Saturday 12 December 2009, 8pm
JOE McPHEE (saxes/pocket trumpet) with N.E.W (NOBLE/EDWARDS/WARD)
JOE MCPHEE
Since his emergence on the creative jazz and new music scene in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Joe McPhee has been a deeply emotional composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist, as well as a thoughtful conceptualist and theoretician.
McPhee’s first recordings as leader appeared on the CjR label, founded in 1969 by painter Craig Johnson . These include Underground Railroad by the Joe McPhee Quartet in 1969, Nation Time by Joe McPhee in 1970, and Trinity by Joe McPhee, Harold E. Smith and Mike Kull in 1971.
By 1974, Swiss entrepreneur Werner X. Uehlinger had become aware of McPhee’s recordings and unreleased tapes. Uehlinger was so impressed that he decided to form the Hat Hut label as a vehicle to release McPhee’s work. The label’s first LP was Black Magic Man, which had been recorded by McPhee in 1970. Black Magic Man was followed by The Willisau Concert and the landmark solo recording Tenor, released by Hat Hut in 1976. The earliest recordings by McPhee are often informed by the revolutionary movements of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; for example, Nation Time is a tribute to poet Amiri Baraka and Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II at WBAI’s Free Music Store, 1971 (finally released as a Hat Art CD in 1996) is a sometimes anguished post-Coltrane cry for freedom.
During the 1990’s, McPhee finally began to attract wider attention from the North American creative jazz community. He has since been performing and recording prodigiously as both leader and collaborator, appearing on such labels as CIMP, Okkadisk, Music & Arts, and Victo. In 1996, 20 years after Tenor, Hatology released As Serious As Your Life, another solo recording (this time featuring McPhee performing on various instruments). McPhee also began a fruitful relationship with Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark , engaging in a set of improvisational dialogues with Vandermark and bassist Kent Kessler on the 1998 Okkadisk CD A Meeting in Chicago. The Vandermark connection also led to McPhee’s appearance on the Peter BrotzmanChicagoOctet/Tentet three-CD box set released by Okkadisk that same year. As the 1990s drew to a close, McPhee discovered two like-minded improvisers in bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen- TRIO X.
For further information go to www.JoeMcPhee.com
N.E.W.
N.E.W. Nobles power trio, featuring John Edwards on double bass and Alex Ward on guitar. In the words of Jazzwise magazine ”theres as much rock here as jazz-Ward is all spidery glissandi and slashing power chords. Edwards is a dark magus of a bass player thundering against the elements, while Noble is a violent, malevolent presence. A white-knuckle ride you’ll be glad to take”.
From playing with Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde, Rip Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, Noble went on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987, 89 and 90) and was featured (along with Alex Ward) in the TV series based on Baileys book ‘Improvisation; its nature and practise’. He has toured and performed throughout Europe, Africa and America. Currently leads the groups ‘4tet’ - ‘Say What’- ‘Shakedown Club’- ‘Harry Love All Stars’ and a trio with Lol Coxhil / Edwards-he also fills the drum stool in the following groups ; SFQ, Badland , Gannets , Aethenor, Freebase and Tim Hills group Tongues of Fire.He has been MD for the Spanish dance company MAL PELO since 1998. Noble also runs the record company Ping Pong Productions.
JOHN EDWARDS
Since taking up the double bass in 1987 and playing with the Pointy Birds and the Cholomondeleys dance company-he went on to play with B Shops for the Poor,The Honkies and GOD as well as busking in the street and composing and performing music theatre with The Great Explorers. Since the early 1990s he has built a reputation as one of the finest ,and most in demand bass players currently active on the British and European improv/ jazz and New music scenes- a first choice for musicians such as Evan Parker ,Louis Moholo , Veryan Weston ,Charles Hayward and Spring Heel Jack- Other groups include BRUISE and the Obliquity trio with Alan Wilkinson and Noble.A solo double bass cd ‘VOLUME’ was released in 2008 on the PSI label.
ALEX WARD
Born in 1974, he has been active in free improvisation since being given his first gig by Derek Bailey in 1987, going on to work with a wide range of musicians as a clarinettist (sometimes also on alto sax), and increasingly since 2000 as a guitarist. His debut recording ‘Ya boo ,reel and rumble’, a duo with Noble was released in 1990 on Baileys label Incus,to great critical acclaim. He has played in bands led by Simon Fell and Eugene Chadbourne, as well as his own quartet “Help Point”, featuring Fell, Noble and Luke Barlow (with whom he runs the label Copepod). He also co-led the rock band Camp Blackfoot with Benjamin Herve, and in 2005 released a solo album of songs entitled “Hapless Days”. He currently writes the material (as well as playing guitar and singing) for “Dead Days Beyond Help”, a 2-piece band with drummer Jem Doulton.
