Known for the sheer intensity and physicality of his music, and his ability to react at speed, British saxophonist Alan Wilkinson has played with many of the leading players on the international free scene, including Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann, Chris Corsano and many more, as well as being a tireless promoter and advocate of the music.

To mark his 60th birthday he presents a concert featuring two of the trios with which he has been most closely associated, Hession/Wilkinson/Fell formed during his time in Leeds in the late 1980s, and his trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble whose appropriately named CD ‘Live At Cafe OTO’ was one of Stewart Lee’s CDs of the noughties in the Sunday Times.

The evening will also include other shorter performances to be decided nearer the time.



Hession/Wilkinson/Fell grew out of Alan Wilkinson’s Termite Club night in Leeds and quickly developed a reputation for their almost impenetrable high energy performances, described by Richard Cook in the first Penguin Guide to Jazz as ‘ a band that outdoes the old Brötzmann groups for sheer firepower’. After a hiatus of some years they reconvened for a 21st anniversary tour in 2010 recording a session for Jazz on 3, and the live album ‘Two Falls & A Submission’.

“W/E/N steamrollered spectators suspicions with a set as powerful as The STOOGES and as fluid as JOHN COLTRANE” - Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times

Bassist Simon Fell is possibly best known for his compositional work, blending often ‘bewilderingly complex structures’ with improvisation, and his record label Bruce’s Fingers, but his virtuosic musicianship has complemented a whole gamut of situations from ‘straight’ musics to the microtonal and microdynamic improvisations of Ist with Rhodri Davies and Mark Wastel. Whatever hat he’s wearing he displays an infectious passion and delight which is sadly rarely seen on these shores since he relocated to France some years ago.

Paul Hession is a great drummer who served an early apprenticeship around the working men’s clubs of West Yorkshire before discovering Elvin Jones and moving towards the freer area of Jazz and Improvised Music. He has an instantly recognisable fast, fluid, rolling style, building layer upon layer, able to react instantly to the slightest nuance in the music, that has graced groups with the likes of Marshall Allen and Joe McPhee, and a whole host of others.

“they churn up a withering blaze of all-out Fire Music that picks up the torch of high energy 60s free jazz and rams it forcefully into the unsuspecting face of the 21st century.....Big, brutal, bruising brilliance” - Daniel Spicer, Jazzwise (July 2007)

Wilkinson/Edwards/Noble came together by default when Lol Coxhill was unable to make a gig. Needless to say the music was very different and lead to a liason that played numerous gigs and spawned 2 highly acclaimed records on the Bo’Weavil Recordings label. The rapid twists and turns in this music are directly born out of intense listening and intuitive creativity in the truest tradition of British Improvised Music, but willing to embrace a wide spectrum of styles which redefine barriers and prejudices.

Bassist John Edwards has been involved with a diversity of musical styles and situations. At home in both composed and improvised music he has rapidly become one of the busiest and most sort after musicians in London and abroad. Probably best known for his work with Evan Parker, John Butcher, Sunny Murray, Peter Brötzmann,etc., he has appeared in groups such as GOD, B-Shops for the Poor, and continues to collaborate with electro-acoustic composer John Wall, Spring Heel Jack, Fundamental and play in groups with Louis Moholo, Lol Coxhill, Ingrid Laubrock, and Charles Hayward to name a few. He also performs solo, releasing a CD of solo bass improvisations, entitled VOLUME to great critical acclaim in 2008.

Steve Noble is rightly described as one of the UK’s most creative drummers, mixing the earliest jazz drum influences with a wide range of modern, global, and free styles. From playing with Nigerian master Elkan Ogunde, Rip,Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, he went on to play with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks in 1987/89/90); Alex Maguire; Tristan Honsinger; Pat Thomas, performing throughout Europe, Africa, and America. He leads the groups Decoy, and N.E.W., and has recently been playing in quartet, trio and duo with Peter Brötzmann . He also plays with SFQ(with Simon Fell); Badland; Gannets; Aethenor; Tim Hills Tongues of Fire, and runs the PING PONG record label.



Alan Wilkinson also plays in the quartets AKÖDE with Norwegians Kim Johanesen, Ola Höyer, and Dag Erik Knedal Andersen (playing at Cafe OTO on October 12th) and The Founder Effect with Pat Thomas, John Coxon and Steve Noble, and will appear at OTO with Chris Corsano, Pat Thomas and Mette Rasmusen on August 21st.