Saturday 23 September 2017, 7.30pm
Music history in the making as Norwegian double bass legend performs his first ever solo recital in London. Supported by the long overdue and welcomed return of Clive Bell & Mark Wastell, who last played at Cafe OTO together as a duo way back in 2008.
Arild Andersen, one of Norway's Big Four, alongside Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal and Jon Christensen — a group of artists who, with the assistance of the emerging ECM label in the early 1970s, kick-started international focus on the music from a country that, despite its relatively small population, has become a truly vital force in the evolution of jazz over the past 40 years. (All About Jazz)
Arild Andersen / solo double bass
+
Clive Bell / shakuhachi flute
Mark Wastell / tam tam, bells, frame drum, temple bowls
Arild Andersen was born in Norway in 1945. He has been one of Europe’s leading bass players since the early seventies. He started out as a member of Jan Garbarek Quartet (1967–1973), which also included Terje Rypdal and Jon Christensen. During the same period, he played in the local rhythm section in Oslo for visiting American musicians, working and recording with Don Cherry, George Russell and Sam Rivers He has recorded twenty-one albums in his own name for ECM, alongside such great musicians as Bill Frisell, Ralph Towner, Nana Vasconcelos, Paul Motian, Alphonze Mouzon, Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor. From 1982 to 1992, his band Masqualero included Nils Petter Molvaer and Jon Christensen. In the nineties, his band included Bendik Hofseth, Bugge Wesseltoft, Eivind Aarset and Nana Vasconcelos. He has played and toured with John Abercrombie, Stan Getz, Pat Metheny, Paul Bley, John Scofield and Sheila Jordan, among others. In 2005, he was Artist in Residence at the Molde International Jazzfestival. In 2007, ECM released the CD Live at Belleville, where Andersen was joined by Tommy Smith on sax and Paolo Vinaccia on drums. That CD received rave reviews around the world. In 2008, he was named Jazz Musician of the Year by the Académie du Jazz in France. In 2010, critics rated the trio with Smith and Vinaccia a highlight of the Tokyo International Jazz Festival. In 2010, he performed in a concert with Tommy Smith’s Jazz Orchestra organised to celebrate the work of ECM, and a live recording was released in 2012 on a CD entitled Celebration. In 2014, ECM released the new CD MIRA, with new recordings by the Andersen-Vinaccia-Smith trio.
Clive Bell is a musician, composer and writer with a specialist interest in the shakuhachi, khene (Thai mouth organ) and other East Asian wind instruments. He has travelled extensively in Japan (where he studied shakuhachi with the master Kohachiro Miyata), Thailand, Laos and Bali, researching music and meeting local practitioners. He currently tours with UK-based Japanese drumming group Taiko Meantime, and joins koto and shamisen players to perform the Japanese classical repertoire. He toured for over a decade with Jah Wobble, including shows at Ronnie Scott’s and the Glastonbury Festival.
Clive is the shakuhachi player on Karl Jenkins's album Requiem on EMI Classics, the final two Harry Potter movies, and the Hobbit. His shakuhachi playing has been featured live on Radio 3’s Late Junction and In Tune. In 2013 at the BFI, Sylvia Hallett and Clive Bell performed a live soundtrack for Walk Cheerfully, Yasujiro Ozu’s 1930 comedy gangster movie.
Clive Bell has a substantial recording history as both a solo artist (his solo album, Shakuhachi: The Japanese Flute was reissued in 2005 by ARC Records) and as a composer for film, TV and theatrical productions (Complicite, Kazuko Hohki, IOU, Whalley Range Allstars). Jazz pianist Taeko Kunishima, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, David Toop, Jochen Irmler of Faust and Bill Laswell number among Clive Bell's collaborators. Based in London, he writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire.
Mark Wastell is a versatile improvising musician who has played a central role in the British improvised music scene for over a quarter of a century. 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, Mark Sanders, Tony Conrad, Evan Parker, Tim Barnes, Bernhard Günter, Keith Rowe, John Zorn, Peter Kowald, Joachim Nordwall, Otomo Yoshihide, Paul Dunmall, David Toop, Alan Wilkinson, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Julie Tippetts, Alan Skidmore, Mike Cooper, Chris Abrahams, Stewart Lee, Clive Bell, Arild Andersen, Jan Bang, Maggie Nicols, Thurston Moore and David Sylvian.
