Composer and bandleader Mike WT Allen, who’s portfolio includes performances by the Hard Rubber Orchestra, Redshift Music, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, formed the 20 person jazz-metal powerhouse Space Elevator as a vehicle to deliver Mike’s ideas of what big band music can sound like in the modern age, and it sounds pretty crazy!

The compositions travel between big band jazz, heavy metal, funk, experimental, and the avant-garde with “complex charts [that] combine crunching metal guitars with a billowing horn section and prog-rock keys” (Georgia Straight)

The band has enjoyed multiple sold out performances at major venues such as the Fox Cabaret and Rickshaw Theatre, performed on the main stage at Vancouver Jazz Fest, released their self-titled debut album on Redshift Records, and most recently performed to a sold out Rio Theatre in a concert that saw Space Elevator joined on stage by Vancouver music legends such as Dawn Pemberton, Five Alarm Funk, Ninjaspy, Missy D, among others.

Bring your ear plugs, it’s gonna get loud!

Band members:

Saxes: Evan Cribb, Rowan Whitridge, Dom Conway, Adam Kyle, David Brown

Trumpets: Kent Wallace, John Korsrud, Jocelyn Waugh, Thad Bailey-Mai, Trevor Whitridge

Trombones: Nicky Walsh, Casey Thomas-Burns, Janine King, George McNally

Rhythm: Thomas Hoeller, Seb Chamney, Terence Trusdale, Nikko Whitworth, Eliot Doyle, Chris Sallis-Lyon

Opening for Space Elevator will be two cutting edge icons of the international improvised music scene, Chris Corsano & Aram Bajakian.

Aram Bajakian is a Vancouver based guitarist that has toured extensively with Lou Reed, Diana Krall, Madeleine Peyroux, and John Zorn, performing at many of the world’s greatest venues, including Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Acropolis, L’Olympia, as well as the Montreaux, Newport, Monterey and Antibes jazz festivals, among others.

Chris Corsano is a New York-based drummer who has been active at the intersections of collective improvisation, free jazz, avant-rock, and experimental music since the late 1990’s. He’s been the rim-batterer of choice for some of the greatest contemporary purveyors of “jazz” (Joe McPhee, Paul Flaherty, Mette Rasmussen, Zoh Amba) and “rock” (Sir Richard Bishop, Bill Orcutt, Jim O’Rourke), as well as artists beyond categorization (Björk for her Volta album and world tour, Michael Flower, Okkyung Lee).