Jennifer Pendur evolved her eclectic multidimensional
musical aesthetic from many sources, including early
exposure to Cleveland radio during its experimental
non-commercial heyday. As a child she cheerfully
absorbed musical influences from anywhere and
everywhere, discovering in her teens the works of John
Cage, Morton Feldman, Arnold Schoenberg, Ornette
Coleman, and Charles Mingus. The interplay of natural
environmental sounds and "noise" has always fascinated
her, and she began composing with magnetic tape in
eight grade, when she became fascinated with collage
and its application to sound and begged her parents
for a tape recorder. While she has also studied French
horn, piano, flute, guitar and dulcimer, her bass and
her voice are her primary instruments at this time.
She took up the upright bass after moving to Chicago
in 1974, and has studied at length with the legendary
Russell Thorne, and also recorded with him in the
Giordanisti Trio and Emergency Theatre Ensemble.
During her tenure in the Midwest improvised music
scene, she has also performed with the likes of Donald
Raphael Garrett, Chicago free-jazz legend Hal Russel
(who began his avant-garde career with Russell Thorne
in the Joe Daley Trio), and Milwaukee
instrument-inventor Hal Rammel. She has appeared
numerous times with the astonishing jazz-rock
guitarist Elijah Israel (now tragically deceased) in
the psychedelic jam-band Earthen Vessels.