Wednesday 10 January 2024, 7.30pm
This concert will play music inspired by three Wayne Shorter albums recorded in 1969 and 1970. These albums - Super Nova, Moto Grosso Feio, and Odyssey of Iska – not only reflect a turbulent time in Wayne Shorter’s life but are situated in between his work with Miles Davis and Weather Report.
In terms of instrumentation, the albums feature multiple drummers/percussionists – including mallet instruments. More than one bassist is often heard along with ‘cello. Two guitarists – including Sonny Sharrock and John McLaughlin - are used and replace the more traditional use of piano. Of equal significance, Shorter is the only horn player.
Musically on these albums, Shorter is influenced by Brazilian music but also a collective approach to group improvisation – melodic Free Jazz – that would later be explored in early Weather Report.
The use of percussion, strings, and collective playing is reflected in the chosen musicians who have worked together in various duos and small group situations but come together as a ten-piece band for the first time at this concert.
Phil Durrant / electric mandolin, direction
Kim Macari / trumpet
Ed Jones / soprano and tenor sax
Dominic Lash / double bass and electric guitar
Shirley Smart / cello
Olie Brice / double bass
Jackie Walduck / vibraphone
Emil Karlsen / drums
Ansuman Biswas / percussion
Mark Wastell / percussion
Born near London in 1957, Phil Durrant is a multi-instrumentalist improviser/composer/sound artist who currently performs solo and group concerts. As a violinist (and member of the Butcher/Russell/ Durrant trio), he was one of the key exponents of the "group voice approach" style of improvised music. In the late 90s, his trio with Radu Malfatti and Thomas Lehn represented a shift to a more “reductionist” approach. Recently, he has been performing solo and duo concerts with Bill Thompson and Gaudenz Badrutt using a semi-modular synth system. He has also recently recorded and performed with Dominic Lash’s quartet which includes Rachel Musson and Steve Noble. As an acoustic or electric mandolinist, he has been performing duos with guitarists Daniel Thompson and Martin Vishnick. He also performs regularly in a trio with Mark Wastell and John Butcher and has many ongoing projects with drummer Emil Karlsen including a trio with Maggie Nicols. Durrant still performs regularly with the acoustic/electronic group Trio Sowari (with Bertrand Denzler and Burkhard Beins) and Mark Wastell’s The SEEN, as well as the international electronic ensemble MIMEO with Keith Rowe, Kaffe Matthews, Thomas Lehn, Rafael Toral a.o.
Originally from Fife, Scotland and now based in London, Kim Macari is a musician and composer immersed in the jazz and improvised music scene. Whether as a performer, teacher or a producer, her passion lies in the strength of improvised music as a means of expression and a form of empowerment and freedom.
Announced as one of 8 recipients of the Take Five initiative run by Serious for 2017, she is recognised for her work both as a performer and as an industry professional. She is currently Chair of Jazz from Scotland, on the teaching faculty of the National Youth Jazz Collective and a core team member of the Jazz100 project.
Saxophonist Ed Jones has been at the forefront of the British jazz scene for over twenty five years. His collaborations reflect his diverse musical interests: John Stevens, Evan Parker, George Benson, Dr Lonnie Smith, Charles Earland, Clifford Jarvis, Incognito, Us3, Nostagia 77, D’Angelo, Bootsy Collins, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, Carlene Anderson, Noel McCoy and Omar. Ed has also led his own quartet for many years and who’s recent 2018 release For Your Ears Only (Impossible Ark Records) has been warmly received by critics and listeners alike.
Dominic Lash concentrates on the double bass and electric guitar. He works regularly with musicians including John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Emil Karlsen, Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, and Alex Ward. He has lived and worked in Oxford, New York and Bristol, and is currently based in Cambridge where he and N.O. Moore curate the monthly improvised music series Soundhunt. He also runs the label Spoonhunt.
http://dominiclash.blogspot.co.uk/
Shirley Smart is recognised as one of the UK’s most versatile and creative cellists – being equally at home and well versed in jazz and Middle Eastern music, as well as classical music.
Originally trained under Raphael Wallfisch at the Guilldhall School of Music, and Janos Starker in Paris, she subsequently moved to Jerusalem, where she remained for 10 years, studying and performing a wide variety of musical traditions from the North Africa, Turkey and Middle East. She was also highly active on the jazz scene, working with artists including Avishai Cohen, Omer Avital and Yasmin Levy. Since returning to the UK, she has quickly become known as one of the most creative cellists on the music scene and has worked with many leading jazz and world music groups, including Antonio Forcione, Mulato Astatke, Gilad Atzmon, Neil Cowley, Julian Ferraretto, Robert Mitchell, Maya Youssef and Alice Zawadski. She leads her own trio, with John Crawford on piano, and Demi Garcia Sabat on drums, and band Melange.
Shirley is Professor of Musicianship and Improvisation at the Royal College of Music in London, and an Assistant Lecturer at Kent University. She also teaches at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and RCM Junior Department, as well as a visiting tutor for the National Youth Jazz Collective, and an in demand workshop leader.
https://www.shirleysmart.com/
Olie Brice is a double bassist, improviser and composer. Raised in London and Jerusalem, he now lives by the sea in Hastings.
Olie Brice leads and composes for two groups, a trio (with Tom Challenger & Will Glaser) and an Octet (with Alex Bonney, Kim Macari, Jason Yarde, Rachel Musson, George Crowley, Cath Roberts & Johnny Hunter). Both of these groups were featured on the critically acclaimed double album ‘Fire Hills’. Previously Brice lead a quintet – “one of the most interesting and satisfying bands on the current UK scene” – which released two albums, ‘Immune to Clockwork’ and ‘Day After Day’. He has also composed a piece for improvising string quartet, ‘From the Mouths of Lions’, which will be released in 2024.
Brice is a committed free improviser, who has performed, toured and recorded with many of the leading names in the music. Frequent collaborators include Mark Sanders, Paul Dunmall, Rachel Musson, Tobias Delius, Cath Roberts and Luis Vicente, and he has also appeared with the likes of Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, John Butcher, Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Vandermark, Eddie Prevost and Louis Moholo. He is part of several ongoing improvising ensembles including Somersaults (with Tobias Delius & Mark Sanders) and The Acrylic Rib (with Albert Cirera & Nicolas Field).
Brice is also in demand as a bass player in creative ensembles led by many artists, including Dee Byrne’s Outlines and Out Front (Nick Malcolm’s quintet playing the music of Andrew Hill and Booker Little). He regularly performs at venues and festivals across Europe. Brice has been the recipient of Arts Council England funding multiple times and in 2021 received a composition commission from Jazz South.
“Brice makes the entire body of his bass sing. He has the ability to deliver a fractal line that is as purposeful as any by the great jazz bassists, but to do so within an entirely abstract setting” - Brian Morton, Point of Departure
Jackie Walduck is a composer and vibraphone player, whose work explores the meeting points between composition and improvisation, and their impact on en-semble performance. She has performed across the UK, Europe and in the Middle East, with musicians as diverse as the Philharmonia, Sinfonia Viva, Kala Ram-nath, and the Royal Army Band of Oman. She composes for and leads The Acad-emy of St Martin in the Fields orchestra with homeless men and women The Sey-more Orchestra. Her collaborative film score for The Dress (Maggie Ford) was premiered at Cannes Film Festival (2008).
Jackie led Ignite Ensemble in their residency at Wigmore Hall Learning (2008-2019), Tactile, a band working with tactile notation under blindfold, and she co-directs Ethereal World with flautist Rowland Sutherland. Both a band and a club night, Ethereal World presents improvised music from some of the UK’s most exciting players drawn from contemporary classical, free improvisation and cross cultural jazz.
www.jackiewalduck.org
https://jackiewalduck.bandcamp.com/releases
Emil Karlsen is a Norwegian improvising drummer currently based in the UK. Described as a “significant addition to the UK free jazz scene” and an “exceptional improv drummer”, he’s establishing himself on the improvised music circuit working the span from free improvisation to free jazz. Occupied with the exploring timbral possibilities of the drum kit, he performs with Philipp Wachsmann, John Butcher, Phil Durrant and Maggie Nicols to mention some. Apart from being an active performer he’s central in the revitalisation of the historic Bead Records.
Ansuman Biswas has an interdisciplinary practice encompassing music, film, live art, installation, writing and theatre.
He has worked as a composer and musician in a wide range of contexts from jazz to Indian Classical music, pop songs to industrial noise. He has been commissioned by the Sonic Arts Network, the National Theatre, the Royal Ballet, the English National Opera and Guangdong Modern Dance Company in China.
He has worked with the BBC, Channel Four, MTV, Royal Opera House and The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. He has shown visual art at Tate Modern, The South London Gallery, The Whitechapel Gallery, the ICA.
Mark Wastell is a versatile improvising musician who has played a central role in the British improvised music scene for over a quarter of a century. He has performed and recorded extensively and his varied resume includes projects with Derek Bailey, Phil Durrant, John Butcher, Lasse Marhaug, Rhodri Davies, Simon H. Fell, Burkhard Beins, John Tilbury, Mattin, Mark Sanders, Tony Conrad, Evan Parker, Tim Barnes, Bernhard Günter, Keith Rowe, John Zorn, Peter Kowald, Joachim Nordwall, Otomo Yoshihide, Paul Dunmall, David Toop, Alan Wilkinson, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Julie Tippetts, Alan Skidmore, Mike Cooper, Chris Abrahams, Stewart Lee, Clive Bell, Arild Andersen, Jan Bang, Maggie Nicols, Thurston Moore and David Sylvian.
