Saturday 1 September 2018, 8pm, OTO Project Space
The Alex Ward Item Series was launched in September 2017 at Cafe Oto with the debut performance by ITEM 10, Ward's first foray into the world of composition for large ensemble. Now follows the second group in the series - ITEM 4, a quartet consisting of Alex on clarinet and guitar, Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet and flugelhorn, Otto Willberg on double bass and Andrew Lisle on drums. All the members were also participants in the Item 10 performance (the Item Series being conceived as a pool of musicians from which various sizes of ensemble can be drawn for different musical ends), and are amongst the most idiosyncratic and distinctive improvisers on the current UK scene. In writing for the group, Alex's aim was to exert as minimal limitation on the players' interaction and invention as possible, while still giving rise to a music distinct from that which would come about through pure improvisation - in this case, the means to achieving this was a conception of compositional materials as akin to emotional landmarks in an otherwise wide-open terrain... concentrates of melodic/harmonic information whose structural and affective characteristics resonate through the musical whole without controlling or defining it.
Alex Ward / clarinet, guitar and compositions
Andrew Lisle / drums
Charlotte Keeffe / trumpet and flugelhorn
Otto Willberg / double bass
Keeffe’s debut album ‘Right Here, Right Now’ is where you’ll find her exhibiting a passion for vibrant soundscapes rendered in live spaces. Released in 2021, also on Discus Music, she earned critical acclaim carving out a niche on the imprint. She also composes and performs for a number of the roster’s artists, including; Hi Res Heart, Carla Diratz and Julie Tippetts. She also co-leads Anthropology Band with the head of Discus Music, Martin Archer.
To date, her music has been featured significantly on BBC Radio 3, Jazz FM and BBC Radio 6, where she's been described as a 'prolific', 'dynamic' and 'excellent improviser!', by the likes of Corey Mwamba, Stuart Maconie and Jez Nelson. Keeffe is a Serious Artist and part of Serious’ Take Five 2022 cohort. She performed a duet with the mighty City of London as part of world-renowned trumpeter Dave Douglas' Festival of New Trumpet Music 2022.
Harnessing the power of art for social change is a crucial part of Keeffe’s musical identity: she has served as Assistant Musical Director of the London Gay Big Band, champions gender and diversity equality, as part of the Parliamentary award-winning Women in Jazz Media team, and played in Marin Alsop's Taki Concordia Orchestra at the World Economic Forum 2019, in front of world leaders and celebrities including Sir David Attenborough.
From stepping on Glastonbury and Wilderness stages alongside Charlotte Church, Laura Mvula and Kate Nash, to broadcasting to an international audience live from her bathroom during the pandemic, Keeffe understands that embracing individuality and letting go of inhibitions is the surest way to grasp the transformative power of music.
“Keeffe shows notable strength of character as she runs the sonic and emotional gamut..." - Kevin Le Gendre, JAZZWISE
Otto Willberg plays various bass instruments and lives in London. Live, Otto performs unashamedly melodic improvisational workouts created almost entirely with heavily filtered bass harmonica and electric bass. Strangely abstracted funk and fusion, a blend of the abstruse and immediate. silky smooth, luxurious, odd and compelling, "like listening to Eberhard Weber through a drainpipe”.
Otto is often heard on acoustic and electric bass with Laurie Tompkins (Yes Indeed) and Charles Hayward (Abstract Concrete//This Heat), as well as the fractured No Wave unit Historically Fucked. His previous solo releases have ranged from extended technique double bass to explorations of the acoustics of a 19th century artillery fort.
He has a solo record called ’The Leisure Principle’ out on Oren Ambarchi's the Black Truffle label. 6 unashamedly melodic & profoundly strange workouts for heavily filtered bass harmonica & electric bass!
Andrew Lisle is the London-based drummer who performs regularly with saxophonist Colin Webster and guitarist Dirk Serries, with releases on the Raw Tonk and New Wave of Jazz labels. He studied at Leeds College of Music, as well as having a period in Portugal working with some of Lisbon’s veteran improvisers. Now based in London, he works regularly with saxophonist Alan Wilkinson and clarinettist Alex Ward.
