WILKINSON / EDWARDS / NOBLE – Live at Cafe Oto (11-7-2008)

Label: Bo'Weavil Recordings – weavil33CD
Format: CD, Album; Country: UK - Released: 2009
Style: Free Improvisation
Recorded live at Cafe Oto, London 11 July, 2008.
Design – Damien Beaton
Engineer [Post-production] – Mick Ritchie, Noble
Liner Notes – Mike Gavin
Mixed By – Tjan, Noble
Photography By [Cover] – Midori Ogata
Photography By [Inside] – Mark Morris
Recorded By – Anna Tjan, Shane Browne

Its cover looks like a mid- ’ 50s Miles Davis album on Blue Note, but don ’ t let it deceive you. It says nothing about the music that lies within. The trio of Alan Wilkinson on alto and baritone saxophones, John Edwards on bass and Steve Noble on drums is an improvising group, one with its roots firmly in free jazz rather than bop. Live at Café Oto is their second album, a follow-up to the fine studio-recorded Obliquity. Where that debut showcased the threesome ’ s pumped-up, high-energy approach to improvising, this one captures them in their natural habitat – in front of a live audience at London ’ s current venue of choice. Indeed, this trio first came together in public by happenstance: when Lol Coxhill couldn ’ t make a trio gig with Edwards and Noble at Wilkinson ’ s own club Flim Flam, and the saxophonist stepped into the breach… and the rest is history.

There are two tracks here, the thirty-two minute opener, “ Spellbound, ” followed by eight minutes of “ Recoil. ” If that sounds short on running time, wait ‘ til you hear the music. This trio delivers concentrated chaos, so those forty minutes contain as much intensity as some albums twice as long. Compared to other improvisers, they are full-on all the time, without atmospheric silences, pregnant pauses or tentative exploratory negotiations.

The opening notes of “ Spellbound ” set the agenda. Silencing the crowd and grabbing their attention, Wilkinson unleashes a clarion-call blast that would shake the walls of Jericho, a blast that is simultaneously exciting and scary. Immediately joined by Edwards ’ bowed bass and a barrage of cymbals from Noble, Wilkinson embarks on an unrelenting solo that is characterized by its logic and coherence; once he has laid down a phrase, he teases out its implications, plays with it and develops it further, leaving the listener with a sense of satisfaction.

But Wilkinson is not the sole focus. Edwards and Noble match him step for step, reacting to his playing and reflecting it back. So, when the saxophone reels out a staccato phrase, it is instantly returned by both bass and drums, leading all three players into a sympathetic exchange. Throughout, the bass and drums maintain a focus on their rhythmic role, never allowing the pace to flag and constantly driving things forward, to thrilling effect.

The shorter “ Recoil ” is just as propulsive, but acts as a refreshing contrast. It starts with Wilkinson ’ s voice issuing a series of declamatory phrases as uncompromising as any from his horns, sounding like a possessed man speaking in tongues. He offsets these vocal calls with saxophone responses, creating a dialogue with himself. Again, bass and drums propel him on, creating a piece that sounds sanctified. Unsurprisingly, through to the final fade-out, the crowd cheers. Obliqity is a hard album to follow. Oto manages to trump that ace.

_ By JOHN EYLES (Dusted Reviews, Feb. 19, 2009)



Links in Comments!

HESSION / WILKINSON / FELL – Foom! Foom! (1992)

Label: Bruce's Fingers – BF5
Format: CD, Album; Country: UK - Released: 1992
Style: Free Improvisation
Recorded on 20th & 21st February 1992 at Kite Recording Studio, Cambridge.
Liner Notes – Ben Watson
Photography By – Jo Fell
Producer – Roger Chatterton
Written-By – Alan Wilkinson, Paul Hession, Simon H. Fell

This album dates from the early days of digital recording, but the sound is excellent, specially for this occasion remastering in the ART&JAZZ Studio, by VITKO.

The first studio recording of the Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio. Despite the group's reputation, this CD contains much unexpected beauty and delicacy.

What can you say when you get three jobs like this together who just want to blow the gates off of heaven every time they get together? Is it possible to sit and write a close analysis of every wrapped encounter on the bandstand, analyzing each improvisational encounter and how one of these complete free-for-alls is different from one another? I suppose it is, but why? This trio -- with Wilkinson on soprano, alto, and baritone; Simon Fell on bass; and Paul Hession on drums -- would be insulted if they weren't bored to tears reading such a thing first. This is extreme music made for extreme ears. That said, in the symbiotic interrelationships that are formed, torn apart, and re-formed among the fissures these tunes create, there is a logic at work, one that relies heavily on the idea that listeners don't really know what harmony, rhythm, and melody are yet, and they are still working toward that idea -- albeit in a violent and hilarious way. This is a band who has no trouble making an audience sit up and take notice either on the stand or in their living rooms, and the reason for that is simple: Nothing about this music is compromised or half-baked; it's furious with humor built in, and it's knotty, scaly, confrontational stuff played with warmth and verve. Highly recommended.

_ By Thom Jurek (AMG)



Links in Comments!

HESSION, WILKINSON, FELL – The Horrors Of Darmstadt (1994)

Label: Shock – SX025 CD
Format: CD, Album; Country: UK - Released: 1994
Style: Free Jazz, free improvisation
Recordings were from a live show at The Termite Club, Leeds 7th June 1993.
Artwork By [Cover Art & Lettering] – Gina Southgate
Mastered By – Denis Blackham
Photography – Jo Fell
Recorded By – Alan Wilkinson, Ben Watson


Excerpts from reviews:

"Distinctive purveyors of improvised music. The power and passion of their playing called to mind the spirit of 60s US free jazz; their ferocious abstraction had much in common with European improvisers like Brötzmann/van Hove/Bennink and Schlippenbach/Parker/Lovens."
_ Chris Blackford, THE WIRE

Improv trio made their debut at the Termite Festival in 1989 and has now toured UK four times. Appeared at Sound Symposium Newfoundland (Canada) in 1994. Toured with Joe Morris in 1996. 'Revolution in sound…the music of the real underground'
_ Ben Watson

"Spontaneous music of a scorching and unrelenting intensity.....conversational music of the most intuitive eloquence.....unquenchable energy.....There probably isn't such a thing as state- of-the-art free music, but as a term of convenient endearment, it's close enough."
_ John Fordham THE GUARDIAN

A trio that has consistently garnered superlatives from critics. The Penguin Guide to Jazz - notoriously sparing with its maximum four stars ("outstanding, demanding a place in any comprehensive collection") - gave its four star accolade to no less than three albums by Hession/Wilkinson/Fell. Although only Fell ’ s bass is amplified, the trio is famously loud. "Raging, exploding tumultuous improvisation music by one of the greatest groups in the music today. It ’ s an almost unique experience at a time when acoustic free-jazz has dropped many of its confrontational aspects: these men revivify the intensities of Ayler, Brötzmann and others in the small but noble tradition of great noise." Penguin Guide to Jazz. "A trio with a growing notoriety for a furious brand of free jazz."
_ THE GUARDIAN

Alan Wilkinson (b. London 1954) first made his presence felt as part of the burgeoning Leeds music scene of the 80s, founding the Termite Club and forming long-standing liasons with Hession and Fell amongst others, while developing a highly personal, vocalized and energetic approach to the saxophone. Re-locating to London in 1990 he currently works in trios with John Edwards and Steve Noble, James Dunn and John Bisset, as well as collaborations with Chris Corsano, Spiritualized, NY duo Talibam! and Spanish group Laxula; he also and runs the flimflam improvisation club in London. Other collaborations have included Derek Bailey, Peter Brotzmann, Willi Kellers, Alex Maguire's Cat o'Nine Tails, Sunny Murray, Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo, Eddie Prevost, Stefan Jaworzyn, Steve Hubback and Spring Heel Jack. He has appeared at many national and international festivals and is featured on numerous recordings.

Simon H. Fell is a composer and double bassist active in free improvisation and contemporary jazz and chamber music. He has worked in small or medium groups with John Butcher, Peter Brötzmann, Lol Coxhill, Billy Jenkins, Joe Morris, Keith Tippett, John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Joey Baron, Elliott Sharp, Billy Bang, Christian Marclay and numerous others, and is a founder member of London Improvisers Orchestra . Other regular groupings include SFQ , IST , The ZFP Quartet and many more. He has presented compositions for improvisers at the LMC Festival, the Termite Festival, the Frakture Festival, Leo Records' Unsung Music Festival, Freedom of the City Festival and on many other occasions. His discography includes over 80 recordings. "A major contemporary musician" - The Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD.

Paul Hession was born in Leeds in 1956. After early singing experience as a boy soprano in a church choir and experiments with the guitar, he took up drumming at the age of 15 and since then has played and broadcast in many European & Scandinavian countries as well as Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, USA & Canada. He has played with many of the major figures on the free music scene (for example; Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford, Lol Coxhill, Sunny Murray, Marshall Allen, Frode Gjerstad, Peter Kowald, Joe McPhee, Borah Bergman, Otomo Yoshihide as well as his old friends Alan Wilkinson, Simon Fell, Mick Beck & Hans- Peter Hiby). Collaborators from a different scene include Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher), Bill Orcutt (of Harry Pussy) and techno musician/dj Paul Woolford. He is known to relish the interaction of collective music-making, but also responds to the challenge of solo performance.



Links in Comments!

HESSION, WILKINSON, FELL – Two Falls & A Submission (2010)

Label : Bo'Weavil Recordings - weavil44cd
Format: CD, Album; Country: UK - Released: 2012
Style: Free Improvisation
Recorded 31 March 2010 at The Queen's Head, Monmouth, Wales
Composed By – Alan Wilkinson, Paul Hession, Simon H. Fell
Design, Photography By [Image Manipulation] – Damien Beaton
Engineer – Sean McGowan; Painting – Gina Southgate


Review:

The trio of Alan Wilkinson on alto and baritone saxophones, Simon H. Fell on double bass, and Paul Hession on drums first came together to play improvised music in 1989, releasing their first album, Bogey ’ s (Bruce ’ s Fingers) in 1991. Two Falls & a Submission was recorded in Monmouth, Wales, in March 2010 during their reunion tour of the UK to mark their 21st anniversary.

In their heyday in the ’ 90s, the threesome was an awesome prospect both live and on disc; all three played with the kind of wild freedom that had characterized ’ 60s free jazz (yes, jazz, not improv) but had not been heard much since. Around 2000, after the release of St. John ’ s on the Ecstatic Peace label (proprietor Thurston Moore was a fan), they went their separate ways. When their 2010 reunion tour was announced, many wondered if the three would still generate their former fire.

They need not have worried. Right from the first notes of the opener, “ First Fall, ” the years fall away as all three simultaneously hit top gear in a bravura display of high-energy improvisation. Wilkinson immediately grabs the limelight, straight away playing with a raw intensity that other saxophonists might hit once a night; for Wilkinson, that is the baseline from which he then builds. Alternating between saxophones, he solos relentlessly, keeping a seamless barrage of phrases flowing from his horns. When he does intermittently pause from blowing, he is likely to pour forth improvised, wordless vocals with as much gusto as he plays.

It seems entirely appropriate that Two Falls & a Submission takes its title from the parlance of all-in wrestling. Hession and Fell never act as support players. Throughout, the drummer matches Wilkinson ’ s intensity, never letting the pace flag so as to keep the pressure up. At times it sounds as if he and Wilkinson are involved in a one-on-one duel to see who will crack first; of course, neither of them does. For his part, Fell stokes the fire with his own propulsive phrases, constantly driving things forward and holding them together. The end result is an amalgam of three equal contributions that fit together perfectly; the absence of any one of them would make the whole feel incomplete.

Even when the three move down a gear — as they sometimes must, given the relentless pace they set — they still retain all the qualities that make this trio special: intensity, togetherness, equality. Awesome stuff.

_ By John Eyles (DUSTED REVIEW)
   date: Jan. 24, 2012

Excerpt from:
Ian Mann on the music of the extraordinary improvising saxophonist Alan Wilkinson

..." I’ll admit that I don’t always find improv the easiest of genres to get on with, I like the idea of it but don’t always find it easy to listen to, particularly on record. However it is thrilling to watch the process live, the thinking in the moment, the visual impact of extended instrumental techniques, the things that can’t always be appreciated on radio broadcasts or on album. Wilkinson initially requested that I cover “ Practice ” , an album of solo saxophone improvisations but I suggested that as a relative novice to the genre I might get along rather better with this. Good move. It’s satisfying to find an improv record I can really identify with, partly the result of having witnessed the members of the trio live (particularly the extraordinary Wilkinson, I’ve never heard another saxophone player quite like him) and partly the resonance that comes from the recording being located at the Queens Head.
Another analogy often used to describe the improv process is “ painting pictures in sound ” and there’s a certain irony in the fact that Wilkinson trained as a painter completing a Fine Arts degree at Leeds University before turning to music. Art’s loss was surely music’s gain.
Recommended, but not for the faint-hearted."

by: Ian Mann, Friday, May 18, 2012




Links in Comments!

Re: HWF – Hession, Wilkinson, Fell – Bogey ’ s (1991, Re-1999)

Label: Bruce ’ s Fingers; Catalog#: BF 31
Country: UK / 1999; Format. CD, Album
Jazz Style: avant-garde, free improvisation, Contemporary Jazz, Free Jazz
Recorded at Bogey ’ s, Huddersfield on 11 June 1991
(74 mins.) in jewel box © Bruce ’ s Fingers 1991

The recording that launched this trio with a bang. Strong, hard, inventive & witty.

Reviews:

“Exceptional acoustic maelstrom . . . . . People who suggest that British jazz always lags behind American innovators should check this date. Their music is often categorised as ‘ free improvisation ’ but really is state-of-the-art jazz, blindingly swift and responsive. ” Ben Watson ARTSCENE “ They left the audience in a state of shock. Whiteheat improvisation, full throttle free jazz out of Archie Shepp 1969, but somehow more so: more venom, more noise, more discord, more evil heat . . . . . simultaneous musicality and cathartic excess . . . . . we are talking the essence of what makes jazz great here.”
_ Ben Watson, THE WIRE

“Thrillingly intense recording by the inflammatory trio, a band that outdoes the old Brötzmann groups for sheer firepower. An outstanding record that demands a place in any comprehensive collection.”
_ THE PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ ON CD, LP & CASSETTE

“Back in 1991, Hession/Wilkinson/Fell played music of such rolling majesty and power that only national stereotypes (Americans play Free Jazz, Europeans play Improv) explain why the trio wasn ’ t hailed by the press everywhere. Paul Hession ’ s waves of cymbals and drums still sound deliriously beautiful, like some natural force. Alan Wilkinson ’ s donkey-bray baritone and lyrical alto rev like a Harley-Davidson, and Simon Fell ’ s bass stokes the fire with exceptional understanding of climactic modulation. Apologists for the uneven blow-outs currently promoted as Ecstatic Jazz in the States say that music as finely-wrought as the late Coltrane isn ’ t possible for lesser mortals. Check this out and explode a few prejudices.”
_ Ben Watson, HIFI NEWS & RECORD REVIEW

“How to say it – there is so little that can compare to this. This trio, on this night in 1991, showed up for a regular gig in the tiny town of Huddersfield, and proceeded to burn the place down with their music. From the opening moments when Wilkinson and Fell crank through a modal elegiac series of motifs before allowing Hession to up the ante and take the sound to the margin and over, there is no doubt about the singular quality of the communication here. Wilkinson in particular is simply at the top of his form, long, fluid legato lines that turn in on themselves and create a fire in Fell that we have seldom heard in recordings. His pizzicato work is driven with a dervish-like intensity that moves through scalar variations on Eastern modal tonalities as Hession moves into overdrive in providing a driving, dancing, whirling support. This was a set that probably left everybody in the audience and on the stand breathless and wondering what transpired; it certainly happens on the disc. This set is truly unbelievable and truly indispensable.”
_ Thom Jurek, ALL MUSIC GUIDE



Welcome to new prog-blog "Different Perspectives In My Room...!".
Enjoy the music, and please leave a comment. Thanks in advance.

Link in Comments!