Home » Jazz Musicians » Johnny Hunter
Johnny Hunter
Named by Jazzwise as an "artist to watch", Johnny Hunter is a Manchester-based drummer, composer and bandleader. He performs his own music across the UK most notably with the Johnny Hunter Quartet, having been recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio 3, and appearing at such esteemed venues as Ronnie Scott’s, the Manchester Jazz Festival, Birmingham Jazzlines at Symphony Hall, and Liverpool International Jazz Festival, among many others. He also regularly tours across Europe as part of the UK-Swiss collaboration, MoonMot.
His compositional focus is in developing techniques for composing for improvisers; to make the most of their skills in interpreting the music whilst retaining a strong compositional identity. To develop these ideas, he formed the piano trio, Fragments, with their 2019 album described as an “imaginatively detailed and uncompromising diary of a virtuosic improv group” (John Fordham, Jazzwise).
He also applies his methods in other ensembles: Pale Blue Dot, premiering in 2016 with En Bas String Quartet at NQ Jazz, a popular Manchester night focused on creative music; Backlash (2017), a suite written for piccolo, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, accordion and percussion; Now It Can Be Told (2018), an extended piece showcasing his Post-Rock influences, exploring the use of electronics in Jazz; and Composition for Large Ensemble (2019) featured on BBC Radio 3 following successful participation in Sound and Music’s 2018 New Voices.
He is in much demand as a sideman, having toured and recorded with, among others, Martin Archer's Engine Room Favourites, Mick Beck, Nat Birchall, Blind Monk Theory, Olie Brice, Dee Byrne, Laura Cole's Metamorphic, Adam Fairhall, Dave Kane, Kim Macari, Manchester Jazz Collective, Corey Mwamba, Cath Roberts, Chris Sharkey, and Nishla Smith.
Tags
Johnny Hunter / Mark Hanslip / Olie Brice: Divisions
by John Sharpe
Divisions might seem a strange choice of title for such a cohesive set. It is the name of a four-part suite written by drummer Johnny Hunter for this all British trio completed by bassist Olie Brice and tenor saxophonist Mark Hanslip. As well as his own dates, such as Pale Blue Dot (Northern Contemporary, 2020) for string quartet, sax and drums, Hunter also stokes the fires of Cath Roberts' Sloth Racket and the collective Spinningwork (NEWJAiM, 202z). Perhaps the divide ...
read moreAdam Fairhall / Johnny Hunter: Winifred Atwell Revisited
by Chris May
Winifred Atwell was a gifted pianist, born in Trinidad, who came to Britain to study classical music at the Royal Academy of Music in 1946. By the early 1950s, a combination of talent and a husband who knew his way around British popular entertainment had established Atwell as a bill-topping theatrical and recording star. Atwell's happy-go-lucky “honky tonk" style was a combination of American boogie woogie, which she had picked up from US servicemen in Trinidad, and ...
read moreMoonMot: Going Down The Well
by Bruce Lindsay
Six musicians from the UK and Switzerland, with a strong background in improvisation and a talent for mixing acoustic and electronic instrumentation, creating tunes which move from the gentle, Rhodes-led, intro to “35 Years" and the bass-sax interplay which opens “Threnody Of The English Polity" to the raucous baritone sax of the title track—that is MoonMot on Going Down The Well. The sextet formed in 2017 when saxophonists Dee Byrne (Entropi, Deemer) and Cath Roberts (Sloth Racket, Favourite ...
read moreRon Caines - Martin Archer Axis: Les Oiseaux de Matisse
by Glenn Astarita
The founder of this UK-based label, reedman/multi-instrumentalist Martin Archer and many of his longtime or more recent cohorts radiate a seemingly eternal sphere of invention. Other than ongoing projects with specific artists or ensembles, no two albums are distinctly alike. Hence, the element of surprise is a recurring element. Here, Archer and saxophonist Ron Caines co-lead the septet for a multidimensional jazz-tinged bash amid colorific textures, pulsating free-form sprees, quaint oddities and other captivating attributes throughout the 77-minute runtime.
read more
