Thursday 29 January 2015, 6.30pm, OTO Project Space
Bass, drums and saxophone are the core elements of (what might still be called) ‘free-jazz’. Bassist Guillaume Viltard and saxophonist Seymour Wright are two of the most exciting current developers of this tradition. Since late summer 2013 they have been part of a group of musicians playing, pushing and learning day and night in the OTO project space notably with Steve Noble, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser.
The continuity across different meetings is fascinating, and the opportunity to welcome Brussel based saxophonist Audrey Lauro in public is quite exciting.
Seymour Wright & Audrey Lauro, sax
Steve Noble, drums
Guillaume Viltard, double-bass
Seymour Wright is a saxophonist. His work is about the creative, situated friction of learning, ideas, people and the saxophone – music, history and technique – actual and potential.
Seymour's solo music is documented on three widely-acclaimed collections - Seymour Wright of Derby (2008), Seymour Writes Back (2015) and Is This Right? (2017).
Current projects include: @xcrswx with Crystabel Riley; abaria with Ute Kanngiesser; [Ahmed] with Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Pat Thomas; GUO with Daniel Blumberg; XT with Paul Abbott; The Creaking Breeze Ensemble; a trans-atlantic duet with Andy Guthrie, and, with Jean-luc Guionnet a project addressing an imaginary lacunae in Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne.
@xcrswx
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).
An intensely physical double-bassist Viltard was one of OTO’s first associate artists – he has played and performed here with musicians as diverse as Otomo Yoshihide and Kan Mikami, Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Evan Parker. Particularly memorable was a sensational solo set in support of Marc Ribot. Most often his work has been in the ‘classic’ jazz format of saxophone/bass/drums: from trios with the late Tony Marsh and Shabaka Hutchings, to most recently Eddie Prévost and Ken Vandermark.
His uncompromising, physical and rhythmic approach to the double-bass – always acoustic, adamant – connects to jazz learning from sources as diverse as Jean-Jacques Avenel, Barre Phillips, Johnny Mbizo Dyani and Ronnie Boykins.
His close association with OTO endures, and since late summer 2013 he has been part of a group of musicians playing, pushing and learning day and night in the OTO project space. Most often private, groupings around this new energy these groups are increasingly public, for example Steve Noble’s (new) Quartet.
Video by Helen Petts
Audrey Lauro is an alto saxophonist with a wealth of experience in the Belgian experimental music scene, having played with Marc Ribot, Veryan Weston, Peter Evans, Carlos Zingaro, Javier Carmona, Sabu Toyozumi and Daysuke Takaoka amongst others. Her first CD in 2008 on the Brussels label by-records - Mrs Okkido - featured Pierre Vervolesem and since then Lauro has focussed mostly on free improvised music. In 2012 she curated the festival Wolves Stories dedicated to the female improv scene.
