Friday 30 August 2024, 7.30pm
“a vision not just of what music can be and do, but of what it can become” – Richard Williams in the liner notes for Decoy’s first release, “OTO”
Excited to present the powerhouse trio of John Edwards (bass), Alexander Hawkins (hammond organ) and Steve Noble (drums) for an unmissable three-day residency featuring special guests, Jason Yarde, Camila Nebbia and Xhosa Cole.
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).
John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others.
"I think John Edwards is absolutely remarkable: there’s never been anything like him before, anywhere in jazz." - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
Alexander Hawkins’ work ranges from his acclaimed solo performances (‘intensely intricate…powerful, technically brilliant and melodically inventive’) through to works on a much larger canvas, such as his Togetherness Music ('[a] masterpiece that can stand next to the best works of Mitchell, Braxton or Parker’). He collaborates regularly with all generations of creative musicians, including the likes of Anthony Braxton, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, John Surman, Joe McPhee, Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Sofia Jernberg, Shabaka Hutchings, and many others. Further creative associations, with two very different icons of African music, Louis Moholo-Moholo and Mulatu Astatke, stretch back for well over a decade. He has been widely commissioned as a composer, including by the likes of the BBC, Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, and numerous festivals. His performance schedule takes him to club, concert hall, and festival stages worldwide.
"Sounds like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details" – The Guardian
Camila Nebbia from Buenos Aires, based in Berlin, is a saxophone player, composer, improviser, visual artist and curator debasing hierarchical systems across migration, identity and memory. Nebbia has released several solo saxophone albums. Her most recent –'una ofrenda a la ausencia' (an offering to absence) with Relative Pitch Records– was described by Jazz PT as a 'mercurial and stimulating album that reaffirms her as an essential saxophonist of our time' and by the NYC Jazz Record as an 'innately human and personal album, surprising listeners with a passionate approach to jazz'. She has also released albums as band leader, and other collaborative projects, super 8 films and commissioned work for other ensembles. Across these projects, the multidisciplinary artist layers her practice through the creation and destruction of archival memory.
Has released as a band leader and solo performer “A veces la luz de lo que existe resplandece solamente a la distancia” (Kuai 2017), “De este lado” (Club del disco 2019), Aura (ears&eyes records 2020),“Corre el río de la memoria” (ramble records 2021) and “Presencias” (Sound Holes 2021) “Una ofrenda a la ausencia” (Relative Pitch Records 2023), “La permanencia de los ecos” (577 Records 2023).
Played and recorded with many artists of the international scene such as Angelica Sanchez, Vinnie Sperrazza, Susana Santos Silva, Tom Rainey, Micheal Formaneck, John Edwards, Mark Sanders, Lesley Mok, Marilyn Crispell, Randy Peterson, Kenneth Jimenez, Cecilia Lopez, Gabrielle Miteli, Barbara Togander, Paula Shocron, Andrea Parkins, among others.
Co-creator and curator of the interdisciplinary festival “Festival Guillotina' in Buenos Aires' and creator and curator of the streaming concert series called “A door in the mountain” as part of her Fellowship with Experimental Sound Studio of Chicago 2022. Curates the concert series “Disfigured Rivers” based in Berlin.
Camila Nebbia is endorsed by D'Addario Woodwinds.
