Improvising trio Jason Stein, Damon Smith, and Adam Shead return with Five Nights in the Midwest, a new three-CD live release capturing the ensemble’s December 2025 tour across the American Midwest in complete, unedited form. Due May 22, 2026 via Irritable Mystic Records and Balance Point Acoustics, the album presents seven extended performances exactly as they unfolded onstage, preserving the evolving energy and architecture of the trio’s night-by-night improvisational process.
Recorded across venues in Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, and Illinois, Five Nights in the Midwest functions both as a live document and as a sonic travelogue. Rather than selecting highlights or editing performances into condensed statements, the trio chose to present the music in the precise order it was performed, emphasizing continuity, momentum, and the gradual evolution of interaction over the course of the tour.
The release marks the trio’s first tour document since their acclaimed collaborations with Marilyn Crispell, whose work with the group drew renewed attention to their approach to long-form collective improvisation. Here, Stein, Smith, and Shead return to their core trio format with sharpened focus and an expanded sonic vocabulary developed through years of collaboration.
At the center of the music is Jason Stein’s bass clarinet work—physical, expressive, and deeply attentive to texture and duration. Stein approaches improvisation as a narrative form, balancing abstraction with structural coherence while drawing out the full timbral range of the instrument. His playing moves fluidly between raw intensity and spacious restraint, sustaining momentum across extended performances without sacrificing detail or clarity.
Supporting and reshaping that momentum in real time are Damon Smith and Adam Shead, whose rhythm section interplay constantly shifts between propulsion and suspension. Smith’s elastic double bass lines and Shead’s highly responsive percussion create a framework where form emerges organically through listening, reaction, and shared intuition rather than predetermined structure.
Recorded live between December 9 and 14, 2025, the performances span intimate venues including Sugar Maple in Milwaukee, State Street Pub in Indianapolis, Spot Tavern in Lafayette, Dissonant Works in St. Louis, and Reverberation Records in Bloomington. The recordings were captured, mixed, and mastered by Shead himself, maintaining the immediacy and atmosphere of each space.
With Five Nights in the Midwest, Stein/Smith/Shead offer their most complete statement to date—an immersive document of collective improvisation unfolding in real time, shaped equally by geography, interaction, and the subtle transformations that occur across a week on the road.
Release Date: May 22, 2026
Artist: Stein/Smith/Shead
Label: Irritable Mystic Records / Balance Point Acoustics
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