Paul Taylor’s Trombone Poetry (music+words) + Uru-Ana (music+words) + Mike Weller (words+)

Paul Taylor’s Trombone Poetry <http://trombonepoetry.com/> is a solo performance project that interweaves music and poetry in a kind of poetry slalom. Music frames poems; poems shape music. The music of trombone poetry is mostly improvised, in free-wheeling versions of jazz classics or original compositions.

Paul Taylor’s music-making is rich and various, starting, of course, in a Lancashire brass band, and since working in jazz (eg Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath), Latin American (eg Roberto Pla's Latin Ensemble) and soul and rock (eg The Pogues and Dexy’s Midnight Runners).

The trombone poetry project grew out of work with the pioneering trombone trio, The Blowpipes, and part of the aim is to bring the power, range and charm of this poorly-understood instrument to new audiences, many of whom have been reared on a meagre diet of guitars and the occasional saxophone.

As for the poetry, decades of reading on trains, planes, tour buses and park benches have led Taylor to make his own marks on paper, to shape some kind of sense out of it all. Aside from poems born out of a musician's experiences, and performed alongside freely improvised musical illustrations, commentaries and explorations, there is a growing range of other poetry, concerning design, science, and mathematics. Some of this work is inspired by the inventions and writings of the French group, Oulipo, some by the inventions and writings of the American designer, Buckminster Fuller.

Trombone poetry has been performed in jazz clubs, poetry festivals, acoustic clubs, free-improv events, theatres, and on Resonance FM and BBC Radio 3's The Verb.

Uru-Ana <http://www.myspace.com/uruanahq> are London-based sound artist/musician, Alex Thomas and writer/performer, Alex Walker. Their recordings and live performances began in 2007 as a collaboration, emerging from work together in Theatre of the Absurd's 'the greatest ever DaDa show'. They sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before, with influences that range from Bob Dylan, Erik Satie, Brian Eno and Death Jazz, via Surrealism, Dada, and Butoh to William S Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, William Blake, Max Ernst, Antonin Artaud, Kenneth Anger, Henri Michaux. Uru-Ana performed recently at The Shunt’s Kenneth Anger Night.

Michael Weller <http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/> renders name, place, voice, words, stories, pictures, as public performance. He designed USA sleeve for David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World LP and its DC re-release. As "Captain Stelling" Mike wrote and drew The Firm (cOZmic comics, 1972) - an early British artist's publication inspired by American underground comic book innovations. He followed "Willie D" (Andrew Marr) as featured cartoonist on Chainsaw punkzine (1980-84).

Michael Weller enjoyed a parallel career in the 1980s and 1990s as political writer, cartoonist, activist of the left, and local community organiser based in South London. In 2006 he became a signatory to the Euston Manifesto.

As 'M.J.', 'Michael John', 'Mick' and 'Mike' Weller - using identity-playing forenames, nicknames and other nom-de-plumes - he has produced artists books, zines and small press publications. Since 1990 he has been associated with London's poetry scene and poetics of performance writing.