Elliott Sharp has been a fixture on the New York free jazz/ experimental music scene since the 1970s. He has collaborated with everyone from Nels Cline to Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn to Eric Bogosian to Debra Harry. He's classically trained and his compositions have been played by the Kronos Quartet, JACK Quartet, FLUX Quartet, Ensemble Modern, and many others.
A science geek, Sharp has a thing for modified instruments, and these days mainly plays the "guitarbass," an instrument that was built especially for him. He's in the Bay Area for a couple of days this weekend, and on Friday, you can hear him at the Meridian Gallery playing Octal, a set of his guitarbass compositions. On Saturday, he collaborates with long time Bay Area progressive musicians William Winant and Mark E. Miller.