This is the first live performance by a new and revamped line up featuring Rachel Musson (tenor sax) and Roberto Sassi (guitar and electronics) as well as Dominic Lash on electric bass and Mark Sanders on drums.
Wailing, whispering; sighing, roaring; this Tentet comprises some of the most exciting musicians to emerge from the UK, Madrid (and beyond) free-jazz and improvised music scene. Inspired by playing with the Peter Brotzmann tentet Ramanan has forged a group that combines original compositions, with free and conducted improvisation to wildly sensual effect.
The Roland Ramanan Tentet are (probably):
Roland Ramanan (trumpet)
Ian MacGowan (trumpet)
Ed Lucas (trombone)
Adrian Northover (soprano sax)
Ricardo Tejero (alto sax, clarinet)
Rachel Musson (tenor sax)
Roberto Sassi (electric guitar)
Dominic Lash (bass, electric bass)
Mark Sanders (drums)
Andrew Lisle (drums)
“Throws a bomb under the usual carve-up between composition and improvisation … big fun … I relished this CD.” Philip Clark, WIRE Magazine
“…coruscating work that would be right at home in Sun Ra’s conductions.” Stuart Broomer, Signal to Noise
“…consistently exciting work that balances big structural ideas – that seem here to involve clashing together opposing masses of sound and listening for what comes off.”
Brian Morton, Point of Departure
The Roland Ramanan Tentet is a free jazz ensemble inspired partly by the Peter Brotzmann Tentet with whom Ramanan has played on a couple of occasions. All the pieces are composed and employ a variety of techniques. For further information please contact Roland Ramanan: rolandramanan@hotmail.com
ROLAND RAMANAN
Since his first experiences playing with legendary drummer John Stevens in 1989, Ramanan has been a major presence on the London improvised music scene. Constantly exploring the boundaries between composition and improvisation as well as the sound possibilities of the trumpet, he has worked with Peter Brotzmann, Eddie Prevost, Evan Parker, Simon Fell, Marcio Mattos, Alex Ward, Alex Hawkins and Tony Marsh.
Ramanan has been a conductor and stalwart of the London Improvisers Orchestra since its inception.
He has two recordings on Emanem records (Shaken and Caesura); his latest record release and project is the free jazz tentet on Leo records. Ramanan also plays in the punk, funk, improv trio Vole - soon to be released on Babellabel.
MacGowan has been playing improvised music since arriving from Dublin in 1990 and has collaborated with Paul Rutherford, John Stevens, Maggie Nichols, Lol Coxhill and Eddie Prévost among others.
He helped to institute the London Improvisers Orchestra in 1998 with Steve Beresford and Evan Parker after the Butch Morris London Skyscraper tour, and also founded The Gathering with Maggie Nichols.
In 2000 he recorded his second CD as a leader, Daybreak, with Derek Bailey, Veryan Weston, Gail Brand and Oren Marshall. Into the twenty-first century, as well as regularly playing with UK and Irish improvisers, he has also performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar Arkestra, guitarists Han-earl Park and Reeves Gabrels, the Poet and Detroit legend John Sinclair, and New York based drummer Harris Eisenstadt. He has recently collaborated with drummer G Calvin Weston and has been featured on a version of John Zorn’s gamepiece Rugby which will be released by Tzadik.
MacGowan’s.. “style has the free-form panache of a Wadada Leo Smith or Joe McPhee, but his experience of other musics is never too far from the surface. Some of his gestures seem to derive from earlier forms of jazz, and there are moments of harmonic directness that you could put chord symbols under. But it has all been thoughtfully moulded into a highly convincing and distinctive language.” - Philip Clark, JazzReview
RACHEL MUSSON / tenor sax (solo)
Rachel is a saxophonist, improviser and composer living in London, UK.
She is involved with a variety of improvisation-based projects, one of which, a trio featuring Liam Noble and Mark Sanders has just released an album on Babel Label. Rachel is also working on a trio project with Danish saxophonist Julie Kjaer and cellist Hannah Marshall, and a duo with bassist Olie Brice. She is a member of clarinetist Alex Ward’s new quintet, Atmospheric Disturbance, a large improvising free jazz band led by Eddie Prevost, and Loz Speyer’s Inner Space Music (with Chris Biscoe, Olie Brice and Simon Roth).
She has also written for and recorded with her own band, Skein, which released a highly acclaimed album on F-IRE Records at the end of 2010. She was picked by BBC Jazz on Three to perform at Cheltenham Jazz Festival last year, and in the same year was nominated for a London Jazz Award. She has performed with Alcyona Mick, Han Bennink, Liam Noble, Gail Brand, Eddie Prevost, Olie Brice, Federico Ughi, Mary Halvorson, John Russell, Adam Linson, Sebastian Rochford, among many others.
Adrian Northover has toured extensively in Europe and North America with B Shops for the Poor, The Remote Viewers, Sonic Phonics (with Billy Bang) and The Happy End.
In 2010 Adrian made a tour of Russia with Helen McDonald and Vladimir Miller, performing music from The Descendants – a suite based on the life of Pushkin.
Adrian is a mainstay of the London scene, working in the fields of composition, improv ,jazz, film music, as well as solo saxophone performances. He plays regularly with Pat Thomas, John Edwards, Steve Noble, The London Improvisers Orchestra (new CD live at The Freedom Of The City Festival 2010 soon to be released), and Trip-Tik (with Catherine Pluygers and Adam Bohman.
Recent CD releases include To The North, by The Remote Viewers with John Edwards and Mark Sanders, and a trio of duo CD’s with Adam Bohman). Adrian also plays North Indian Classical music, and works with Hanif Khan, Mehboob Nadeem, as well as the Indo-jazz fusion band Dha.
Dominic Lash is a double bassist active in many spheres of improvised and experimental music. Based for many years in Oxford, UK, where he helped to resurrect the Oxford Improvisers cooperative (including musicians such as Pat Thomas, Pete McPhail and Phil Wachsmann), he is currently living in New York City, where he has performed with musicians such as Karl Berger, Marty Ehrlich, Joe Morris and Nate Wooley. Other notable performances have included concerts with Tony Conrad (in duo and quartet formations), Evan Parker (duo, quartet and large ensemble) and as a member of the late Steve Reid's Ensemble. Current projects include the Dominic Lash Quartet; the Set Ensemble (an experimental music group mainly focusing on the work of the Wandelweiser composers collective); the Convergence Quartet (with Taylor Ho Bynum, Harris Eisenstadt and Alexander Hawkins; a trio with John Butcher and John Russell; and a duo with Patrick Farmer.
RICARDO TEJERO / tenor saxophone
Ricardo Tejero, a mainly self-taught saxophonist from Spain who has since toured extensively in Brazil, Poland, Spain, Germany, Norway, France, Belgium and Holland. He moved to the UK in 2001 and graduated in Jazz and Contemporary Music from Leeds College of Music in 2005; obtained a Masters Degree in Contemporary Music in Brunel University (London) in 2007 under prof. Richard Barrett and prof. Peter Wiegold. He now lives in London where he has been very active playing within the London's free improvised music scene.
He retains links with the city of Leeds, for example collaborating with the LIMA ORCHESTRA ( Leeds Improvised Music Association ) conducted by Dave Kane.
At present he plays and collaborates with musicians such as Dave Tucker, Veryan Weston, Roland Ramanan, Javier Carmona, Mark Sanders, Pablo Perez, Tony Marsh, Marcio Mattos, Dominic Lash, Steve Noble, Adrian Northover, Alison Blunt, Robert Jarvis, Pat Thomas, Yedo Gibson, or Andrew Melville as well as running improvisation workshops.
In 2007 he created the quintet ENSEMBLE PROGRESIVO with whom he launched the records PROGRESSIONS (2007) and HURTA CORDEL LIVE CONCERT (2009) which can be downloaded on the netlabel Audition records.
He is a member of Musicalibre: Spanish Improvised Music Association.
Other collaborations include: Duos with Italian guitarist Roberto Sassi and Spanish guitarist Juan Jaren; working as performer and conducter with BER.IO (Berlin Improvised Music Orchestra) and RIO (Royal Improvised Music Orchestra of Holland)
MARK SANDERS / drums
One of the key figures of European free improvisation, Mark Sanders is one of the most unostentatiously experimental percussionists, never using exactly the same kit twice and always seeking out new sonic possibilities and musical potential. Precise, propulsive and extraordinarily dynamic, his drumming has animated encounters with musicians ranging from Axel Dörner to Wadada Leo Smith, Peter Brötzmann to John Butcher, Matthew Shipp to Otomo Yoshihide.
"ubiquitous, diverse and constantly creative, drummer Mark Sanders always outdoes himself, whether playing with restraint or erupting like a dynamo." Bruce L Gallenter, Downtown Music Gallery. NY
