Thursday 25 July 2019, 7.30pm
Peter Urpeth / piano
Ntshuks Bonga / Alto sax
Olie Brice / bass
Terry Day / drums
“These were intensely free sounds, with the listener’s ways of hearing as creative as the inventions of the musicians. Urpeth is a tempestuous pianist, whose free thoroughfares of notes head in multiple directions simultaneously, while Brice’s pounding bass made the Balls Pond Road shake and Day tapped his drums with the thinnest of sticks, sparklers of sound. As for Ntshuks, his addition to the trio sounded to me like the cries of the dispossessed, the uprooted or those forced to seek shelter in the bomb-ravaged cellars of their world.” – Chris Searle, Morning Star
Terry Day is a first generation pioneer improviser from the 1960s: an improviser, multi-instrumentalist, lyricist, songwriter, visual artist and poet.
A self-taught musician in a family of musicians, he began improvising on the drums with his brother in 1955. In the early ‘60s he formed the Hardy Holman Day trio, focusing on free improvisation. Later he became part of the band Kilburn & the Highroads, with Ian Dury. Sharing their interest in visual art and painting they both studied at Walthamstow School of Art and later at the Royal College of Art, London. As an art student in the ‘60s he was also a pioneer of free improvisation, free jazz & experimental music.
He formed a duo with guitarist Derek Bailey in the late ´60s and was a regular member of The Continuous Music Ensemble,The People Band and, later on, Alterations with David Toop, Steve Beresford & Peter Cusack.
Terry has collaborated with many musical luminaries, groups, dancers, painters, poets and performed in theatre. He now plays bamboo reed flutes, drums, recorders, balloons & improvises with his lyrics, prose and verse. Since 2000 he has been part of London Improvisers Orchestra. In recent years he has toured twice in both Japan and Brazil, and has performed with improvising orchestras in Malaga, Tokyo and Madrid.
Peter Urpeth is a pianist and performance artist playing in ad-hoc collective and group improvisation and ‘new’ music projects. Over more than 35 years as a performer he has worked with Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, Sue Ferrer, Maggie Nicols, Makeshift, Geoff Hearn, Shabaka Hutchings, Olie Brice, Jon Impett, Jon Russell, Phil Wachsmann and many more improvising musicians.
Olie Brice is a double bassist, improviser and composer. Raised in London and Jerusalem, he now lives by the sea in Hastings.Olie Brice leads a Quartet featuring Rachel Musson, Alexander Hawkins and Will Glaser, (their debut album “All It Was” will be released in 2025) and an improvising trio with Rachel Musson and Mark Sanders (“Immense Blue”, 2024). He has also led a trio, quintet and octet which can be heard on albums including “Fire Hills” and “Day After Day”.
Brice performs with a wide range of creative improvising musicians, including both legends of the music and his peers. Frequent collaborators include Mark Sanders, Paul Dunmall, Rachel Musson, Tobias Delius, Cath Roberts and Luis Vicente, and he has also appeared with the likes of Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, John Butcher, Trevor Watts, Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Vandermark, Eddie Prevost and Louis Moholo. He is part of several ongoing improvising ensembles including Somersaults (with Tobias Delius & Mark Sanders), a Trio with Ziv Taubenfeld & Kresten Osgood, and the Flame (with Robert Mitchell & Andrew Lisle).
