Light (Staalplaat); Darker by Light (Soleilmoon); Errant Angels (Soleilmoon); What Do You Suppose? (Staalplaat); I Am a Foreigner (Caciocavallo); Church Road (Tantric Harmonies); Rapoon/Pacific 231 (OEC); Time Frost (Glacial Movements); Dark Rivers (Lens)

Isis – Wavering Radiant (Ipecac)

Brutal Truth – Evolution Through Revolution (Relapse)

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Symphony No. 5 – London Philharmonic Orchestra/Adrian Boult (Decca)

Nicholas Maw – Odyssey – City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle (EMI Classics)

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme; Ascension – takes 1 & 2 (Impulse!)

Mayhem – Deathcrush (Deathlike Silence); Live in Leipzig (Century Black); Ordo Ad Chao (Season of Mist)

Jon Irabagon and Mike Pride – I Don't Hear Nothin' but the Blues (Loyal Label)

Dmitri Shostakovich – The Nose – Mariinsky Theater soloists, Chorus and Orchestra/Valery Gergiev (Mariinsky, due June 9)

Missy Mazzoli – These Worlds in Us – Yale Philharmonia (stream)

R.E.M. – Murmur; Reckoning (A&M deluxe reissues; Reckoning due June 23)

Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: No Direction Home; Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs (Columbia/Legacy)

Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp)

Rolling Stones – Dirty Work (Rolling Stone/Virgin)

Claude Debussy – Pelléas et Mélisande – Denise Duval, Hans Wilbrink, Michel Roux, Glyndebourne Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Vittorio Gui (Glyndebourne)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Idomeneo – Sunhae Im, Bernarda Fink, Alexandrina Pendatchanska, Richard Croft, RIAS Kammerchor, Freiburger Barockorchester/René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi)

Michael Gordon – Trance – Icebreaker (Cantaloupe)

Electric Light Orchestra – Osaka, Japan, Feb. 23, 1978 (audience recording)

Rued Langgaard – Symphonies Nos. 1-5 – Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard (Da Capo)

Wale – 100 Miles and Running (mixtape download)

Opeth – Blackwater Park (Music for Nations/Koch)

Marillion – Happiness Is the Road (Intact)

Black Flag – 1982 demos (download)

Bone Awl – Magnetism of War (Klaxon Productions)

Sufffocation – Blood Oath (Nuclear Blast, due July 14); Suffocation (Relapse)

Cannibal Corpse – The Bleeding (Metal Blade)

Revenge – Infiltration.Downfall.Death (Osmose)

Hüsker Dü – Land Speed Record (New Alliance)

Sonic Youth – Hold
That Tiger (Goofin')

Smokie Norful – Smokie Norful Live (EMI Gospel)

Van der Graaf Generator – ColosSaal, Aschaffenburg, Germany, Jan. 23, 2009 (audience recording)

Carl Maguire's Floriculture – Sided Silver Solid (Firehouse 12, due June 16)