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Mark Lockheart
Mark Lockheart is one of the most distinctive and creative musicians on the current British music scene. As a saxophonist and composer, his work often defies categorisation and crosses the boundaries of the jazz, new music and folk worlds. "Lockheart is a consummate saxophonist and a original and versatile composer" The Rough Guide to Jazz.
Mark came to prominence in the mid 1980s with the influential and radical big band Loose Tubes, which he toured with throughout the USA and Europe and recorded with until its demise in 1989. The late 1980s also saw Mark composing and touring his own music, performing three times at Ronnie Scott's in London, and at festivals in Vienna, Paris and Berlin. Around this same time Mark was seen touring with Annie Whitehead and Roger Dean's Lysis.
The formation of the co-led Perfect Houseplants in 1992 saw the emergence of one of Mark's most important projects, which is still very much developing today. Perfect Houseplants has released six albums and is involved in several crossover projects such as its collaborations with the Orlando Consort (Extempore, 1998), with baroque violinist Andrew Manze, and more recently with recorder virtuoso Pamela Thorby (New Folk Songs, Linn, 2002). In 1998 the band represented the BBC at the EBU in Vienna where the concert was recorded and broadcast to 11 European countries. A concert recorded at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival this year was broadcast as a special BBC Radio 3 programme over Christmas and Boxing Day. This period also saw Mark collaborating with Irish pianist and composer Michael O'Sullebhain, and recording a world/jazz album entitled Matheran (Isis, 1993) with guitarist John Parricelli.
In the mid-nineties Mark toured extensively with Django Bates' Delightful Precipice, performing at many international festivals including Berlin, Molde and Willisau, and recording with jazz, folk and pop artists June Tabor, Billy Jenkins, Stereolab, Jah Wobble, Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout, Don Um Romao ,Thomas Dolby, and more recently Anja Garbarek and Radiohead.
In 1997 Mark was awarded the Peter Whittingham Award to record his semi-orchestral 11-piece group the Scratch Band. This formed the basis of Through Rose-Coloured Glasses, which was released in 1998 to critical acclaim and voted by Time Out as one of the Top Ten albums of 1998.
A commission from the Cheltenham Jazz Festival and Birmingham Jazz led to a suite of pieces inspired by dance forms, which formed the basis for the Scratch Band's second album, Imaginary Dances (Staytuned Records, 2002). In 2001 with the help of The Arts Council of England Touring Grant the Scratch Band undertook a ten date nationwide tour.
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Laura Jurd: The Big Friendly Album
by Chris May
The Big Friendly Album is what it is called and that is exactly what it is. London-based trumpeter/cornetist and composer Laura Jurd's fourth album under her own name is a big hearted, gorgeously lyrical, feel-good romp, which does not preclude cerebral engagement but which wears its complexities so lightly that one barely notices them. Jurd last came to the attention of All About Jazz during The Great Pause, with the release of the perfect little masterpiece To ...
read moreExploring New Directions with Mark Lockheart, Jorge Rossy, Daniel Carter and more
by Bob Osborne
Exploring new directions in jazz from around the world, this show has recent releases from Mark Lockheart, Jorge Rossy, Daniel Carter, Joaquin Muro, Nicholas Bridgmen, Pepa Päivinen and Mario Laginha. There is also music from the outstanding trio of Whit Dickey, William Parker, and, Matthew Shipp. The show kicks off with the funky sounds of the Shuffle Demons. Playlist Shuffle Demons All In" from All In (Stubby Records) 00:00 Mark Lockheart Dreamers" from Dreamers (Edition) 07:01 Jorge ...
read moreMark Lockheart: Dreamers
by Chris May
As a founder member of Loose Tubes and Polar Bear, saxophonist Mark Lockheart was at the forefront of two waves of reinvigoration of British jazz, one in the 1980s, the other in the 2000s. By age and experience, in 2022 he qualifies as close to an elder statesman of the music. But somehow one still thinks of Lockheart as a Young Turk. Mostly this is because he continues to search for new contexts in which to make his music.
read moreMark Lockheart: Days On Earth
by Roger Farbey
Mark Lockheart's Days On Earth encapsulates the term fusion in its most literal sense. This actually refers to the amalgamation of two different species of music; jazz and classical. It was deliberately organised so that the individual musicians from each respective genre were paired with their opposite number from the other side." Something akin to footballers marking their opponents or parliamentary pairings during a vote. Pairing examples include flautists Roland Sutherland (jazz) with Anna Noakes (classical) or clarinettists James Allsopp ...
read moreLive From Old York: Mark Lockheart, King Courgette, La Mer Trio & YO1 Festival
by Martin Longley
Mark Lockheart's Ellington In Anticipation The National Centre For Early Music April 25, 2014 The music of Duke Ellington might represent an oft-traversed path across the jazz firmament, but the English saxophonist and composer Mark Lockheart can justify such persistent attentions. During the last decade, this tenor man has principally been associated with Polar Bear, those champions of skittish alternative jazzelectro sounds. In the 1980s, though, he established his reputation as a member ...
read moreMark Lockheart: Ellington in Anticipation
by John Kelman
Ellington in Anticipation isn't Mark Lockheart's first album to employ an expanded lineup; the Polar Bear/Blue Touch Paper saxophonist collaborated with Germany's WDR Big Band on 2010's Days Like These (Fuzzy Moon) and first cut his teeth in Loose Tubes, the now-legendary large UK collective of then-up-and-comers that included pianist Django Bates, saxophonist Iain Ballamy and guitarist John Parricelli, amongst other notables. But Ellington in Anticipation--whose septet's complexion is defined by the incorporation of violin alongside a three-horn frontline--is Lockheart's ...
read moreMark Lockheart & the NDR Big Band: Days Like These
by Nic Jones
Considering the instrumental forces that the big band offers, it's surprising how conservative a lot of large ensemble writing is. Days Like These isn't iconoclastically innovative, but there's enough on offer to satisfy those who find such conservatism tiresome.
Saxophonist Mark Lockheart clearly appreciates what he has at his disposal for all of the relatively conventional section scoring. NDR is a band that embraces rhythmic precision, even as it remains loose enough to avoid sounding drilled. Despite the cyclical, quasi-minimalist ...
read moreLoose Tubes' Django Bates and Mark Lockheart Interiewed at All About Jazz
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All About Jazz
Twenty years after legendary British big band Loose Tubes played its farewell gigs at Ronnie Scott's Club in London, its first live album, Dancing On Frith Street (Lost Marble Records, 2010), became Jazzwise magazine's Archive Album of 2010. In the intervening decades, the band's members had spread across the British and international jazz scenes to become some of the most influential players around. The quality and power of the music on the album served as a welcome reminder of the ...
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