Monday 6 March 2017, 7.30pm
Rodrigo Amado / tenor saxophone
Joe McPhee / pocket trumpet, alto saxophone
Kent Kessler / double bass
Chris Corsano / drums
Portugese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado makes a welcome return to OTO alongside the all-star quartet with whom he recorded 2015's raptuously-received This Is Our Language.
“This Is Our Language is a natural extension of the similarly titled This Is Our Music by the Ornette Coleman Quartet (Atlantic, 1961). Amado’s group enjoys the same clairvoyant chemistry as Coleman’s did, and are no less equipped to deliver their message. Amado et al. summarize and expound upon the fifty-odd years of achievements in free jazz that have passed since Coleman’s opus.” – Peter Gough, Free Jazz Blog
“It’s astonishing what such an aggregation of individualists can achieve when they’re collectively steeped in a common language, when they can reformulate its syntax with such spontaneity and depth of feeling.” – Dalston Sound on ‘This Is Our Language’
Joe McPhee grew up in New York, is a multi-instrumentalist and plays since the late 60ties within the creative and free jazz music world. His play is energetic, demanding and breathtaking sensitive - still with over 80 years! He learnt to play trumpet as a kid and - inspired by John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and Ornette Colemann - he thought himself saxophone in his thirties. McPhee's first recording was with Clifford Thornton in 1967 on the album "Freedom and Unity". He became involved and known in Europe in the midd 70ties and since the 90ties he also plays with a younger generation from Chicago and New York. He played/plays regular for example with Ken Vandermark, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Mats Gustafsson, Dominic Duval, Jay Rosen, Jeb Bishop, The Thing, Clifton Hyde, Jérôme Bourdellon, Raymond Boni, Joe Giardullo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_McPhee
CHRIS CORSANO is an upstate NY-based drummer who has been active at the intersections of collective improvisation, free jazz, avant-rock, and noise music since the late 1990's. Corsano is one of the greatest drummers working today, developing a percussive language of extraordinary amplitude and infinite resources. His collaborations stretch from free jazz greats (Joe McPhee, Evan Parker, Paul Flaherty & more) to noise mavens (Jandek, Bill Nace, C Spencer Yeh etc) and pop superstars (Björk). Capable of generating narrative out of permanent ecstasy, Corsano never ceases to be profoundly affirmative and imposing of his language, and being an absolute and charismatic virtuoso, he simultaneously is one of the most noble and generous improvisers of the few last decades.
A move from western Massachusetts to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop his solo music - a dynamic, spontaneously-composed amalgam of extended techniques for drum set and non-percussive instruments of his own making: e.g. bowed violin strings stretched across drum heads, modified reed instruments, and stockpiles of resonant metal. In February 2006, Corsano released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer, and toured extensively throughout Europe, USA, Australia, and Japan. In 2009, Corsano returned focus to his own projects, including a duo with Michael Flower, Vampire Belt (with Bill Nace), Rangda (with Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny) and his solo work, further expanded in its use of contact microphones and synthesizers. In 2017, he received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artist Award.
Corsano's dedication to collective improvisation has led to collaborations with many kindred spirits and his appearance on over 150 records and 1000 live performances. He's worked with, among others: Paul Dunmall (released by ESP-Disk), Joe McPhee (Roaratorio), Okkyung Lee (Open Mouth), Earth Ball (Upset The Rhythm), Nate Wooley (No Business & Astral Spirits), Jim O'Rourke & Akira Sakata (Drag City), Merzbow (Family Vineyard), Jessica Rylan (Load Records), John Edwards, Nels Cline, Heather Leigh, Ghédalia Tazartès and Sunburned Hand Of Man.
https://chriscorsano.bandcamp.com/music
“At the shifting boundary between free jazz and improvised music, Rodrigo Amado’s position is clear: he plays jazz. He is so clearly a jazz musician that he doesn’t require any pre-determined elements of rhythm, harmony, chorus lengths or melody to play jazz. There’s a rhythmic impetus, a bite in his sound, part grain, part beat, and it drives his lines forward, a sound and an impulse that are part him and part history, a fundamental impress on the world that tenor saxophonists like Coleman Hawkins, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Archie Shepp have been making for generations. On his CD Searching for Adam, Rodrigo Amado quotes another saxophonist, Sam Rivers: “Freedom does not mean unconditional renunciation of melody and rhythm, but the freedom of being able to choose what I want to play” It’s a fitting credo for Amado, whose music dances across the boundaries of free jazz and improvised music. There’s rarely a theme in earshot, but there’s an abundance of energized particles and a strongly focused voice. In the past decade, he has matched impulses with a series of international partners while building distinctive Lisbon bands like Motion Trio or the Wire Quartet. Amado is an emerging master of a great tradition, more apparent with each new recording or performance.” - Stuart Broomer
