Thomas Avino: Storyteller of the avant-garde

An interview with Thomas Avino -- composer, poet, and painter with roots in the avant-garde New York City music and art worlds of the 1970s. While others were standing in line outside Studio 54, Avino was haunting the tiny clubs and lofts where Eugene Chadbourne, Arto Lindsay, and others were playing high-energy improvisational music -- an idiom that has since been absorbed into strains of mainstream classical, rock, and jazz. Avino studied saxophone with the legendary John Zorn and composition with Philip Johnston of the Microscopic Septet. In 1999, he released a beautifully crafted CD, Heart of Hearts, which is now available on Bandcamp. And, more recently, he has been creating richly evocative “story paintings” on his Instagram account, A Cool Breeze on the Chain Gang. #johnzorn #avantgardemusic #eugenechadbourne #sohoarts #greenwichvillagemusic #johncage #OCD #OCDstories #OCDprofiles #thekitchen #earinn