Name: Jason Stein, Damon Smith, Adam Shead @ Sugar Maple
Start: 2025-12-09T19:00:00-06:00
Location: Sugar Maple

Jason Stein, Damon Smith, Adam Shead @ Sugar Maple

Tuesday, December 9th
Sugar Maple - 44 E Lincoln Ave, Milwaukee, WI
7:00 pm Back Room Concert
$20 admission
Jason Stein - bass clarinet
Damon Smith - double bass
Adam Shead - drums/percussion
Jason Stein — Damon Smith — Adam Shead (often billed as Stein/Smith/Shead) is a Chicago-rooted improvising trio uniting bass clarinetist Jason Stein, double bassist Damon Smith, and percussionist Adam Shead. Since forming in late 2021, the group has toured extensively across the Midwest and beyond, becoming a fixture in the creative music circuit and collaborating with influential figures such as Roscoe Mitchell. Their recorded work documents a remarkably productive period, encompassing four releases: Volumes & Surfaces (2022), Hum (2023), spi-raling horn with Marilyn Crispell (2024), and Live at the Hungry Brain with Marilyn Crispell (2025). Together, these albums trace the group’s evolution from kinetic, small-ensemble interplay toward expansive collaborations that bridge generations of avant-jazz practice.
Critics have consistently praised the trio’s fearless energy and deep listening. All About Jazz described Volumes & Surfaces as “undiluted free jazz with energy as its calling card and attention as its driver,” while The Free Jazz Collective called their collaboration with Marilyn Crispell “stunning” and “full of muscular interplay.” Known for their balance of precision and volatility, Stein/Smith/Shead channel the improvisational lineage of Chicago’s creative music scene into a sound that is at once restless, focused, and alive to the moment. Their forthcoming 2025 tour marks the trio’s first since 2022, signaling a new chapter for one of the most dynamic ensembles in contemporary improvised music.