Now beginning its third year, the Get Free Music Series is a local showcase for free jazz and other fully-improvised music. Presented by the University of Illinois Springfield’s music program, it provides one of the only local platforms for an exciting, though intrinsically non-commercial, form of music. Performers in the series have ranged from local musicians – often members of the UIS faculty, from within and without the music department – to musicians from as far away as New York City and the Netherlands. Get Free concerts have generally been held at the UIS Field Station, a small building a little south of campus overlooking Lake Springfield.
On Friday, April 10, California-based multi-instrumentalist and music producer Rent Romus was originally scheduled to perform as part of a trio with guitarist Adam Larison, an instructor in the UIS music program, and drummer Richard Gilman-Opalsky, a professor of political theory and philosophy in the UIS School of Politics and International Affairs. Both faculty members have extensive credits performing improvised music in addition to their teaching careers, but only one ended up participating in Friday’s concert.
“Dr. Gilman-Opalsky is not able to perform tonight due to the ongoing labor issue at UIS,” Larison said at the start of the concert. Because of the current strike by the tenured and tenure track faculty, performing at a UIS event would entail the drummer/professor crossing the picket line (Larison is a non-tenure track UIS instructor, with membership in a separate union which is not currently on strike).
One of the strengths of fully-improvised music is adaptability, and Romus and Larison performed a free-wheeling and spirited set of spontaneous music as a duo to an audience about the size of a typical UIS class.
Musician Steve Lacey once said that “in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, while in improvisation you have 15 seconds.” Larison and Romus seemed to fully embrace this ethos, with short bursts of intertwined sound at different points evoking everything from be-bop rhythms to what sounded at one point like punk-infused surf music (“I considered quoting [surf guitar hero Dick Dale’s] ‘Miserlou’ but it seemed too on the nose,” Larison laughingly admitted after the concert).
Whimsy and profundity sat side-by-side in the performance, with Romus accenting Larison’s stately guitar figures with a Chinese gong at one moment, then blowing into a small, rubberized contraption, later identified as a squirrel call, to create unexpected swathes of swooping and chattering sounds to the mix – and incidentally attracting the curious attention of an actual squirrel which appeared on a branch for a few pensive moments in the field house’s large picture windows.
Not to be outdone in the non-traditional equipment department, Larison at one point pummeled his guitar strings with a small horsehair bow manufactured specifically for guitars, creating a sustained attack normally unattainable by mere human hands. As is often the case with free players of this caliber, the communication between the two musicians was quick, almost telepathic.
Luckily, UIS does not operate the St. Louis venue Dissonant Works, so Gilman-Opalsky was able to participate in a scheduled concert there with Romus and Larison on Saturday, April 11, without violating his union obligations. He described the show afterward as “probably the best trio I ever played.”
The next Get Free concert is scheduled for Saturday, May 2, at Dumb Records in downtown Springfield and will feature acclaimed free jazz band ECHO Party from Memphis, Tennessee.
Scott Faingold was the founding editor of Activator magazine and has been a staff reporter for Illinois Times and co-host of Old School Bleep, a music-centered podcast. He can be reached at scottfaingold@gmail.com.
This article appears in April 16-22, 2026.
