Friday 29 September 2017, 7.30pm
Mike Cooper celebrates his 75th birthday this year at Cafe Oto in the company of an all star group of musical improvising friends; Pat Thomas, Orphy Robinson, Michael Thieke and Tim Hill.
In the 1980's When Mike was still based in the UK Pat and Tim were both members of his Reading based groups Beating Time, Trystero System and Continental Drift.
Berlin based Michael Thieke is currently a member of Cooper's Rome based Spirit Songs band and Orphy ( a member of Black Top with Pat Thomas) is a new friend.
Together they will re-create music from some of Cooper's recent Blue Guitar, Raft and Reluctant Swimmer/Virtual Surfer vinyl releases and some of Cooper's 'Spirit Songs' cut-ups of Thomas Pynchon novels.
Blue Guitar - Idea Records
"A truly astonishing new album from the always excellent Idea Records. Cooper's gutsy and tough avant-garde blues make this one of the most original albums of the year. Rich, powerful and unlike anything you've heard..." - Clipper Ship Bookstore.
Raft - Room 40 Records
Following on from Fratello Mare and White Shadows Of The South Seas, two previous albums on Lawrence English’s Brisbane-based Room40 label, and both dedicated to seafaring in this part of the world, Mike Cooper’s latest album Raft is dedicated to the solo voyager, of which he is an eminent example. Based in Rome, he is an intrepid musical voyager, both in terms of musical genres, starting with blues, gravitating to jazz, folk and experimental music, as well as physically, having travelled to most parts of the world with his guitar, recording equipment and electronics. - Cyclic Defrost.
“The icon of post-everything music” – Lawrence English (::Room40::)
For the past 50 years he has been an international artistic explorer constantly pushing the boundaries.
Mike Cooper’s output of the past half century has been described as ‘post-everything’. It’s a fitting phrase really when you consider he has been at the beating heart of so many critical musical moments. From the development of the blues touring circuit in the UK, through the growth of the folk scene and into the explosion of free improvisation that came to define a generation of UK musicians. Amidst it all, working at stitching these disparate forms into some kind of deterritorialised zone, was Mike Cooper. - Lawrence English Room 40 Records.
“Cooper, 75 this year, is making the most adventurous music of his life… incredibly rich and evocative, and as a live performance, it’s utterly flawless. Cooper takes live guitar processing and sampling as his raw material, using it to build something complex and substantive, full of ideas and surprises, not just abandoning it half-formed.” – (Jonathan Dean – Brainwashed)
He plays lap steel guitar and sings, he is an improviser and composer, song-maker, a visual and installation artist; film and video maker and radio arts producer.
Michael Thieke is equally at home across a broad range of musical environments, such as experimental song forms, collectively composing projects, improvising collectives, and music on the fringes of jazz. He is exploring the minutiae of sound, timbre and noise, with a particular interest in microtonality and related sound phenomena.
Tim Hill lives in Somerset, plays the saxophone and makes noise drawing on free improvisation, grooves, electronica, composition, traditional music and ritual sound. He often works out of doors in street bands, performances and rituals.
Current projects include The Noise Eating Monsters with Alex Ward (album out in October on Muteant Sounds) and Brazen Heads, a duo with Wayne Rex (https://waynerex.bandcamp.com/album/verdigris).
Since the 1980s he has played with improvisers like Mike Cooper, Paul Burwell, Steve Noble, John Edwards and Derek Bailey.www.soundcloud.com/timhill2
“Muscular, well developed playing... somewhere between Johnny Hodges and Dudu Pukwana.” – Phillip Clarke, The Wire
Pat Thomas studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990/91) and in the trio AND (with Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill.
"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude." - The Jazzmann
Orphy Robinson is an award-winning multi- Instrumentalist, One of the few UK musicians to have been signed to the legendary USA Jazz label “Blue Note”.
Robinson has performed on over 100 recordings with numerous internationally acclaimed artists across many genres of music.
These include artists as diverse as Lawrence Butch Morris, Hugh Masekela, Don Cherry, Robert Plant, Thurston Moore, Robert Wyatt, The Jazz Warriors, Cleveland Watkiss, Wadada Leo Smith, Lionel Loueke, Henry Grimes, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Jean Luc Ponty, Marshall Allen, Sun Ra Arkestra to name a few.
Throughout his 40-year career, he has constantly been nominated or won numerous prestigious industry awards. These include 2022 Paul Hamlyn Award, 2 Jazz Fm awards 2017 Live Experience of the Year” & 2020 Gold Award. Nominated for the 2022 ‘Best Jazz Ensemble’ at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.
2017 – 2019 Orphy held the position of Artist in residence at the Gibraltar World music Festival.
2018 Artistic director at the Gibraltar World music Festival.
Orphy sits on various industry Boards Such as the Ivor’s Academy where he is both Deputy Chair and the Chair of the Jazz + Genre Committee.
ECSA (European Composers & Songwriters Alliance) Trustee & Chair of the ECF - Art & Contemporary music Committee.
Vice Chair for the UK Promoters organization “Jazz Promotion Network”.
Orphy has also written articles for various industry music magazines such as Wire Magazine, Jazzwise & Online platform JAZZED.
Orphy has also presented Guest radio programmes on:
BBC Radio 3, Jazz Fm, Resonance Fm, Worldwide FM, Solar Radio.
Since 2016 Robinson has presented a weekly show on internet Radio station - Delite Radio. www.deliteradio.com
