The Deep Listening Band (DLB) arrived in Chicago late Sunday and early Monday (11 and 12 April 1992) just as the town was being evacuated from the great tunnel flood. What is it about the DLB that relates so well to water? The DLB was formed by accident 8 October 1988 while recording its award winning Deep Listening CD for New Albion Records in a two million gallon cistern with a reverberation time of 45 seconds on an old military base (Fort Worden) 70 miles northwest of Seattle. Just a few months later the DLB was recording Troglodyte's Delight for ¿What Next? Records (reissued in 1998 on O. O. Discs; assigned to Deep Listening®* 2004) in an old limestone quarry (Tarpaper Cave) near Rosendale, New York that had lovely dripping water sounds and Valhalla-like mists. About a year and a half after that the DLB was once again in the cistern to record The Ready Made Boomerang CD released in January 1992, also on New Albion. This "upstart Deep Listening Band worships in a cistern chapel (and) explores the mysterious spaces between notes, where all is sweet dissonance and beading microtones" according to Marc Weidenbaum in the April 1992 issue of Pulse!

In December of 1991 the Deep Listening Band went to perform in Jameos del Agua, a marvelous concert space built in a lava cave, containing a pond, on Lanzarote, the northernmost Canary Island. By this time keyboardist David Gamper had been with the DLB for a year joining trombonist, Stuart Dempster, accordionist Pauline Oliveros and vocalist/computer wizard Panaiotis. The DLB is a composer collective--usually improvising in the moment, and experimenting with all kinds of instruments and electronics: Dempster on conch shells, didjeridus and garden hose; Gamper on overtone flutes, and found instruments, and continuing to develop the Expanded Instrument System (EIS); Oliveros on voice, bells, and conch shells.

The DLB has regularly invited guests to perform with it. Dancer/vocalist Julie Lyon (Balliett) Rose, vocalist Thomasa Eckert, percussionists Fritz Hauser and George Marsh, writer Ione, performance artist Linda Montano, and clarinetist William O. Smith form only a small part of the guest list. Whether performing in San Francisco at Life On the Water (October 1990); in Austin with the Sharir Dance Company (March 1990) or the Ellen Fullman Long String Instrument (1994); in Brussels, Oslo, and Stockholm (April 1991); in Lanzarote (December 1991); Tokyo (December 1992) in a hall with over 700 loudspeakers in the walls and ceiling; rattling our Pots and Pans in New York's "The Kitchen" (January 1995); performing in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, or the Low Library Rotunda at Columbia University, the DLB stands ready to play just about anywhere!

An unexpected depth was reached with events leading up to Panaiotis' resignation in June 1993; the DLB had to reinvent itself. While this was going on, and unbeknownst to the DLB, a group at the "Alternative Festival" in Moscow led by Anton Bugatov played along with our Troglodyte's Delight CD in our first "virtual" concert; one could say they were DLB guests! Barely six months after the personnel change the DLB played a "monumental" (Ione's description) benefit "Non-Stop Flight" concert in Kingston, New York in January 1994 inviting some 13 guest performers (modeled after the five hour Marathon in Japan)--the DLBB (Deep Listening Big Band)! Work then took place with composer Ellen Fullman and her Long String Instrument (LSI) in three separate week-long residencies in Austin, Texas during January, February, and November 1994 culminating in several fantastic energizing performances. Fullman represents the fourth of ten DLB commissions (other composers are Thomas Buckner, David Gamper, Joe Giardullo, Fritz Hauser, Linda Montano, Joe McPhee, Panaiotis, Pauline Oliveros, and Baikida Carroll).

The DLB released two CDs during 1995. Sanctuary, recorded in Kingston, NY's lovely old Trinity United Methodist Church (TUMC) on Mode Records, features Non-Stop Flight mentioned above, along with the Expanded Instrument System* (EIS) and TUMC's unique Tracker organ. Tosca Salad represents a two-year DLB history, from June 1993 to May 1995. This CD sampler introduced the Deep Listening* label and presents twelve excerpts from concerts and recording sessions including Ten Ears Celebration in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation. Two more CDs have been released: Suspended Music (1997) features the DLB with Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument in two DLB commissions: Fullman's TexasTravelTextures and Pauline Oliveros' Epigraphs in the Time of AIDS. This CD also introduced the Seattle label, Periplum. Non Stop Flight (1998), released on Music & Arts, is an excerpted recording of a concert at Mills College dedicated to the memory of David Tudor: 4 Hours and 33 minutes, a trope on Cage's 4' 33", with many Bay Area guests.

The September 1998 set of concerts in Columbia University’s Low Library Rotunda with Ellen Fullman and her phenomenal Long String Instrument began Deep Listening Band Decade, a year long celebration of the DLB's first ten years. By March 1999 the Band was at Weill Recital Hall (at Carnegie Hall) with guests Joe McPhee, and Linda Tillery with the Culture Heritage Choir from Oakland. Later in March it was a performance at Cat in the Cream, Oberlin College, with guest Hugh Ragin on trumpet. June saw a recording session in Kingston NY for McPhee’s Unquenchable Fire with author Rachael Pollack reading from her text. A few days later it was the Knitting Factory in New York with Straylight and also McPhee to round out the celebration. Each of the spectacular events presented different sides of Deep Listening Band, with special attention to honoring a tradition of having a wide variety of amazing and talented guests.

Oliveros’ Lunar Opera during August 2000 provided a marvelous opportunity to perform with guests composer/performer Brenda Hutchinson and Hugh Ragin as part of Lincoln Center Outdoors. Lunar Opera was an extravaganza with many day and evening events, including a grand processional. DLB with the long line of people seemed to be the ultimate guest lineup. With some 200 people involved as Fan Walkers with toy accordions, moonbodies, Diva Nation, drummers, Lambchop (Heloise Gold), Linda Montano “sleeping” in front of the Met, Ship of Fools, and various “cities” to visit it all formed only a small part of the proceedings. The presence of the Gyuto Monks provided a marvelous blessing. Riding this high during the season led naturally to the following March 2001 when the DLB performed at New York’s Engine 27 in an event, recorded in 16 channels, that the DLB felt was their “best concert ever.”

During October of 2001 DLB played with guest organist Karel Paukert and the choirs of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as part of the Aki Festival in Cleveland. In December the concert was at Detroit Institute of Arts. It was telling that one of the DLB pieces was Great Hall Noise, a premonition apparently, because the bar in Rivera Court made considerable noise spilling over into the Great Hall. Six months later in June 2002 DLB performed in San Francisco as part of Sounding the Margins celebrating Oliveros’ 70th birthday. A month later it was “Sound Symposium” in St. Johns, NF that provided the opportunity for two DLB events. The first concert served as a memorial in honor of the Symposium’s founder Don Wherry. The second concert saw guests Tonya Lockyer (movement), Renko Ishida Dempster (painter), and artist/writer Ione in a stunning multimedia event. The brave and a very surprised MC Mack Furlong was a good sport as Oliveros and Gamper gradually “processed” his announcements through the EIS.

In May 2003 it was The World Financial Center’s Winter Garden followed a few months later, in October 2004, by participation in Sounds Like Now festival at New York’s La MaMa space. : “Deep Listening Band performs spontaneously tonight under the title Then & Now Now & Then. Then was sixteen years ago in an underground cistern in Washington State resulting in an underground classic produced by New Albion called ‘Deep Listening’. Now is tonight’s performance and is dedicated to changes for the better…” At last, two CDs long in preparation were released: Unquenchable Fire and Deep Time both on Deep Listening. Two energetic concerts during 2006 were quite special. First was the DLB SoundExchange residency in Philadelphia during March/April in two concerts with a large contingent of participants especially featured in Philadelphia Mint: An Ear Full of Philly. In October 2006 featured guest Norman Lowrey and Ione in a concert at Drew University, Madison, NJ. DLB performed Lowrey’s Into the Deep (Dreaming) as part of Ione’s Dream Festival.

During August 2008 the DLB begins “Celebrating Twenty Years” with a concert at Bard College as part of a New Albion festival. There also will be concerts in October in the Catskills and a special commemorative double LP to be released on TAIGA that will collect four representative sides of live concerts.

*Deep Listening® servicemarked by Deep Listening Institute, Ltd. (DLI) (formerly Pauline Oliveros Foundation (POF).