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John Russell / John Butcher / Dominic Lash: But Everything Now Left Before It Arrived
by John Eyles
Released towards the end of 2021, the year of guitarist John Russell's death, this recording dates from December 2010, a time before Russell was seriously ill and needed heart surgery. As such, this recording is very welcome as it recalls happier times. The album's five tracks, totalling about forty-one minutes, were recorded at the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra Festival III at the Glasgow Centre of Contemporary Arts. As the YouTube footage below (filmed on 16th August 2010, ...
Continue ReadingJohn Butcher / Dominic Lash / John Russell / Mark Sanders: Discernment
by John Sharpe
As part of his 40th birthday celebration at Cafe Oto in January 2020, bassist Dominic Lash convened a quartet of some of the UK's finest improvisers, completed by guitarist John Russell, saxophonist John Butcher and drummer Mark Sanders. With such experienced practitioners, there are any number of prior connections which help ensure a successful and empathetic outing. Russell, who died in January 2021, was one of the so-called second generation of British improvisers, often working closely with Butcher ...
Continue ReadingPhillips, Butcher, Solberg: We Met - And Then
by John Sharpe
Sometimes three is a crowd, but when the company is as empathetic and welcoming as the fertile established partnership of British saxophonist John Butcher and Swedish percussionist Ståle Liavik Solberg, then the addition of veteran American bassist Barre Phillips serves as more of a benediction. Butcher and Solberg only came together in 2015, but the success of that encounter, documented on So Beautiful, It Starts To Rain (Clean Feed, 2016), encouraged further liaison not only as a twosome, ...
Continue ReadingTwo trios and a quartet from John Butcher
by John Eyles
Saxophonist John Butcher's impressively large discography features many trio recordings; in fact, trios come a close second to the many duo albums he has recorded. Plenty of Butcher's trio recordings are with groupings that are long-standing, some having acquired names out of necessity, such as The Contest of Pleasures (with Xavier Charles and Axel Dörner) or Common Objects (with Rhodri Davies and Lee Patterson) ), while others have not, such as that with John Edwards and Mark Sanders, or with ...
Continue ReadingFrisque Concordance: Distinct Machinery
by John Eyles
The group Frisque Concordance began back in October 1992 when the quartet—comprising UK saxophonist John Butcher and the Germans pianist Georg Graewe, double bassist Hans Schneider and drummer Martin Blume—was recorded live at the Ruhr Jazz Festival in Bochum, Germany. The results were released in 1993 as Spellings, the first album on Graewe's Random Acoustics label. Although Butcher and Graewe recorded one album as a duo, Light's View (Nuscope, 1999), Spellings represented the entire Frisque Concordance ...
Continue ReadingFrom John Butcher’s Collection
by John Eyles
An old saying tells us it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. In the case of Covid-19 and its repercussions, many people would have to wrack their brains to think of any good that ill wind had blown to anyone. Musically, though, there is an increasing number of impressive album releases that were conceived and recorded during lockdown (even if they cannot be promoted by live events.) In addition, quite a few musicians have been revisiting and ...
Continue ReadingJohn Butcher / Thomas Lehn / Matthew Shipp: The Clawed Stone
by John Sharpe
The unlikely conjunction of American pianist Matthew Shipp, most strongly associated with New York avant jazz, and British saxophonist John Butcher and German electronicist Thomas Lehn, two leading exponents of the European free improvisation scene, works like a dream on The Clawed Stone. It's not a one off. The genesis of this 2017 Paris studio session lies in the pianist's invite for Butcher to join him as part of a 2010 residency at London's Cafe Oto, which was documented as ...
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