Stockhausen Memorial Concert Saturday

Karlheinz Stockhausen, the dude who stands between Lenny Bruce and W.C. Fields on the Sgt. Pepper album cover, would have turned 80 this summer. But while London and New York and even Omaha, Nebraska have thrown events celebrating the life and music of this pioneer composer, "the father of electronic music," Los Angeles has yet to plug in, tune up, and tone out in his honor.

A group of ne'er-do-well jazz musicians have taken matters into their own hands to change all this. Saturday night, an ensemble of pianists, bassists, flautists, basset horners and knob-twiddlers will perform works from several eras of Stockhausen's career. Surprisingly, the focus here won't be so much on his electronic music, which we'll get plenty of in December at the Disney Hall anyway, but more on pieces from Stockhausen's "Light" opera cycle, his piano solo pieces, and his improvisational work--which makes sense, since several of the musicians are in some way associated with Surrealestate, a musical collective started in part by Free Jazzer and ethnomusicologist Robert Reigle in the mid-nineties.

It's in Wilmington, but considering the scarcity of Stockhausen performances anywhere else in a thousand mile radius (or however far Nebraska is), it's well worth the drive. And at only $10, it's a helluva lot cheaper than going to see an organ recital at UCLA.