Tuesday 14 January 2025, 7.30pm
Pleased to bring this stellar group of musicians together to pay tribute to the late, great Tony Oxley, by performing the pieces that comprise his landmark 1970 album, '4 Compositions for Sextet'. Rather than replicating the exact sound of the original recordings, the performance will explore Oxley's legacy in the music and honour his commitment to always moving the music forward.
Raph Clarkson / trombone
Charlotte Keeffe / trumpet and flugelhorn
Dominic Lash / double bass and arrangements
Andrew Lisle / drums
Rachel Musson / tenor and soprano saxophones
Alex Ward / electric guitar
Mark Wastell / percussion and electronics
Keeffe’s debut album ‘Right Here, Right Now’ is where you’ll find her exhibiting a passion for vibrant soundscapes rendered in live spaces. Released in 2021, also on Discus Music, she earned critical acclaim carving out a niche on the imprint. She also composes and performs for a number of the roster’s artists, including; Hi Res Heart, Carla Diratz and Julie Tippetts. She also co-leads Anthropology Band with the head of Discus Music, Martin Archer.
To date, her music has been featured significantly on BBC Radio 3, Jazz FM and BBC Radio 6, where she's been described as a 'prolific', 'dynamic' and 'excellent improviser!', by the likes of Corey Mwamba, Stuart Maconie and Jez Nelson. Keeffe is a Serious Artist and part of Serious’ Take Five 2022 cohort. She performed a duet with the mighty City of London as part of world-renowned trumpeter Dave Douglas' Festival of New Trumpet Music 2022.
Harnessing the power of art for social change is a crucial part of Keeffe’s musical identity: she has served as Assistant Musical Director of the London Gay Big Band, champions gender and diversity equality, as part of the Parliamentary award-winning Women in Jazz Media team, and played in Marin Alsop's Taki Concordia Orchestra at the World Economic Forum 2019, in front of world leaders and celebrities including Sir David Attenborough.
From stepping on Glastonbury and Wilderness stages alongside Charlotte Church, Laura Mvula and Kate Nash, to broadcasting to an international audience live from her bathroom during the pandemic, Keeffe understands that embracing individuality and letting go of inhibitions is the surest way to grasp the transformative power of music.
“Keeffe shows notable strength of character as she runs the sonic and emotional gamut..." - Kevin Le Gendre, JAZZWISE
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/
Andrew Lisle, born and raised in Northumberland (UK) but now based in London, is a multi-directional drummer, and composer. His quick and highly textural playing filled with rhythmic complexity makes him a highly in-demand member of the fertile jazz & improvised music community. In turns both propulsive and abstract, Lisle has worked with many of the leading voices on the UK and European improvised music scene, including: Kit Downes, John Edwards, Alex Ward, Camila Nebbia, Charlotte Keeffe, Tom Challenger, Ab Baars, Rodrigo Amado, John Dikeman, Colin Webster, and many more. He performs at notable venues including: Cafe oto, and Vortex (London); KM28 (Berlin), Bimhuis (Amsterdam), De Singer (Belgium), Galeria Zé Dos Bois (Lisbon); and festivals such as London Jazz Festival, Jazzfest Berlin, Freejazzfestival Saarbrucken, Jazz Jantar (Poland), to name a few. His most active projects currently are: Exhaust (feat. Camila Nebbia, Kit Downes), Multi-directional (feat. John Edwards, Kit Downes), Kit Downes SNAP, KODIAN Trio (feat. Colin Webster, Dirk Serries), Ab Baars/Aaron Lumley/Andrew Lisle, and Tom Challenger/Caius Williams/Andrew Lisle.
RACHEL MUSSON is a saxophonist, improviser and composer based in the UK. She has spent the last decade immersed in improvised music, and has also gradually been introducing composed elements into her work, drawing on text, field recordings and processing sounds. She is involved with a variety of improvisation projects, and works regularly with Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, Hannah Marshall, Julie Kjaer, Corey Mwamba, Olie Brice, Alex Ward and Alex Hawkins, amongst others. She features on several releases, including a nonet featuring her composition 'I Went This Way' (577 Records), two with Shifa, feat. Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders, (577 Records), one with Mark Sanders and John Edwards (Two Rivers Records), trio with Liam Noble and Mark Sanders (Babel), and Corey Mwamba (Takuroku).
Alex Ward's diverse musical activities since the early '90s have straddled the worlds of free improvisation, contemporary composition and avant rock, and have seen him work with such significant musical figures as Derek Bailey, Duck Baker, Lol Coxhill, Eugene Chadbourne, Simon H. Fell, Thurston Moore, Joe Morris, Steve Noble, Evan Parker, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Pat Thomas and Weasel Walter, amongst a host of others. His work as a composer/bandleader has encompassed his own ensembles such as Predicate, Forebrace, the Alex Ward Quintet and Items 4, 6, 7 & 10, alongside collaborative projects such as his duos with Dominic Lash, Jem Doulton (as Dead Days Beyond Help) and Sean Noonan (as Noonward); while his solo releases have ranged from unaccompanied performances on clarinet and guitar to the layered studio creations found on 2021's Gated. He currently plays guitar and sings in math/noise trio Heckle Chamber (with Roberto Sassi and Jem Doulton), and is working on the completion of the final album by legendary band Pere Ubu (which he joined in 2021) alongside the other surviving members.
"...guitarist Alex Ward [is] a compulsively creative polymath... a reliably unpredictable axe-hero for collaborators of all backgrounds." – Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times Review
Mark Wastell is a versatile improvising musician who has played a central role in the British improvised music scene for thirty years. 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, Tony Conrad, Evan Parker, Tim Barnes, Bernhard Günter, Keith Rowe, John Zorn, Peter Kowald, Joachim Nordwall, Otomo Yoshihide, David Toop, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Julie Tippetts, Alan Skidmore, Mike Cooper, Chris Abrahams, Stewart Lee, Clive Bell, Arild Andersen, Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Maggie Nicols, Will Gaines, Charlotte Keeffe, Thomas Lehn, Thurston Moore and David Sylvian.
Raph Clarkson has extensive experience as a UK trombonist, including performing with World Service Project, Laura Jurd, and with his own groups Resolute and Dissolute Society. Raph also has significant experience of workshop leading, including with Spitalfields Music and English National Opera.
