Wednesday 11 December 2019, 7.30pm
Legendary German percussionist and free-jazz pioneer Sommer meets vituoso Scottish saxophonist MacDonald for a duo celebrating free jazz in all its glory – loose, intense, effervescent, and celebratory – before a very special quartet performance alongside pianist Alexander Hawkins and bassist John Edwards.
Günter ‘Baby' Sommer & Raymond MacDonald performances are characterised as charismatic, energetic, free-wheeling, joyous, wondrous and spontaneous music making that can electrify a room with subtle textures, fiery passion and glorious rhythms. They have toured and performed to critical acclaim at festivals and jazz clubs in Portugal, Germany, Italy and the UK.
Günter ‘Baby’ Sommer is a hallowed name in European improvised music and is regarded as one of the founding fathers of German free improvisation. Raymond MacDonald is a founding member of the ground-breaking Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and over a 30-year career, has released over 60 CDs and worked with a host of world leading musicians working across the spectrum of contemporary music, including Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Evan Parker, David Byrne and Jim O’Rourke.
Raymond MacDonald / alto & soprano saxophones
Günter "Baby" Sommer / drums & percussion
Alexander Hawkins / piano
John Edwards / double bass
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
John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others.
"I think John Edwards is absolutely remarkable: there’s never been anything like him before, anywhere in jazz." - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
