Hanah Jon Taylor & Hamid Drake Duo

Art in the cafe...

Laurel Statz


"The Spectator"


December 2025



Laurel Statz is a painter and Madison area native. Her work, while figurative, is influenced by abstraction and minimalism. The paintings often have a quick and instinctual nature, capturing just what’s needed. While she often times herself to eliminate extra details and over-precision, she has ventured into more detailed works as well. Laurel does not attach narrative to her pieces. Rather, she thinks of them like a journaling process for her scatter-brained psyche. The figures in the pieces are meant to be processing tools for the artist and the viewer. She hopes that seeing these figures helps the...
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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Hanah Jon Taylor emerges as one of the most inspiring musicians on the contemporary music scene today. A native of Chicago, Taylor has received the critical acclaim of audiences and media throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia Minor. His unique and lyrical persona on flute, saxophones, and wind synthesizer has warranted him as a true innovator of improvisation.

Hamid Drake incorporates Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free jazz improvisers Peter Brotzmann, Fred Anderson, and Ken Vandermark, among others. Since the late 1990s, Hamid Drake is widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in improvised music.

Music