FREENOISE Sonny Simmons Quartet + BLISTRAP + Archer / Monk  

Friday September 26th 2008. 8pm
£ 6 / 5

VIDEO / PHOTOS

Sonny Simmons Quartet

Sonny Simmons Live in England UK 2007
Sonny Simmons, Freenoise Festival 2007. Pic courtesy of Dan Sumption

For this special UK. tour and BBC broadcast he will again be joined by members of his UK quartet.
SONNY SIMMONS : Alto sax / Cor Anglais
DEREK SAW : Trumpet, Valve trombone
JOHN JASNOCH : Guitar, oud
CHARLIE COLLINS : Drums, Cajon

www.sonnysimmons.org

 

Really pleased Sonny is honouring us again with his unique playing and even more unique character! Last December's Freenoise Festival headline slot was one of the main highlights of the year. Also with Mick Beck again on the bill, this will be another very special night indeed, especially for lovers of the perennial free horn!!

 

The disciple of Charlie Parker. The heir of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. The partner of Eric Dolphy - Sonny Simmons stands tall. Coming out of Oakland, California in the '60s, Simmons has worked with McCoy Tyner, Charles Mingus, Anthony Braxton, Sunny Murray, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Bobby Few, Charles Moffett and countless others. Though not a die-hard avant gardist (he sticks in his own provocative way to the tradition), he was a leading figure in the '60s free jazz scene in New York, and his ESP-disk recordings are rightly regarded as classics of the genre. Based in New York, since his re-emergence in the '90s he has continued to produce ground breaking recordings and live shows.

"The kind of gig where you can't believe that the musicians will be able to find fresh and exciting ideas after the first few demented bars - but the miracle repeats itself again and again until the end" was just one audience comment the last time this astonishing group played Freenoise.

"His music carries an impact exceptional even among players in this idiom: toughened by his R&B background, perhaps, he can deliver solos in the free idiom of power and strength" Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia

For this special UK. tour and BBC broadcast he will again be joined by members of his UK quartet.
Sonny Simmons Quartet, Freenoise Festival 2007 - Click to enlarge
Pic courtesy of Dan Sumption

     

BLISTRAP (Mick Beck / Jonny Drury)

 

 

Another new duo to come out of the seemingly inexhaustible Sheffield improv scene. The established and renonwed Beck and relative newcomer Drury create a sound that is at once truly explorative and powerfully succinct. Coming from opposite ends of the culture that is contemporary, avant-garde improv (Drury the rocker-punk-artist, Beck the free jazz shaman) the two meet to waltz and wrestle with their spontaneous noise output. Expect currents of angst and frustration through to transcendental harmony and love.

Mick says:

Someone’s got to take revenge on Mills & Boon … This is one way of doing it.

Beck’s classic take on British free music (Derek Bailey, Pat Thomas etc) meets Drury’s off-the-wall inventiveness (Tajalli Vortex, The Other Orchestra).  Probably no happy endings

Mick Beck: Tenor sax, bassoon, whistles.
Jonny Drury: Electric guitar, prepared piano.

Clip (7mb)

BLISTRAP - NOW BOOKING UK TOUR DEC 08
Mick Beck
Jonny Drury

Breaking news! Blistrap will be joined by special Guest Jules Vasylenko from USA on his bamboo baritone saxophone..Oof!
myspace.com/julesvasylenko

     

Martin Archer / Geraldine Monk

 

 

The seriously leftfield poetry of Geraldine Monk, resplendent in sequins and grating Lancashire accent, set to the perfect accompaniment which is Archer's extreme software scapes is a thing to behold. Booked immediately after the awesome set at the new Bank St. Studios (pictured) as the audience were still reeling.

Martin Archer is Sheffield's maverick electro-acoustic composer and runner of Discus and Geraldine Monk is a published contemporary poet.

"Archer's electroacoustic treatments and blends of instrumental timbres and textures are fascinating in their own right - a provocative mixture of the random, the alien and the familiar." - Bill Tilland. BBC Experimental Review.
Martin Archer

"I build atmospheric narratives gleaned from the coincidences of circumstance and the emotional geography of place. I want the physicality of words to hook around the lurking ghosts and drag them from their petrified corners." - G. Monk.
Geraldine Monk on Wikipedia

     
     

TICKETS £6 / 5
FULL PRICE BUY NOW
CONCESSIONS - BUY NOW

Home