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In Photo: Shot X Shot

Exciting improvisational sounds, a chill but serious-about-the-music vibe, cheap drinks, Ethiopian food… These are the joys of SciFiPhilly, a great weekly jazz/experimental music series at Gojjo (45th & Baltimore) that’s been gaining momentum ever since it began last spring. This Sunday night SciFiPhilly presents Ionic Bonding, a series of saxophone-drum duet performances to benefit Neighborhood Bike Works.

Neighborhood Bike Works is a nonprofit educational organization in West Philly that seeks to increase opportunities for urban youth through bicycling. With locations at St. Mary’s Church on UPenn’s campus and at 60th & Vine Sts., NBW offers classes for children on bike repair and bike safety. Other programs include bike safety checks, valet bike parking at community events, the “Bike Church” (bike repair sessions for adults), and an annual Bike Part Art Show.

The music at SciFiPhilly is so varied that it’s almost impossible to describe, but funky, heady, adventurous, challenging, and ethereal are a few of the words that come to mind to describe the various sounds I’ve heard at Gojjo over the past several months. Ionic Bonding will be no exception, I’m sure. Duets provide a special opportunity to observe the intimacy of improvisers creating music together, and saxophone-drum duos have a special place in jazz, going back at least as far as John Coltrane and Rashied Ali’s Interstellar Space. (Another notable sax-drum album is Anthony Braxton & Max Roach’s Birth And Rebirth.) Among the dozen-plus duos scheduled to perform on Sunday night are Kevin Diehl and Terry Lawson of Sonic Liberation Front, Dan Scofield of Shot x Shot (one of the organizers of SciFiPhilly) and Ricardo Lagomasino, Thomas Razler and Alex Maio of Untitled Original, and the indefatigable Elliott Levin and Scott Verrastro.

Ionic Bonding at Gojjo, Sunday November 16 at 8 P.M., $5 cover (100% goes to NBW)
4540 Baltimore Ave.
www.ionicbonding.hungrymonsters.net
www.scifiphilly.com