He’s wary of facile categorizations, so here are some of the things we can say for sure about the 30-year-old free-improviser David Gross. As an undergraduate at Hampshire College, he studied with jazz legend Yusef Lateef; later he attended Berklee. For several years he taught pre-school, but he’s now unemployed and looking for a job as a paralegal. He doesn’t ever expect to make a living from the music he plays. Although he’s a free-improviser, he doesn’t at all consider himself a purist, loves the music of John Lee Hooker, and even expresses some appreciation for the music of Depeche Mode and would enjoy Van Morrison’s " Moon Dance " a whole lot more if Magic 106.7 FM weren’t playing it every time he works out at the Y. And he thinks that " Boston has a world-class improv scene, " a scene " that can compete with anything, " especially New York.

Next Saturday, May 3, at Cambridge’s Zeitgeist Gallery, Gross will gather three bands he thinks reflect the diversity and depth of that scene. The Please are a " trio of people doing electronics " — samplers, oscillators, etc. Barn Owl are " this sort of free-punk improv band [prepared guitar, bass, drums] who do three-minute pieces " rather than the usual open-ended, lingering events that are typical of the improv scene. And Gross himself will play alto and baritone saxophones in the first public performance of his trio We Love You, with bassist Vattel Cherry and drummer Luther Gray.

We Love You are something of a throwback for Gross. Although his early inspiration was Ornette Coleman, in recent years his models have been from the European-improv scene, the likes of Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, and the trio AMM. It’s " quiet " improv, less indebted to the sonic sprawl and rhythmic thrust of American free jazz than to the serene sonic calligraphy of AMM and Cagean notions about randomness and silence. Gross gave me a demo of a solo saxophone CD on which he doesn’t make anything like a fully sounded saxophone note until a good two and a half minutes into the second track. Until then, it’s all the whoosh of breath, the click of saxophone keys, plastic scraping sounds, and the nasal inhale and exhale of breath, right near your ear.

We Love You, he says, will be more in the free-jazz vein. Gray plays with free-jazz guitarist Joe Morris, and Cherry has played with Charles Gayle. The circumstances are more collegial than strategic: all three players have crossed paths and liked one another, but they’ve never played together as a trio. And, Gross says, " It’s fun to do music and just kick ass every once in a while. "

Even so, don’t expect We Love You to produce the free jazz of the trios of Ornette Coleman, Frank Wright Trio, Sam Rivers Trio, or Jimmy Lyons. Gross says that with his last trio, Fetish, his goal was " to end free jazz. " So he took the standard models of Coleman, Wright, et al. and " turned it just a little bit. " For the band’s recording, he decided he would extract from free jazz its notorious split-tone scream and do nothing but scream. In a sense he wouldn’t be improvising at all, because he’d know ahead of time exactly what he’d be doing, and his playing would be unaffected by the playing of bassist Mike Bullock and drummer Tatsuya Nakatani. He’s relishing playing with We Love You in part because the standard roles of the trio (the bassist providing support, the drummer providing motion, the sax playing " lead " melodies) will be subverted. " Mike Bullock calls Vattel a ‘naughty’ bass player. He’s not the obedient timewalker. He’s right up there with me fighting it out. "

What’s surprising about Fetish (Tautology) is its delicacy — Gross does squeal and scream, but he also lays out for periods, and his altissimo melodies plead and laugh as much as they exhort or rail. In effect, his screeching becomes the compositional determinant of the two untitled pieces — the limitation, or ground, against which the trio create their internal relationship. On the second track, his scream becomes more like a whisper.

But don’t look to him for deeper meanings. " I’m not interested in narrative, I’m not interested in, ‘My music tells a story.’ I don’t think that’s necessary. I just want the music to be itself. I don’t want to make it anything other than what it is. "

Gross is not a grim polemicist; in fact, he laughs easily at himself, at his constant worrying over his music, his fear that once free improv has a predictable " sound, " it will be finished ( " Composition doesn’t have a ‘sound’  " ). He even worries that free improv isn’t " free " at all. " When you get up on stage doing free improv, there’s a parameter. The notion that you can do anything is completely bogus. When you go see Evan Parker or whoever, you basically know what’s going to happen. "

Neither does he have any illusions about what he does. " What’s happening in the downtown New York scene is very retro in a way. ‘I’m going to have my Latin-country-funk band.’ And, ‘This is my orchestral dub ensemble.’ It’s very conceptual in this trendy way. And I do feel like, you know, we’re trying to fucking just make music. It’s not like flavor of the week. And that’s because nobody’s going to make a living from it. There’s freedom in that. There’s no reason to do anything else but exactly what you want. "

IF DAVID GROSS IS A PLAYER WHO DOESN’T WRITE, then Darrell Katz is a writer who doesn’t play, though he began his musical life as a guitar player. But Katz found himself drawn more and more to composition. In 1985, he founded the Jazz Composers Alliance with Andrew Hulbut, Duane Johnson, and Ken Schaphorst (it was inspired in part by the more classically inclined Composers in Red Sneakers). " At some point I felt like I’m really accomplishing things that I want to, and I’m developing a style, and as a guitar player I just felt like another guitar player. "

This Sunday at Emmanuel Church, Katz and other members of the JCA and the JCA Orchestra will celebrate three new CDs, after a several-year recording drought for the organization: the JCA Orchestra’s In, Thru & Out (Cadence), featuring works by Katz and fellow JCA members Laura Andel, David Harris, and Warren Senders; Katz’s " jazz cantata " The Death of Simone Weil (Innova); and Andel’s Somnambulist (Red Toucan). The concert will feature pieces from all three albums as well as new pieces by Harris, Ken Schaphorst, and Ira Rapson.

The big-band writing on In, Thru & Out is impressive for its textural variety, rich colors, individual approaches to rhythm, and especially the playing. Over the years, with as many as 20 or more (by Katz’s estimate) composers joining and leaving the fold for other locales, the orchestra has grown in strength and loyalty. Local stalwarts like Harris, Jim Hobbs, Mike Peipman, Bob Pilkington, and Phil Scarff bassist Rich McLaughlin, and drummer Harvey Wirht negotiate the tricky charts with incisiveness and fire.

What’s even more remarkable is that the recordings are essentially live. In, Thru & Out was recorded over the course of two concerts at Berklee Performance Center in May 2001; The Death of Simone Weil was recorded in a single night at Berklee in October 2001 (a second piece was recorded at a later date). More than an hour long, Simone Weil (with a text from Katz’s wife, the poet Paula Tatarunis) was a real test for the band — and for Katz, not only as writer but as conductor. " I’ve never conducted one piece for so long. The players at least get to rest occasionally, but not for long. When you’re not playing, you’re frantically counting, because the meters are changing so much. Even when you have long passages where you don’t play, you have to keep your wits about you. "

Simone Weil is a major work by any measure. The recording also features a setting of a text by Sherwood Anderson, " Like a Wind. " In both, Katz pursues his interest in combining improvised music with spoken texts. But he says that for Simone Weil he also found himself writing melodies to fit the words. He cites the influence of the " American songbook " of Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Jerome Kern " as sung by Ella Fitzgerald. " It’s a testament to his sensitivity as a writer and to vocalist Rebecca Shrimpton that the text comes across with such clarity.

Over the years, the JCA has produced an average of four or five annual concerts of new music. It has performed pieces by guest players/composers like Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Marty Ehrlich, Julius Hemphill, Dave Holland, Wayne Horvitz, Sam Rivers, Maria Schneider, and Henry Threadgill. And in 1993, it began to award an annual composition prize that’s now named after Hemphill. Angel came to the organization through her application for an award; Rapson was the 2002 winner.

Katz says that the JCA hasn’t had guest artists recently for the simple reason that it’s expensive. The orchestra’s operating fund has depended on the now-decimated Mass Cultural Council; individual recording projects have been funded by the Aaron Copland Foundation. From the recorded evidence, the JCA composers have plenty to say on their own.

The Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra plays at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, this Sunday, April 27, at 8 p.m.; call (781) 899-3130. David Gross’s We Love You play with the Please and Barn Owl at the Zeitgeist Gallery, 1353 Cambridge Street in Inman Square, next Saturday, May 3, at 8 p.m.; call (617) 876-6060.