Derek Bailey

Derek Bailey was one of the most influential and adventurous experimental guitarists to come from England (Sheffield), evolving out of the trad-jazz scene of the fifties into the avant/jazz scene in '60s London. By the late sixties he was a member of the Joseph Holbrooke Trio, Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Music Improvisation Company which later became the amorphous Company under his leadership. These groups were at the birth and center of the British free-jazz scene. In the early seventies, Derek Bailey and Evan Parker started their own record label called Incus Records - one of the first artist-run labels. 

Although Derek played with members of the British free/jazz scene, he also forged relationships with a number of European players like Han Bennink & Peter Brötzmann, Japanese free players like Abe Kaoru, Toshinori Kondo, as well as American improvisers like Anthony Braxton, George Lewis and John Zorn to name a few. 

Derek organized an annual festival called Company Week in the 80's & 90's, which brought together a unique group of international improvisers from varied backgrounds.

"He was a man who repelled pretension, refused to be shoehorned into comfortable categories, and played amazing guitar." - John Butcher

"I do not subscribe to the idea that free improvisation began or ends with any individual. This only suggests that somehow the music Derek made was so individualistic that it failed to communicate anything beyond personal expression." - Eddie Prevost 

John Butcher

Born in Brighton and living in London, John Butcher is a saxophonist whose work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multi tracked pieces and explorations with feedback, unusual acoustics and non-concert locations. He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with a sense of place. Resonant Spaces, for example, is a collection of performances recorded during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.

Butcher originally studied Physics, but after publishing a PH.D (1982) on quantum chromodynamics he left academia and took off with music. He has since collaborated with hundreds of artists, some for many decades, including Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévost, Angharad Davies, John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Okkyung Lee, Andy Moor, Sophie Agnel, Christian Marclay, Pat Thomas, Phil Minton, Rhodri Davies, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, John Russell, Chris Corsano, Steve Beresford, Ståle Liavik Solberg, and Matthew Shipp.

Additionally he values occasional encounters - with large groups ranging from the WDR Sinfonieorchester (as soloist), and the 20+ piece EX Orkest to duos with Akio Suzuki, Liz Allbee, Keiji Haino, Isabelle Duthois, David Toop, Mariam Rezaei, Fred Frith and Joe McPhee.

Recent compositions include “Fluid Fixations” (an hcmf commission), “Penny Wands” for Futurist Intonarumori, “Good Liquor…” for the London Sinfonietta and “Tarab Cuts” (shortlisted for a British Composer’s Award).

"Over 40 years of sustained performance and publishing, English saxophonist, improvisor and composer John Butcher has shaped much of what soprano and tenor saxophone can do, and what their roles and vocabulary in improvised music might be. I’ve always heard Butcher’s playing as a kind of nose-to-tail saxophony, where the whole instrument from reed-tip to brim of bell is available, accessible and articulate. Few other saxophonists slice as sharply back into the physical history, material (and physics) of the instrument, across its near 200 year history. When Hector Berlioz wrote of his friend Adolphe Sax’s then fresh invention, “the varied beauty of its accent, sometimes serious, sometimes calm, sometimes impassioned, dreamy or melancholic, or vague”, he could have been imagining Butcher's distinctively clean but complex, enquiring soundworld." WIRE - October 2024. The Primer by Seymour Wright

http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk

Oren Marshell

Oren Marshall is a pioneering player of acoustic tuba and electric tuba who, crossing between classical, jazz, improvised and world music, has collaborated with the likes of Derek Bailey, Charlie Haden, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Moondog, Radiohead, Hermeto Pascoal, The Pan-African Orchestra and the London Philharmonic.

He has played with every major orchestra in London as well as with the Bolshoi Theatre Soloists, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Ballet. As a member of London Brass (whom he joined in 1987) he has made numerous recordings, toured worldwide several times, played 6 Proms concerts and performed for The Queen, Prince Charles, the German Chancellor, the President of China and The Pope.
Amongst the many Duos Oren has played are performances with Jazz pianist John Taylor, New York Beatboxer Adam Matta, UK Beatboxers Shlomo and Hobbit, Prepared-Piano player Hauschka, Percussionist Evelyn Glennie and multi award-winning vocalist, Bobby Mcferrin.
As a solo artist, Oren has played all over the world and his ground-breaking solo work lead to multiple nominations for the BBC Innovation in Jazz Award.

He has also shared the stage with artists such as Gil Scott Heron, Roy Ayers, Moby, Vinicio Caposella, Murcoff, Tomasz Stanko and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. He leads and writes for the Charming Transport Band, bringing together master musicians from Ghana and Nigeria and innovators from London’s jazz and improvised music scenes. Oren is currently Head of Brass Studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London and teaches on the Leadership course at the Guildhall School of Music and on the Jazz course at the Royal Academy of Music.