Monday 5 October 2026, 7pm
Stephen Haynes, Sam Eastmond, Alexander Hawkins, Al Bonney, Evan Parker, Artur Majewski, Fergus Quill, Charlotte Keeffe and Will Glaser. Kevin Le Gendre will also host an in-conversation with Stephen Haynes for part one of the event.
False Locust is delighted to present Bill Dixon 101 at Cafe OTO. Over the last year, they have celebrated the life and legacy of trumpeter, composer, artist, educator, and political activist, Bill Dixon, in his centenary year. The event marks both 101 years since Dixon’s birth, and a year of events celebrating his centenary.
Resolutely determined to stay true to his artistic philosophy, resisting standard definitions of composition, timbre, and jazz, Bill Dixon left an indelible mark on those who received his message, especially his students at Bennington College, Vermont. In 1964, he co-organised New York's landmark avant-garde festival, October Revolution in Jazz, with equal emphasis on political panel discussion and live music. In 1967, he released his first album as leader, the seminal Intents and Purposes. Throughout the 1980s and onwards, Dixon toured extensively through Europe, recording some of his most important albums, such as In Italy, and later with Tony Oxley, William Parker, and Barry Guy, Vade Mecum. Dixon continued to create and inspire until his passing in 2010.
The night will begin with a discussion between Kevin Le Gendre and Stephen Haynes. Le Gendre interviewed Dixon for the BBC in 2004; Haynes, making his UK debut, collaborated with Dixon for over 35 years.
The first live set will be a freely improvising nonet, featuring Stephen Haynes, Sam Eastmond, Will Glaser, Alexander Hawkins, Evan Parker, Fergus Quill, Artur Majewski, Charlotte Keeffe and Al Bonney.
The night will close with a performance of Index, a composition Dixon considered one of his most significant works, performed by the Index Orchestra and conducted by Sam Eastmond.
False Locust is supported by the Early Career Promoter Fund which is managed by PRS Foundation and funded by Arts Council England using Supporting Grassroots Music funding from DCMS.
Poster by Karina Sletten.
Stephen Haynes is an improviser, community organizer and recording artist. His practice ranges from small groups to large orchestras with a particular focus on working directly with composers in the development and performance of new music. This aspect of his work is prominently featured on Pillars, Tyshawn Sorey’s groundbreaking work for octet released on Firehouse 12 Records. He is also a founding member of Adam Rudolph’s East Coast version of Go: Organic Orchestra. Over the past 45 years, he has worked with a range of vanguard composers including Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, George Russell, Butch Morris, Rhys Chatham, Gunter Hampel, LaMonte Young and Earle Brown. Haynes’ latest project – Knuckleball – is a modern take on the brass band, grounded in Free Music practice. Recorded during the spring of 2023, the music should see release in 2027 on the Fundacja Słuchaj! label as a box set.
Alexander Hawkins’ work ranges from his acclaimed solo performances (‘intensely intricate…powerful, technically brilliant and melodically inventive’) through to works on a much larger canvas, such as his Togetherness Music ('[a] masterpiece that can stand next to the best works of Mitchell, Braxton or Parker’). He collaborates regularly with all generations of creative musicians, including the likes of Anthony Braxton, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, John Surman, Joe McPhee, Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Sofia Jernberg, Shabaka Hutchings, and many others. Further creative associations, with two very different icons of African music, Louis Moholo-Moholo and Mulatu Astatke, stretch back for well over a decade. He has been widely commissioned as a composer, including by the likes of the BBC, Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, and numerous festivals. His performance schedule takes him to club, concert hall, and festival stages worldwide.
"Sounds like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details" – The Guardian
Alex Bonney is a trumpeter, electronic musician and recording/mix engineer and producer based in London.
He leads the Alex Bonney Quartet, is a member of Leverton Fox, light.box, BABs, Golden Age of Steam, The Olie Brice Quintet, and performs solo with electronics and in a variety of other improvising ensembles. When not performing Alex works with a variety of artists producing and engineering music for leading jazz, improvised and contemporary music record labels including ECM.
"If you've ever been tempted by free improvisation, Parker is your gateway drug." - Stewart Lee
Evan Parker has been a consistently innovative presence in British free music since the 1960s. Parker played with John Stevens in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation and held a long-standing partnership with guitarist Derek Bailey. The two formed the Music Improvisation Company and later Incus Records. He also has tight associations with European free improvisations - playing on Peter Brötzmann's legendary 'Machine Gun' session (1968), with Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens (A trio that continues to this day), Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, and Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO).
Though he has worked extensively in both large and small ensembles, Parker is perhaps best known for his solo soprano saxophone music, a singular body of work that in recent years has centred around his continuing exploration of techniques such as circular breathing, split tonguing, overblowing, multiphonics and cross-pattern fingering. These are technical devices, yet Parker's use of them is, he says, less analytical than intuitive; he has likened performing his solo work to entering a kind of trance-state. The resulting music is certainly hypnotic, an uninterrupted flow of snaky, densely-textured sound that Parker has described as "the illusion of polyphony". Many listeners have indeed found it hard to credit that one man can create such intricate, complex music in real time.
Artur Majewski, born in 1978, Polish trumpeter and improviser. Best known for his work with groups MIKROKOLEKTYW and ROBOTOBIBOK.
Years into his career, thanks to his unprecedented artistic abilities and his own original musical voice, Artur Majewski has become one of the most interesting improvisers in Europe and collaborates all over the globe.
He performed with groups EXPLODING STAR ORCHESTRA, JOSHUA ABRAMS NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY, MAZUR / MAJEWSKI DUO, TONE HUNTING, FOTON QUARTET, ALZHEIMER TRIO and KRISTEN, and musicians: Fred Anderson, Rob Mazurek, Nicole Mitchell, Josh Abrams, Mike Reed, Chad Taylor, Noel Kupersmith, Matt Lux, Jason Adasiewicz, Mat Bauder, Jason Ajemian, Noritaka Tanaka, Nate McBride, John Herndon, Tim Mulvenna, Harrison Bankhead, Steve Hunt, Edward Wilkerson Jr., Barry Guy, Ramon Lopez, Jim Baker, Mauricio Takara, Richard Ribeiro, Noël Akchoté, Zlatko Kaucic, Agustí Fernández, Lotte Anker, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Reiko Yamada, Izumi Kimura, Tomaz Grom, Kuba Suchar, Rafal Mazur, Anna Kaluza, Gerard Lebik, Patryk Zakrocki and Michał Biela among others.
Toured and performed in Europe, USA, Japan and Israel. Have released more than 30 albums for labels such as Delmark Records, Clean Feed, NotTwo, Fundacja Słuchaj, Bołt and Vytvornia OM.
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
Will was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. In 2010 he moved to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Drawing eclectically on the Jazz tradition, Improvised music, Rock, Noise, Folk, Blues, Experimental and Electronic music - Will leads his own projects and is a highly in demand drummer on the British Jazz and Experimental music scenes.
He is a member of avant-rock bands Snack Family & World Sanguine Report and has performed with a wide range of artists including; James Allsopp, Andrew Plummer, Sly and the Family Drone, Ruth Goller, Alex Bonney, Stef Kett, Tom Challenger, Olie Brice, George Crowley, Dave De Rose, Liam Noble, Soweto Kinch, Dame Cleo Laine, Stan Sulzmann, Kit Downes, Ben Van Gelder, Nikki Iles, Iain Ballamy, Dinosaur, Alex Garnett, Josephine Davies, Yazz Ahmed, Henry Lowther, Babelfish, Rick Simpson, Sam Eastmond & Riley Stone-Lonergan.
In September 2018 Will started teaching on the Guildhall School of Music's Jazz course.
Kevin Le Gendre is a journalist and broadcaster with an interest in black music, literature and culture. Since the late 90s he has written about soul, jazz, African and Caribbean musicians and authors for a wide variety of publications that includes Echoes, Jazzwise, The Independent, The Guardian and Vibrations [Switzerland]. He has also contributed to and presented programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4 such as Jazz Line Up and Front Row. In 2013 his first book Soul Unsung: Reflections On The Band In Black Popular Music was published to critical acclaim by Equinox.
