Join us for our last musical event of 2025!

Side Yard Sounds presents: LeRoy Bach & Mai Sugimoto with special guest Tyler Damon

BYOB

$15. Tickets here.

Please RSVP early for a guaranteed seat, as space is limited in the studio

LeRoy Bach is a Chicago-based musician, composer, and arts instigator. He has led ensembles and hosted musical gatherings in Chicago for more than thirty years.

For seven years, Bach was a member of the Black Monks of Mississippi with Theaster Gates. He was also a member of Wilco for seven years, earning a Grammy and two nominations.

He has a fifteen-year duo partnership with Dan Bitney (Tortoise, Isotope 217), performing improvised music every month at the California Clipper, Consignment Lounge and Middlebrow Bungalow. He also maintains a busy schedule with Official Claire, Marvin Tate, and Mai Sugimoto.

Bach is a former artist-in-residence resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts, University of Chicago Arts Incubator, University of Chicago Smart Museum, the Djerassi Arts Colony, and the Ragdale Residency. He is an alumni of Berklee College of Music, and Columbia College, where he earned his bachelor's degree in Jazz Performance.

Past collaborators include guitarist Bill MacKay, Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young, musician Tim Kinsella, singer Yaw Agyman, and many others. Bach regularly performs in venues throughout Chicago.

Mai Sugimoto is a saxophonist, composer, educator, and active member of Chicago's jazz and creative music scene. Born/Raised, her debut album (Asian Improv Records, 2018), explores this cultural and musical binary, juxtaposing her Japanese upbringing with the American jazz idiom. Sugimoto is a core member of the quartet Hanami, whose two albums similarly mix Japanese culture into creative music. Sugimoto has performed five times at the Chicago Jazz Festival: in 2015 with Hanami, in 2019, 2022, and 2024 as a leader, and in 2018 and 2022 with renowned bassist Tatsu Aoki, with whom she frequently plays, including appearances in his Fred Anderson Legacy Band. Her first solo album, monologue (Asian Improv Records) was released in March of 2021. Sugimoto’s work also appears on Natural Information Society’s album, Since Time Is Gravity (Eremite, 2023). Of her latest album, Sunlight filtering Through Leaves (Asian Improv Records, 2024), music critic Peter Margasak writes that “[the album] conveys that singular joy of good improvised music, when it’s not about ripping solos but group unity. Naturally, I’m advising you all to pay close attention to Sugimoto from here on out.”

Tyler Damon (b. 1987, Cincinnati, Ohio) is a drummer, improviser and educator. He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois and is often recognized for his work with saxophonists Dave Rempis & Gerrit Hatcher, guitarists Tashi Dorji & Eli Winter, bassists Joshua Abrams & Andrew Scott Young, as well as the trio Where Were We, featuring Erez Dessel & Beth McDonald.