Beck / Corsano Duo + Black Serama vs. Ward-Fernandez / Collins Duo

Tues 1st July 2008. 8pm.
Over the Top, Sheffield, S11 9AU.

AUDIO BYTES: (each around 6mb)

1. Mick Beck & Chris Corsano (Mick on balloon then tenor)
2. Mick Beck / Chris Corsano / Jonny Drury (guitar) / Beatrix Ward-Fernandez (theremin)
3. Black Serama vs. Ward-Fernandez / Collins.

Photo of the gig.

Mick Beck / Chris Corsano

After appearing separately on the same recent Singing Knives bill both of these unique professionals were impressed by each other's work and agreed to this heads off which is set to be historic.
Barely needing any introductions... If you haven't yet had the privilege of encountering Mick Beck's technically blinding, highly colourful yet blazing anarchy on tenor, rest assured he gives that distinct but rare impression he could have been born wearing it.. - worked with Derek Bailey, Simon Fell, Phil Marks and hundreds more. Chris Corsano (Flaherty, Thurston Moore, Joe McPhee Sunburned etc. etc.), possibly the most energetic free-percussionist in the West, is also becoming a bit of a household name currently as Bjork's chosen drummer, constantly excelling himself live with a growing number of collaborators, burning up the kit with hair-raising polyrhythms and highly original experimentation. Promised to be a mesmeric and spine tingling, highly memorable show.

A couple of the obligatory Wire Quotes:
'Beck plays tenor with conviction that can border on lawlessness.'
'Corsano is arguably the most riotously energetic and creative drummer in contemporary free jazz.'

myspace.com/mickbecksaxandbassoon
myspace.com/chriscorsano

pic by Glynn

+ Black Serama vs. Ward Fernadez / Collins Duo.

Backing up with another first-time ever collaboration - Black Serama (eccentric sibling runaways Jonny & Bel Drury in Acid / Tolkienesque guitar-vox journeying) battle for sensible interpretation of nether-worlds (and Nether Edge) with long established improv artisans Charlie Collins (free percussion) and Ward-Fernandez (electric violin and theremin). Wow..!

NOTE: Very limited tickets now on sale.

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/32318

Beck's own private Sheffield venue 'Over the Top' holds just 40 people, making this concert an even more intense yet intimate experience.
BRING YOUR OWN REFRESHMENTS.

MICK BECK CV JUNE 2008

MICK BECK tenor sax, bassoon and whistles
An innovative instrumentalist and composer

All About Jazz, June 2006: “Ace tenor saxophonist Mick Beck incorporates an amplified bassoon (in a way) that defies even the most oddball stereotypes.”
The Guardian, May 2005: “Beck’s abstract resources extend to all manner of whistles and squeals, but his tenor sax playing is a resourceful development of Evan Parker’s”.
Jazzwise November 2005: “…pushed along by beck’s scorching post-Ayler tenor sax”;
Cadence Jazz Records no. 1164: “Able to double- and triple-tongue on a double reed, he creates dissonant textures you wouldn't associate with the usual orchestral instrument”.
The Wire: "He plays the tenor with conviction that can border on lawlessness", and “Mick Beck has been causing jaws to drop … He has been doing it by playing the bassoon … He is now getting something personal and unheralded out of the bassoon”.

Current projects include:

Gated Community – In 2005 Beck initiated a new 15-piece workshop band to re-explore the interaction of composition and improvisation. Ideal for festival performances.

Solo tours featuring both bassoon and saxophone, eg, Spain, Australia,England.

“Weavels”, a trio with Chris Cundy (bass clarinet) and Alex Ward (guitar) which is preparing a CD for release.

Work with master drummer Paul Hession as a duo (recent tours to Canada and Germany), and with other musicians (e.g., Derek Bailey leading to issue of CD Meanwhile back in Sheffield (May 2005); Dave Tucker leading to CD Shkrang: Some thoughts about, April 2006); Matt Wand; Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher); Steve Beresford; Pat Thomas leading to CD The Three Bs; Milo Fine leading to CD Motion Ejecta; J.D. Parran.

Beck/Drenching/Pleasure, bassoon, bricks, and Dictaphones leading to Discus CD: “A low carbonation” issued June 2006.
plus CD Live at HOTS-OD issued 2003.

One of Stephen Grew’s Grew Trio (Discus CD It’s morning, issued October 2005 and … To Play Music, and It’s Morning).

Beck/Lunch Improvors (bassoon plus writer/poet Out to Lunch Ben Watson);

Member of Hugh Metcalfe’s Microtonal Megastars, with Hugh on guitar and drum, and Alan Durant on bass.

Work with some DJ and electronics artists, e.g. Tom Jenkinson (Norwich and London as part of the Squarepusher tour November 2005), and with UTT Foster and Martin Archer in Varispeed.

Participation in the Sonophages free music festival, Toulouse, France in August 2007 (the only non-French player).

Jazz groups working mainly with his own compositions, eg Linden Owen’s The Big Clutch (Monmouth Music Festival 2005), and other players such as Pete Fairclough (drums) Pietro Lusvardi (bass).

Brief History

As an improvising big band leader to solo performer, Mick is known for his energy and originality: his playing covers the full emotional gamut from heartbreaking to mischievous, and from abstracts to compelling swing.
His improvising big band Feet Packets was unique in the UK and influential in the late 1980s. In the 1990s he led many small groups including the powerful free jazz trio Something Else with Paul Hession and Simon Fell, which released two acclaimed CDs. Since the nillennium, Beck's ground-breaking work with the mysterious and humorous bassoon, supplemented by his use of other wind instruments add many new sounds and moods. Since 2005, Gated Community has been revisiting the boundaries between total musical freedom and novel compositions, and has played with Damo Sezuki as guest artist.

Beck’s technical innovations and musical ideas are often a source of inspiration to his collaborators on stage, and hehe works with many of free music’s best-known exponents covering a wide age range. He is based in Sheffield, plays regularly in London and elsewhere in the UK, and from time to time in Spain, Germany, Austria, France, Canada and Australia.

He has worked with many great musicians such ass saxists J.D. Parran to Alan Wilkinson, guitarists Derek Bailey to Hugh Metcalf, percussionists Tony Buck to Steve Noble and Paul Hession, bassists Marcio Mattos to Simon Fell, pianists Chris Burn to Stephen Grew and Pat Thomas.

In the 1990s through to 2004, he was one of the lead organisers of Sheffield’s Other Music, a bastion of the UK’s free music scene from 1982.

Recordings include:

A Low Carbonation, Discus 28 CD, Beck/Drenching/Pleasure, June 2006;

Shkrang: Some thoughts about, (Mick Beck, Dave Tucker guitar and laptop, Paul Hession drums, Discus 25 CD, issued April 2006): “A top avant garde pick for 2006” (All About Jazz review) and “One has to look back as far as early Amalgam to find free jazz / improv as compellingly rooted and adventurous as this" (The Wire review)

It’s Morning (Grew Trio, Discus 22 CD, autumn 2005). Jazzwise review “This release carries the hallmarks we've come to expect: an uncompromising and intense approach to non-idiomatic free music, delivered with an irrepressibly mischievous sense of humour. Ridiculously entertaining”.

Meanwhile, Back in Sheffield … (Derek Bailey guitar, Paul Hession drums, Mick Beck reeds, Discus 21 CD, Spring 2005. The Guardian “The opening track “After The Red Deer” is a 30 minute evolution through many sound scapes. “Raining” develops into dense ensemble jostles, with the raucous entry of Beck’s bassoon. And on “Buckets”, the three players trade phrases as though hurling a hot coal back and fourth. These last two titles celebrate the apparent passage of the Sheffield rain through the roof, an event sure to convince free improvisers that there definitely is a god.

Motion Ejecta: Milo Fine (reeds and percussion), Paul Hession (drums), and Mick Beck (t/sax bassoon), Cadence USA, 2004; Web Store Review from USA: “It took Milo Fine, Mick Beck, and Paul Hession 56:43 to make this album. You’ll be listening to it for a lot longer than that!” Cadence Magazine, USA, “This is free Jazz at its most uncompromising
and it's all the stronger for that”. Cadence Jazz Records “Able to double- and triple-tongue on a double reed, he creates dissonant textures you wouldn't associate with the usual orchestral instrument”.

The 3 Bs (Pat Thomas, Paul Hession, live at the Termite Festival, Leeds).

… To Play Music, (Stephen Grew Trio, live from Liverpool).

Beck-Drenching-Pleasure ( Live at HOTS-OD, with T H F Drenching and Miss Sonic Pleasure,2002.

Mick Beck Stephen Grew Duo: Picture August cd).

Something Else: Playing with Tunes, and Start Moving Earbuds (CDs), and Rearquarters (cassette).

Feet Packets (14-piece band), Listen! Feet Packets (CD), and two cassettes.

contributions to Simon Fell's Compilations 4 and 3 and Piece for 10(0);

contributions to many of Martin Archer's releases such as recent Outward Sound’s Thunder in a clear sky.

word doc of this text here

contact: info AT freenoise.co.uk for booking