Tuesday 17 July 2018, 6.30pm, OTO Project Space
CRAM is music collective & independent record label, formed in 2009. It is dedicated to the support, production, promotion and development of improvised and new music. It was founded by Benedict Taylor and is curated by Benedict Taylor, Tom Jackson & Daniel Thompson. It is made up of a fluid group of musicians/artists, at the forefront of the London improvising & new music community, alongside key figures in music throughout many countries in Europe, Asia & North America. The group have, over the course of 9 years, programmed numerous concert series, tours & international residencies, BBC Radio broadcasts, an ongoing three day festival of improvisation and many album releases. They are thrilled to be bringing some CRAM artists to Cafe Oto in 2018.
https://cramrecords.bandcamp.com
http://cramrecords.blogspot.com
Duo: Sarah Gail Brand (trombone) & Benedict Taylor (viola)
Trio: Steve Noble (drums/perc), Adrian Northover (saxophones), Daniel Thompson (guitar)
Duo: Quentin Stokart (guitar) & Tom Jackson (clarinets)
Described by The Wire magazine as “the most exciting trombone player for years” Sarah Gail Brand has recorded and performed on the international Improvised Music and Jazz scene since the early 1990s with Mark Sanders, John Edwards, Elton Dean, Evan Parker, Phil Minton, Veryan Weston, Lol Coxhill, Maggie Nicols, Wadada Leo Smith, Steve Beresford, Georg Graewe, writer and comedian Stewart Lee and countless others. Sarah fronts her own tunes quartet (Sarah Gail Brand Sextet), has a long standing duo with drummer Mark Sanders, and a trio with John Edwards and Steve Beresford and continues to work as a soloist and in ad hoc ensembles. As well as being a composer, Sarah’s trombone work ranges from playing Improvised Music and Jazz, studio session work to arranging & playing in pop and rock music. Sarah is a music therapist and a professor of Improvisation at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London and leads workshops on improvisation around the world. Recordings of Sarah Gail’s work can be found on the Emanem and regardless record labels.
Benedict Taylor is a solo violist, violinist & composer, working in improvised and new music. As an improviser he likes to play and record with many super people, and over the years has worked with; Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Terry Day, Lauren Kinsella, Lawrence Upton, Alex Ward, Cath Roberts, Tom Jackson, Renee Baker, Paul Dunmall, Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, Dirk Serries, Steve Beresford, Angharad Davies, Neil Luck, John Edwards, Ivor Kallin, Anton Mobin, Hannah Marshall, David Leahy, Adam de la Cour, Alison Blunt, Chris Cundy, Daniel Thompson, Kit Downes, Yves Charuest, Alexander Hawkins, Tom Challenger, Miya, Tetsu Saito, Erika Sofia Sollo, Gianni Mimmo, Stephen Crowe, Marcello Magliocchi amongst others.
Festival, venue and radio appearances include; Spontaneous Music Festival Poland, BBC Radio 3, Jazz en Nord Festival France, BBC Radio Late Junction, Cafe Oto, The Vortex, London Contemporary Music Festival, Tete a Tete Opera Festival, Ronnie Scott's, Aldeburgh Festival, Galway Jazz Festival, Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte Montepulciano, Southbank Centre, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Fête de la Musique Berlin, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Manchester International Festival, Royal Court Theatre, Trafalgar Studios, Manchester Jazz Festival, Cheltenham Festival, BBC Radio 2, Resonance FM, Radio Libertaire - Epsilonia - Paris, Rotterdam Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Berlinale, Palm Springs Film Festival, London Film Festival.
He has an annual ongoing series of solo string albums, investigating the viola and violin in all manner of ways.
Steve Noble is London's leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Stephen O'Malley, Joe McPhee, Alex Ward, Rhodri Davies and many, many more.
In the early eighties, Noble played with the Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde, Rip Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, before going on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987, 89 and 90). He was featured in the Bailey's excellent TV series on Improvisation for Channel 4 based on his book ‘Improvisation; its nature and practise’. He has toured and performed throughout Europe, Africa and America and currently leads the groups N.E.W (with John Edwards and Alex Ward) and DECOY (with John Edwards and Alexander Hawkins).
Adrian plays soprano, sopranino and alto saxophones, and is based in London. He can currently be heard playing on the London club scene with a wide range of musicians, including the London Improvisers Orchestra, as well as doing solo saxophone performances.
Adrian also works with film/sound and runs 'Ensemble Kino', a pool of musicians providing live music to film, as well as the yearly Triptik film night events, involving a stellar cast of improvisers.
As well as 'Jazz Thali' (Indo -Greek Jazz fusion) with Harvir Sahota (tabla) and Tasos Stamou (bouzouki), he can also be booked to play Bollywood tunes for weddings, either as solo sax on in a duo with tabla.
Daniel was born in Norfolk, England. Largely self-taught, he moved to London in 2005 and studied with the guitarist John Russell for two years. Since then, he has performed at many venues and festivals across the UK and Europe. In addition, he has also been organising concerts including the ‘The Shoreditch Church Concert Series' with Benedict Taylor.
Currently you can hear and see Daniel performing solo, with other musicians in many ad-hoc improvising situations and in long-term collaborations or 'working groups'. Recent collaborations include performances and/or recordings with Neil Metcalfe, Steve Noble, Caroline Kraabel, Max Reed, John Edwards, Benedict Taylor, Tom Jackson, Vid Drasler, Evan Parker, Adam Bohman, Sue Lynch, Alex Ward, Kay Grant, Roland Ramanan, Adrian Northover, Marcello Magliocchi, Alan Wilkinson, Colin Webster amongst others.
Daniel is the founder and artistic director of 'Empty Birdcage Records', a label dedicated to releasing documents of free improvisation. emptybirdcagerecords.bandcamp.com
Born in Liege in 1988, Quentin Stokart studied music in Maastricht and Antwerp. He currently lives in Brussels, where he develops and composes his own music. He is active in different projects such as “qb’’, an acoustic duo with Benjamin Sauzereau on guitar and compositions.
He plays in the trio Edi Olvitt, with Nicolas Chkifi on drums and Mathieu Robert on soprano saxophone, who released an album on the Portuguese label Creative Source in January 2016. He leads the group Quentin Stokart trio with Gaspard Sicx on drums and Soet Kempeneer on bass, playing his own compositions. In the saxophonist Bruno Grollet's quartet, he explores jazz standards with Gaspard Sicx (d) and Nicola Lancerotti (b).
He also experiment improvised music with Franq, a trio with Tom Malmendier on snare and Frans Van Isacker on alto saxophone.
http://quentinstokart.wixsite.com/quentinstokart
https://quentinstokart.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/quentinstokart
Tom Jackson is a clarinettist and saxophonist active in London and Europe, largely dedicated to the fields of contemporary classical music and free improvisation. He maintains an extensive and eclectic performance schedule and has performed throughout Europe, Australia and Asia.
Tom has worked with various contemporary chamber groups such as Apartment House, Lontano, Plus-Minus, ChampdAction, Ictus and Splinter Cell. He has recently completed a PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University on relational aesthetics and free improvisation.
“Tom Jackson conjured a jaw-dropping array of sonic effects.” – Cusp Magazine
