About this Event
Moment 016 - Tether (NY/LA) - Menche, Katz, Niekrasz (PDX)
Join us at Maps Good Space for an night of music featuring Alden Hellmuth’s Tether, a two-bass quartet and the premiere performance from Menche/Katz/Niekrasz, a trio featuring veteran luminaries of the Portland avant-sound scene.
Alden Hellmuth’s Tether is a two-bass quartet that leans hard into density, motion, and low-end gravity. Built around the distinct voices of Los Angeles bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn, the project explores an array of moods and textures with intensity and unmistakable momentum. With her "challenging and evocative" (Jazz Times) compositional vision and a sharp improvisational language, Hellmuth has carefully and creatively crafted a new sonic realm and bold statement of expression. The album will be released June 19th on Leiter Verlag.
Menche/Katz/Niekrasz
This first-time trio features veteran luminaries of the Portland avant-sound scene: Daniel Menche on electronics+, Maxx Katz (Yelling Choir, FLOOM) on flute and electronics, and John Niekrasz (Methods Body, LTD Time) on percussion. Menche/Katz/Niekrasz will offer a blistering trio interpretation of the solo music on the record The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp by legendary New York pianist Matthew Shipp.
Performer Bios
Alden Hellmuth is a saxophonist, composer, and improviser currently based in New York City. Recipient of the German Jazz Prize “Debut Album of the Year International” Award and a 2025 graduate of the Herbie Hancock Institute at UCLA, she has performed and toured internationally with artists including Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves. In 2024 Alden released her debut album, Good Intentions, with Fresh Sound Records (ES), drawing attention from numerous international publications including UK Jazz News, Culture Jazz FR, and In & Out Jazz. Her newest project, Tether, set to be released in June 2026 with Berlin-based record label LEITER Verlag, is an experimental two-bass chordless quartet featuring Logan Kane, Miller Wrenn, and acclaimed drummer Justin Brown. Alden has been recognized with numerous honors, including ASCAP’s Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award (2024), Chamber Music America’s Performance Plus Grant (2025), and the Focusyear Fellowship (2021-22). She has appeared on major stages including the NYC Winter Jazz Festival, the Hollywood Bowl/Blue Note Jazz Festival, International Jazz Day in Morocco and Abu Dhabi, The Jazz Gallery, and Blue Note NYC. As a composer and performer, Alden strives for expression through freedom, intuition, and a deep commitment to her craft.
Logan Kane is a Los Angeles-based bassist, producer, and composer known for his work in jazz, creative music, and punk-funk, with credits including David Binney, Chris Potter, Becca Stevens, Nate Wood, Justin Brown, Edward Simon, Roy McCurdy, Peter Erskine, John Daversa, Joel Ross, and Steve Lehman. Kane also co-leads the exciting electro-jazz project Dolphin Hyperspace with Nicole McCabe, which was recently featured in the Adult Swim's the Elephant (2025).
“One of Los Angeles’ most fearless improvisers,” Miller Wrenn is a Los Angeles-based bassist and composer-improviser who “brings technical mastery and fresh energy to every performance.”(Vernacular New Music). He works primarily in the fields of new, creative, and improvised music, in addition to his work as a composer for film, and collaborated with artists including Vinny Golia, Lauren Baba, Eyvind Kang, Tina Raymond, Kris Tiner, Steph Richards, Dan Rosenboom, Alex Cline, Vicki Ray, GE Stinson, The Industry Opera, and Bridge to Everywhere.
Myles Martin is a Los Angeles–based drummer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer who grew up between San Jose and Richmond, California, working at the intersection of jazz, hip-hop, and experimental pop. A graduate of California State University, Northridge, he has performed and recorded with Stanley Clarke, Elijah Fox, Kiefer, Quadeca, and Jordan Ward. Myles contributed to Quadeca’s Vanisher and has appeared on major stages including Coachella, Camp Flog Gnaw with Jordan Ward, and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Known for his versatility, deep groove, and textural approach, he remains active as a touring and session musician across genres.
Daniel Menche’s extensive history of recording and performance spans three decades and counting. Menche’s sonic abstractions manifest through intense noise, immersive drones, dense ambiance, poly-rhythmic percussion, turbulent nature field recordings, abused acoustic instruments and many other sources. His music is adventurous in execution as well as presentation, creating an absolute, abstract sonic world. Marked with a restless enthusiasm and preternatural expressionism, Menche’s compositions typically arrange themselves through organic, seemingly subconscious systems of logic. At times, a Menche composition can be a cathartic experience of obliterated sonic particles; at others, a heavy mantle can descend upon his rough tones to offer a darkly immersive introspection.
Maxx Katz is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who traverses metal, jazz, classical, free improv, and performance. Maxx is founder and director of Portland’s Yelling Choir, a femme, women, and nonbinary performance ensemble which reimagines voice, presence, gender, and power. A classically trained flutist with an M.A. in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music from the University of Virginia, Maxx uses flute, electric guitar and voice in a restless negotiation of the limits of communication. A member of Usaisamonster, Maxx has toured extensively in experimental bands across the US and Europe. Katz was a resident at the 2019 Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music co-directed by Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey, and at the Atlantic Center for the Arts with flutist Nicole Mitchell.
John Niekrasz is a Chicago-raised, Portland-based artist working in sound, language, performance, and movement. His work has been commissioned by Paris’ Cite des Arts, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Stone NYC, Issue Project Room, & PICA’s Time Based Art Festival. Niekrasz is committed to improvisation in performance and as a compositional approach. He bridges the musico-poetic divide through text-based composition and syllabic musical notation. His work grapples with ideas around poverty and ornament, rigor and effortlessness, justice and militancy. Liberatory texts are at the heart of his work. Niekrasz received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, studied percussion and dance in Havana, classical Hindustani tabla in India with Pandit Lacchu Maharaj, and improvisation with Milford Graves. John composes for and performs in ensembles Methods Body, IXNAY, LTD Time, and Orchestra Becomes Radicalized, and creates sound for dance, film, and theater. He publishes fiction, poetry, and essays and is currently finishing his third novel.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Maps Good Space, 1227 Southeast Stark Street, Portland, United States
USD 17.85
