Joel Peterson

Joel Peterson
Detroit, MI
Grant amount: $7,250

About the Artist

Spectrum 3
Spectrum 3 is an iteration of Skeeter Shelton's many Spectrum projects. This version began in 2017 and first toured the southeastern and near mid-west US in early 2018 followed by the eastern US in 2019. Additionally, we've done short road trips to Lafayette IN & Kalamazoo, MI or Toledo & Cleveland etc

Skeeter Shelton is a Detroit-based composer, saxophonist. His father, drummer Ajarmu, performed and recorded with many of the Chicago tenor greats and was a charter member of Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Skeeter grew-up with his father's collaborators, including Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons, Eddie Harris, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and Lester Bowie. In particular, Joseph Jarman worked with a young Skeeter on saxophone and he was largely raised by AACM organist Amina Claudine Meyers, who refers to him as her ""son."" His first music teacher was harpist Dorthy Ashby. Skeeter has performed with Fred Anderson, Hamid Drake, Han Bennink, Hakim Jami, James Blood Ulmer, Faruq Z. Bey, Dennis Gonzales, Ali Colding, Thollem, Joe Tex and The US Army Band. He has been a member of Griot Galaxy, The Street Band, The Vizitors, BoxDeserter, Soar Trio and The Northwoods Improvisers. He leads the ensembles Spectrum 3, Spectrum 4, etc.

Joel Peterson is a composer and multi-instrumentalist in Detroit, MI. He works as an artist, presenter, publisher and label owner. In jazz and improvised music he has worked with Alex Harding, Faruq Z. Bey, Han Bennink, Salim Washington, Aknek Kenneth Green, William Hooker, Marshall Allen and many others. Peterson's original chamber music has been performed by members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Toronto Symphony and Detroit Opera Theater and he's been commissioned by The Detroit Institute of Arts/Detroit Film Theater, Art Serve of Michigan. He is a founding member of Kindred and Faruq Z. Bey Quartet (both with Bey and Kenneth Green), Agape Trio (with Alex Harding and David Hurley) and the sort-lived, but recently revived Absolute Tonalist Society (originally with the late Bey, Michael Cary and Kurt Prisbe). He has explored other areas of music in the Nigerian and Ghanian group Odu, pan-globalism in the early 90s with Immigrant Suns and various experimental musics with Chatoyant, Viands, The Scavenger Quartet and many other groups. Peterson appears on several dozen recordings on labels like Astral Spirits, Clean Feed, Midwich, Two Rooms, Qbico, FPE etc. His venues Bohemian National Home and now Trinosophes, have presented everyone from Kirk Lightsey and Sam Rivers to Mary Halvorson and Craig Taborn.

James Baljo is best know as the former guitarist in arguably the world's biggest noise band, Wolf Eyes - you might not guess he also is a swinging drummer of great appropriateness and the son of a semi-professional musician. Although he has performed with improvisers like Davey Williams, Kenn Thomas and Tatsuya Nakatani, Spectrum 3 is the first jazz-based ensemble he has toured with. James also is a member of rock /jazz improvising ensemble Chatoyant and performs and records surrealist, solo fingerpicking guitar sets as The 696 Blues Band. In the years prior to the pandemic, James toured vast amounts of the US, Europe and the Middle and Near East, performing at major festivals.