CLIFF BALDWIN
Cliff is a composer, sculptor and filmmaker who lives and works in Aquebogue, New York. His artwork is in numerous collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, The Walker Art Center, and The Museum of The Art Institute of Chicago. He composes for his film and music ensemble ACME. His paintings for Ruthelle’s in KC, MO form a core collection in the Kansas City Jazz Hall of Fame. Baldwin directs Aqui Editions, an online source for artists books, prints and multiples. He is a founding member of BCR from 1982 who has continued performing with Dwight Frizzell including their 2019 duet performance of Stockhausen’s Tierkreis at the Rites of Spring Music Festival in Jamesport, NY.

BIRD ELLINGTON FLEMING
Bird is an educator and percussionist versed in West African, South American and Caribbean traditions. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Traditional Music Society. He studied with Zak Diop and Abdullah Camara (Senegal), Guideon Foli Alorwoyie (Ghana), Marcus Santos (Brazil) and Agustin Romero Diza (Cuba). He earned a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies and a certificate in African American Studies from UMKC. He was world music liaison for Kansas City Missouri School District, Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Young Audiences and American Jazz Museum. He performed with many artists including Babatunde Olantunje, Gil Scott Heron and the Temptations. Bird joined BCR in 1983, playing and recording with them regularly until 1996. He is featured in the BCR Sphinx Edition 2022.

REV. DWIGHT FRIZZELL
Rev. Dwight is a composer, performer, writer and video artist. Dwight studied Afro-Futurist metaphysics with Sun Ra and video art with Douglas Davis. His teachers and mentors include clarinetist Raymond Luedeke, video artist Douglas Davis, Fellowship of Isis founder Lady Olivia Robertson and anarchist and Islamic scholar Hakim Bey, who ordained him in the Moorish Orthodox Church. He is Director of the Sound Minor program at KCAI. His work was broadcast on NPR, presented at Musée d’Art Moderne for the 12th Biennale de Paris and screened at the Worldwide Video Festival in Amsterdam. He worked with John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Stelarc, Moby, Step Buddy Anderson, Ellen Fullman, David Cope, David Ossman, Victor Papanek, and Alvin Curran among others. Beyond the Black Crack – his 1976 LP based on time-shifting black holes – was included in the infamous and influential Nurse with Wound List. He is a founding member of BCR, Packed Fruit, newEar, Myth-Science Ensemble, The Pitch newspaper and the national Hear Now Festival.

ED HERRMANN
Composer, performer, sound artist Ed Herrmann studied composition and electronic music with Thomas McKenney. He has performed throughout the US and in Europe, playing analog modular electronics, percussion, and invented instruments in a variety of solo and ensemble settings. He has received commissions for sound installations; Cretaceous Chorus played for several months at the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago. His work in radio began with the new music performance program Ionizations on KOPN, Columbia in the 1970s, and includes stints at KPFA in Berkeley, KQED in San Francisco, and WBEZ in Chicago. He currently hosts the contemporary music program Flight Risk on KOPN, and is a guest host of Music from Other Minds on KALW, San Francisco. Ed was a founding member of BCR, playing electronics and occasionally bass in the early years of the band. He has been a frequent guest since then and is included in the BCR Sphinx Edition 2022.

NOAH JONES
Noah is a filmmaker who received his BFA in Filmmaking from KCAI in 2019. His professional career took off in Uranus, Missouri when he became an Associate Producer for the city’s pun-laden promotional videos. He lived in Uranus and filmed in Uranus, documenting activities at their Fudge Factory. The prevalent scatological puns were excruciating to Jones who creates subtle, black comedy videos that take place in a funeral home owned by his family. He returned to the serenity of the Jones Funeral Home in Waverly, Kansas with its receptive casket room, chilled out visitation chamber, and calming embalming room.

STEVE “DUCK” MCLANE
Duck founded and directed the Blue Riddim Band with instrumentalist Bob Zohn. He began regular trips to Jamaica in 1973, where he established a long musical connection with Drummer “Santa” Davis and bassist George “Fully” Fullwood. Blue Riddim opened for Dennis Brown, Big Youth, Culture, Burning Spear, Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. Duck worked with Island Records owner Chris Blackwell and recorded at Channel One Studios in Kingston. Blue Riddim was the first American reggae band to play the Sunsplash festival, where they shared the honor of “best band” and was widely recognized by Jamaican press and radio for this accomplishment. They were featured on the Alive In Jamaica LP which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1986. Duck began playing with BCR in 1984 when the musical forces of Blue Riddim and BCR combined for a set at the KU Ballroom in Lawrence, Kansas. Since then, he has been a regular sub and guest drummer and is featured in BCR’s Sphinx Edition 2022.

ALLAUDIN OTTINGER
Allaudin’s lifelong dedication to music’s ability to gather people in pursuit of the miraculous led him to Gurdjieff, Sufism, a deep darshan with Murshid Moineddin and study of the Nubian tar with Hamza El Din. Allaudin became leader of the Kansas City Sufi Center in 1979. He was ordained as Cherag in the Universal Worship by Murshida Fatima in 1980 and was honored with the title of Sheikh by Murshid Wali Ali in 1989. Allaudin produces Sufi inspired CDs including his most recent release Vision, Bewilderment and Love. He also plays and records with a Grammy-awarded children’s group. Allaudin is a founding member of BCR where his drumming and musical vision are celebrated internationally.

THAYLIA SMITH
Thaylia is a native Kansas Citian who has loved singing from the time her Mama caught her belting out a song in front of a full-length mirror when she was five years old. Thaylia sang back-up for several artists at Center for Spiritual Living-Crossroads, and back-up for Toni Gates’ “One-by-One” concert in 2015. Her favorite gigs have been singing with Black Crack Revue as the Queen of Outer Space at various venues throughout Kansas City over the past seven years. Thaylia is married to long-time BCR percussionist/vocalist Pat Conway and is employed as a graphic designer at Kansas City Repertory Theatre.

JULIA THRO
Julia has performed as a guitarist in the Kansas City area since 1982 with bands as diverse as Millard Fillmore, One of Us, Afrique, The Messengers, Joey Skidmore Band, Gerald Trimble Ensemble (where she played the Arabic lute) and Venus Envy. Her rock stylings can be heard on Joey Skidmore’s Ventriloquist Doll CD, and her lute work on Gerald Trimble’s Celtic Cantigas. She composed music for the National Audio Theatre Festivals, working with Firesign Theatre’s Phil Proctor and Starstruck author Elaine Lee. Julia has been the guitarist and a composer/arranger for BCR since 2000.