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About Larry Stabbins
Instrument: Saxophone
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Larry Stabbins
Born:
Larry Stabbins was born in Bristol where he started learning clarinet at the age of eight then soprano saxophone at nine and graduating to tenor sax at ten. He did his first paid gig in his father's dance band at twelve and started a long association with pianist Keith Tippett when he was sixteen and Keith eighteen at the legendary Dugout Club in Bristol. At the same time he served his musical apprenticeship in local dancehall resident bands and countless soul bands. He later contributed to many of Tippett's projects such as Centipede, Ark, Tapestry and the Septet. In addition to occasional duo performances, in the mid-eighties they also worked for a several years as a trio with percussionist Louis Moholo recording the album "Tern" on FMP, while Tippett was himself involved in various Working Week and Weekend activities and Keith's wife Julie sang on the fourth Working Week album.
In London in the early 70’s after a short spell in the Brotherhood of Breath, he attended John Stevens’ Ealing workshops and played with the Spontaneous Music Orchestra, and occasionally with SME and the Dance Orchestra. As a result he met many of the `second generation` of British improvisors and often played the Little Theatre Club, sometimes solo, often in combinations with people such as Terry Day, Marcio Mattos, Ken Hyder, Paul Burwell, Maggie Nicholls and particularly Roy Ashbury with whom he formed a regular duo, recording Fire Without Bricks for Bead Records in 1976. During this period in London he also worked as a freelance commercial musician, playing studio sessions, nightclubs and West End shows as well as playing in more jazz based situations such as Mike Westbrook’s `Solid Gold Cadillac`.
Back in Bristol in the late seventies he was involved with the then thriving Bristol Musicians Co-op while still performing in London as a duo with Peter Cusack and in Tony Wren’s `Mama Lapato`.
In 1979 he joined the Tony Oxley Quintet alongside Howard Riley, Barry Guy (later replaced by Hugh Metcalfe) and Phil Wachsmann and played in various permutations of it for many years (including one with Pat Thomas, Manfred Schoof and Sirone in 1992) and also Oxley’s Celebration Orchestra. At the same time he also joined the London Jazz Composers Orchestra with whom he played until about 1985, and also Peter Brotzmann’s Alarm Orchestra and its successor the Tentet `Marz Combo`. The early 80’s also saw him play in the Eddie Prevost Quartet, Trevor Watt’s Moire Music, Louis Moholo’s Spirits Rejoice, and Elton Dean’s Ninesense as well as touring (the then East) Germany with Heinz Becker’s Quintet with Uli Gumpert, Radu Malfatti, Peter Kowald and Stefan Hubner.
Alongside this he played in the seminal pop group Weekend and formed a key writing partnership with its guitarist Simon Booth. This became the basis for Working Week, a project that took a melange of latin, soul and jazz into the world of pop and dance music. Born out of the burgeoning Latin Jazz Dance scene in London clubs such as the Electric Ballroom and the Wag, the new band mixed jazz with modish Latin dance rhythms and vocals by singers such as Juliet Roberts, Julie Tippetts, Robert Wyatt and Tracy Thorn. They became a dominating force in the 80s British jazz revival, the movement that made jazz fashionable again, introducing it to a new young audience and instigating a great upsurge in new talent onto the British Jazz Scene. The band toured extensively in Europe and Japan, performing at most of Europe's major Jazz Festivals, recording five albums for Virgin Records.
The demise of Working Week was followed by QRZ? a fusion of jazz and rap which also recorded for Virgin and the German label Loud Minority.
Following a period away from music during the mid nineties,he formed a trio with with Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders " Game Theory" playing what was described by BBC Radio 3 as "Free Jazz Techno Funk". During this period he also worked with Keith Tippett’s Tapestry, in a quartet with Howard Riley Tony Wren and Mark Sanders, in Louis Moholo’s Dedication Ochestra, in Soupsongs, playing the music of Robert Wyatt, and in Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA Orchestra.
This was followed by "Stonephace" a project with rave producer and DJ Krzysztof Oktalski,which featured Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley and bass player Jim Barr together with live visuals from VJ Stella Marina. The 2009 album on Tru Thoughts Recordings also features a guest appearance from legendary trumpet player Guy Barker.
Then came "Stonephace Stabbins" a quintet featuring pianist Zoe Rahman, Karl Raschied Abel on Bass, Pat Illingworth Dms and Spry Robinson percussion.
The album "Transcendental" was released on Stabbins own Record Label Noetic Records.
Andy Hague's Double Standards: Release
by Chris May
English musicians pay a price for living outside London—the country is too small to support more than one major metropolitan music hub, even in the digital age. The old adage out of sight, out of mind still applies. Trumpeter and record label director Matthew Halsall's Manchester-based Gondwana operation, and the vibrant spiritual jazz scene which is ...
Saxophone Colossi: An Alternative Top Ten Banging Albums
by Chris May
Miles Davis once said you could tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker. You might want to add John Coltrane, you might even want to add Davis. But however you cut it, saxophones and trumpets have been the flag bearers of the music. Trumpets got things rolling and saxophones came into ...
Keith Tippett: 100 Best Foots Forward
by Duncan Heining
From the Albert Hall at twenty-two with a fifty-piece band to picking potatoes to make ends meet a decade later, Keith Tippett's life in music could sum up many a jazz career. After a grim '80s, things now look better for the composer, pianist and bandleader. “What I'm about to say is ridiculous but it was ...
Livelove Radio Bremen series continues: Working Week and Jazz Passengers
by Mark Sullivan
The Livelove series issuing archival live Radio Bremen recordings began with Larry Coryell & The Eleventh House from January 1975 (Promising Music, 2015) and the Horace Silver Quintet from June 1977 (Promising Music, 2015). That seems like a pretty wide range: from jazz fusion to hard bop. But the third and fourth releases in the series ...
Bruce Lindsay's Best Releases of 2012
by Bruce Lindsay
The year of 2012 proved once again that jazz remains a wonderfully diverse and diverting art form. Here are ten of my favorite albums, in no particular order.Christine TobinSailing To Byzantium(Trail Belle)A joy from first note to last, this is a majestic and beautiful work. Ian ...
Transcendental
Label: Noetic Records
Released: 2012
Track listing: Africa; Noetic; Immanence; Yellow Brick Road; Transcendental Euphoria; Anomalous Monism; White Queen Psychology; Soul Train.
Working Week: Working Nights
by Bruce Lindsay
Many contemporary music and cultural commentators disparage the UK's '80s pop scene as a time seemingly in thrall to new technologies, and whose throwaway commercial hits are long forgotten--and rightly so. Is that really how it was though? Others look far more fondly on the decade's music, remembering its brief dalliance between pop culture and jazz ...
"Stonephace" Stabbins: Transcendental
by Bruce Lindsay
On his thirteenth birthday Larry “Stonephace" Stabbins, already a promising saxophonist, bought John Coltrane's Africa/Brass (Impulse!, 1961). The impact was immediate and long-lasting, as Stabbins writes in the liner notes to Transcendental. By the early'70s he was an established player on the UK jazz scene. Forty years on, the sound of Africa/Brass still influences Stabbins and ...
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