Lindsay Cooper Memorial Concerts

A re-formed Henry Cow and other musicians have been playing three memorial concerts for Lindsay Cooper in November:

21 Nov. Barbican Center, London

22 Nov. Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

23 Nov. Teatro Diego Fabbri, Forlí, Italy

In the video of this blog post Phil Minton and John Greaves do "Forgotten Fruit" from "Oh Moscow" at the Barbican.

There are more videos on YouTube if you want to do some research, but most of them are quite shaky. Let´s hope some half professional (or better!) footage pops up!

Musicians involved:

Alfred Harth
Anne-Marie Roelofs
Chris Cutler
Dagmar Krause
Fred Frith
John Greaves
Michel Berckmans from Univers Zero (bassoon)
Phil Minton
Sally Potter
Tim Hodgkinson
Veryan Weston
Zeena Parkins


Added 28 November:

Sally Potter: "Lindsay Cooper: a rebel with applause" (The Guardian 20 November 2014).

Phil Minton & John Russell Duo

Phil Minton (voice) and John Russell (guitar) at Mopomoso free improvisation night at the Vortex, London, on 18 May 2014.

Visit Mopomoso´s web site and their YouTube channel for info and videos on free improvised music.

The Dedication Orchestra play "Ithi Gqi"

We had a post on The Dedication Orchestra playing The Blue Notes (at Verona Jazz 2001) back in April, and now Bergi57 uploaded another one. This time they play "Ithi Gqi" by Johnny Dyani.

Read more on The Blue Notes over here, and according to this page, the version of The Dedication Orchestra playing in Verona was:

TEATRO ROMANO, VERONA, ITALY
22nd June, 2001
‘JAZZ 2001’
THE DEDICATION ORCHESTRA
Maggie Nichols, Julie Tippetts, Phil Minton, Francine Luce – voices; Harry Beckett, Henry Lowther, Kenny Wheeler, Jim Dvorak – trumpets; Mark Charig - cornet; Malcolm Griffiths, Paul Rutherford, Alan Tomlinson, Dave Amis – trombones, Dave Powell – tuba; Trevor Watts – alto; Elton Dean – alto; Lol Coxhill – soprano sax; Neil Metcalfe –flute; Sean Bergin – alto & tenor; Larry Stabbins – tenor sax; Julian Arguelles – baritone sax; Keith Tippett – piano; Roy Babbington – double bass; Louis Moholo – drums; Steve Beresford – director.

April Video Festival

Terry Day and the Free improvisation in the UK -Trailer- from whiteemotion on Vimeo.

Jaap Blonk & Philip Jeck perform NOTATIONS (a film by Vicki Bennett) at Cafe Oto - FULL CONCERT from Vicki WFMU on Vimeo.

RADIO PARIS 2013 / Régis Boulard - La Superfolia Armaada from Olivier Mellano on Vimeo.

A collection of some videos I have enjoyed these last weeks, turned into a video festival for you all!
Happy or not, here is mainly what you get: Loads of free jazz and improvisation, some art rock, hot soul and good old rock!

- Chris Corsano (dr) and Mette Rasmussen (sax) performing at Jazzhouse, Copenhagen on the 8th of April, 2014.
- Peter Brötzmann (sax) and Steve Noble (dr) live at Kornspeicher Wels, Austria on the 11th of April, 2014.
- Terry Day and the Free improvisation in the UK - Trailer. Directed by Blanca Regina.
- Jaap Blonk & Philip Jeck perform NOTATIONS (a film by Vicki Bennett) at Cafe Oto (full concert) on the 29th of November, 2013.
- Paal Nilssen-Love and Esa Pietilä Big Orchestra plays "Big Fun" by Esa Pietilä at "Finnish Fun" Festival at Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene, Oslo, on the 25th of January 2014.
If you want to know ho is playing check "3rd fun" on this site.
- Phil Minton at Sonic Protest on 9th of April, 2014.
- Ingrid Laubrock's XXL at Clemente Soto Velez, on 10th of March, 2014. Musicians named on YouTube.
- Ingrid Laubrock (sax) and William Parker (b) at Arts for Art / Evolving Music, NYC, on the 3rd of March, 2014.
- Ingrid Laubrock (sax) and Mary Halvorson (g) at Clemente Soto Velez, on the 10th of March, 2014.
- La Superfilia Armaada and John Greaves "Radio Paris" Régïs Boulard, on the 23rd of April,2013 - Festival Metis Villetaneuse.
- Mari Kvien Brunvoll, Odda, Norway, in October 2013.
- Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - "People Don't Get What They Deserve" on Jimmy Kimmel Live. From their new album "Give the people what they want" (Daptone 2014).
- The Nightingales - "Dumb and Drummer". From their album "For fuck´s sake" (2014).

The Dedication Orchestra

Bergi57 recently posted three videos of The Dedication Orchestra playing at Verona Jazz 2001.

The videos are not exactly high quality, but what a gang playing material by The Blue Notes!
In this blog post you may watch "Andromeda" (Chris McGregor), and you may also see "Sondela" (Mongezi Feza) and "Traumatic Experience" (Harry Miller) on YouTube.

Read more on The Blue Notes over here, and according to this page, the version of The Dedication Orchestra playing in Verona was:

TEATRO ROMANO, VERONA, ITALY
22nd June, 2001
‘JAZZ 2001’
THE DEDICATION ORCHESTRA
Maggie Nichols, Julie Tippetts, Phil Minton, Francine Luce – voices; Harry Beckett, Henry Lowther, Kenny Wheeler, Jim Dvorak – trumpets; Mark Charig - cornet; Malcolm Griffiths, Paul Rutherford, Alan Tomlinson, Dave Amis – trombones, Dave Powell – tuba; Trevor Watts – alto; Elton Dean – alto; Lol Coxhill – soprano sax; Neil Metcalfe –flute; Sean Bergin – alto & tenor; Larry Stabbins – tenor sax; Julian Arguelles – baritone sax; Keith Tippett – piano; Roy Babbington – double bass; Louis Moholo – drums; Steve Beresford – director.

SCATTER - Tucker / Thomas / Minton / Turner 21-07-13

"SCATTER -- Dave Tucker (guitar), Pat Thomas (piano), Phil Minton (voice) & Roger Turner (drums) at Mopomoso free improvisation night. Filmed by Kostas Chondros at the Vortex, London, on 21 July 2013". (YouTube).

More videos at MOPOMOSO.

Lindsay Cooper

Let´s hear it for Lindsay Cooper (bassoon, oboe ++) today. She is perhaps best known from Henry Cow, but has played in numerous projects and bands (News From Babel, Art Bears, Hatfield and The North, National Health etc etc), and has released several solo albums too.

The other night I was listening to "Rags" (ARC 1980), her first solo album (and I´m sorry to say the only one I own so far). The album is a tribute to the needle women and workers of London of 1830s and 1840s, and the music is some kind of radical prog in the neighborhood of Henry Cow and Art Bears (please don´t hate me for that one). On "Rags" Lindsay Cooper is joined by Georgie Born, Phil Minton, Fred Frith, Chris Cutler and the singer Sally Potter, who is also a well known film director.

After playing "Rags" I found "Oh Moscow" on YouTube, recorded during the "Unidentified Movement" Festival in Volgograd (1991).

Musicians in the video:

Lindsay Cooper - bassoon, alto and sopranino saxophones;
Alfred Harth - tenor saxophone, clarinet;
Hugh Hopper - bass-guitar;
Phil Minton - trumpet, voice;
Sally Potter - texts, voice.
Veryan Weston - piano
Chris Cutler - drums

Wikipedia says that Lindsay Cooper was active until 1998. If you have other info, please comment.

And we have a Robert Wyatt link: "The Last Nightingale" (1984) with Chris Cutler, Tim Hodgkinson, Lindsay Cooper, Robert Wyatt and Adrian Mitchell, released to raise money for striking miners.

Phil Minton: John Cage's Mesostics

Please watch the video in this blog post folks! And Listen! Phil Minton does John Cage´s "Mesostics", dedicated to Merce Cunningam.

It all happened during the Rotterdam Opera Days (2013), on an evening dedicated to yodeling!
Find more info on YouTube, and the guy behind this, seems to be Bart Plantenga, author of "Yodel in Hi-Fi. From Kitsch Folk to Contemporary Electronica" (UW Press 2013).

The video starts with Phil Minton explaining how he reads John Cage´s text, and believe it or not, i managed to find my copy of Cage´s "M. Writings ´67 -´72" (Calder and Boyars 1973) without turning the basement upside down! If you read down the middle of the text here, you will probably find Cunningham too.

Bob Ostertag

After reading Bob Ostertag´s piece "Why I No Longer Give Away My Music", on how difficult it can be to give away music for free (!), I bought his latest album on CDBaby for next to nothing.

"A Book of Hours" (2012) is 50 beautiful minutes of music, with the voices of Theo Bleckmann, Shelley Hirsch and Phil Minton, and Roscoe Mitchell´s saxophone.

While listening I wondered if it was all improvised, or if parts were composed, but wonder no longer, - Ostertag is writing quite comprehensive about the music on his own site.

Let´s borrow some from him:

"So the only electronic processing I have done is to use a synthetic reverb to place the musicians, who recorded their material separately in different locations, into the same synthetic "space.""

"What I have done is splice: hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of splices. I have also done some slight time stretching or compressing, and equally minor pitch transposition, of the original material. None of this was done to change the "sound" of the musicians, or to make them appear to sing higher or lower or faster or louder than they can. Rather, these slight changes were done to make the parts fit together better. And this was a difficult challenge, because the project began with each of the four musicians recording a set of solo improvisations, separately and without any knowledge of what the others were doing".

Check out this one!

Phil Minton and John Russell at the Vortex

Phil Minton (voice) & John Russell (guitar) at Mopomoso free improvisation night.
Filmed by Kostas Chondros at the Vortex, London, on 19 May 2013 (YouTube).

Play loud!

Wyatt and Stuff Spring Festival 2013

It´s festival season, and here is our spring festival of 2013:

- First out two videos with Evan Parker, John Edwards and John Russell from (the already mentioned) MOPOMOSO tour. More info, and lots of videos on MOPOMOSO´s YouTube.
- John Surman Trio 1975 (full concert). John Surman (bcl,ss,bs), Dieter Feichtner (synthesizer) and Barre Phillips (b).
- Phil Minton and Mick Beck (Sheffield), January 2013.
- Hanne Hukkelberg "My Devils" at Mono (Oslo). Hanne Hukkelberg, Mai Elise Solberg and Ivar Grydeland.
- Hanne Hukkelberg "No Mascara" at Mono (Oslo). Hanne Hukkelberg, Mai Elise Solberg and Ivar Grydeland.
- Michael Francis Duch "Hugh Shrapnel Medley" at Avant Garden (Trondheim), April 2013.

Lol Coxhill & Alex Ward

Lol Coxhill & Alex Ward @ Just Not Cricket! from NI VU NI CONNU on Vimeo.

I already had a blog post on Just Not Cricket!, a three day long festival focusing on British improv, held in Berlin in 2011.

Someone is making a film on the history of the British improv scene (to be released in 2013!), and a couple of great videos from this one are uploaded on Vimeo. Watch Lol Coxhill and Alex Ward at Just Not Cricket! in this very blog, and run all the way over to Vimeo for Tom Arthurs, Steve Beresford,Phil Minton and Eddie Prévost.

Just Not Cricket!

How about a 4xLP box with British improv, recorded at a festival in Berlin in 2011?
1000 copies for sale. Buy from here or here.

The artists:
Tom Arthurs - trumpet
Steve Beresford - piano, electronics
Tony Bevan - soprano & bass saxophones
Matthew Bourne - piano
Gail Brand - trombone
Lol Coxhill - soprano saxophone
Rhodri Davies - harp, electric harp
John Edwards - double bass
Shabaka Hutchings - clarinet, tenor saxophone
Dominic Lash - double bass
Phil Minton - voice
Eddie Prévost - drums, percussion
Orphy Robinson - vibraphone
Mark Sanders - drums
Alex Ward - clarinet, guitar
Trevor Watts - soprano & alto saxophones

Extended Techniques - Phil Minton

New York based Extended Techniques made an almost two hour long podcast on Phil Minton. You will find the details on their site.

I have heard Phil Minton live a couple of times, the last time as part of Maja Ratkje´s curated concerts series for The International Festival of Bergen in the spring of 2012.

"Extended" vocal techniques, that´s an understatement when it comes to Minton!

Phil Minton and Ute Wasserman - Ursonate Improvisation

Phil Minton and Ute Wassermann improvise around Kurt Schwitters´ "Ursonate" during Helen Petts' konsert "Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing".

Petts made a film about Kurt Schwitters, same name as the concert, and I have blogged about it (among other places) here.

Read what Jaap Blonk writes about the ursonate, and listen to a bit of the original (autostart).

Voices That matter

Maja Ratkje´s series of concerts, Voices That Matter, is happening at the Bergen International Festival, and Thursday afternoon people on the main street got a taste of it too, with Phil Mintons "Feral Choir".
If you have some breath in you, you may participate in the feral choir.

In the video you may be able to recognize Maja Ratkje, David Moss and Phil Minton, and I believe the rest of them are local amateur singers, so if you recognize some of them you are probably their mother or father. Even nature is joining in on video, breathing it´s cold winds straight through my camera.

I have to use the f-word to describe David Moss´ concert Thursday evening. Fantastic! The word "concert" is not even telling half the truth, since Moss was a great story teller too. Using words, sounds, gestures and soundtrack, he told the stories of his own and our lives.

Damn, I was a bit touched by the stories, to tell you the truth.

Added 9 June 2012: See a much better video here!