A decade ago, drummer, composer, and sound engineer Bill Harris founded the Amalgam label. It’d been about four years since he’d moved here from Pittsburgh. “The longer I had been in Chicago, I was seeing a lot of folks who I thought were doing really good work [but] weren’t getting covered or recognized,” Harris says. “So it was a hope to bolster some of that.”

Harris came up with the idea for Amalgam while talking with pianist and improviser Matt Piet, who would collaborate with pianist Oscar Jan Hoogland on Amalgam’s first release, Amsterdam/Chicago Duo . The label has since put out 63 more albums, most of which document a large, loose-knit community of artists to which Harris belongs, devoted to free jazz and other forms of improvised and experimental music. About five years ago,

See Full Page