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London Improvisers Orchestra: 2003-4: Responses, Reproductions & Reality

By Glenn Astarita
April 17, 2005
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Consisting predominantly of British free improvisers, this consortium is captured in live performance at the Freedom of the City festival on two dates: May 4, 2003 and May 3, 2004. With over thirty musicians, the orchestra's creative ways are partly signified by call and response dialogues, layered horns, and multicolored contrasts. Effectively, the artists pursue a stop/start and regenerative process via a community-minded approach. Speckliing their notes with stabs at humor and wit, the musicians also pursue brash cadenzas with asymmetrical percussion grooves. Yet the instrumentalists are apt to splinter off into sub-themes.

Part of the fun resides within the fact that they don't always perform as a group. It's akin to a theatrical component, where actors enter and exit a given scene. On "Responses, the horns section evokes a sense of yearning, while on "Fantasy and Reality, the overall muse is marked by weaving horns and subliminal exchanges, like Evan Parker's oscillating soprano sax lines. Nonetheless, they render a gamut of emotive qualities, as many of us have come to expect. And it's another cleverly articulated entry into this unit's gravitating sequence of musical revelations.

Track Listing

Wit's End, Improvisation Panels (1), Hearing Reproduction 5, Proceeding 6, Responses, ISM, Fantasy And Reality

Personnel

Harry Beckett, Roland Ramanan, Ian Smirht* trumpets, Robert Jarvis, Paul Rutherford**, Alan Tomlinson trombones, Neil Metcalfe** flute, Catherine Pluygers** oboe, Terry Day** bamboo pipes, JAacques Foschia, John Rangecroft, Harrison Smith clarinets, John Butcher*, Tom Chant, Lol Coxhill, Caroline Kraabel Adrian Northover, Evan Parker** saxophones, Susanna Ferrar, Sylvia Hallett, Phillipp Wachsmann violins, Charlotte Hug viola, Marcio Mattos cello, John Edwards, Simon H. Fell, David Leahy double basses, Keith Rowe*, Dave Tucker electric guitars, B J Cole** pedal steel guitar, Adam Bohman**, Pat Thomas* electronics, Steve Beresford, Veryan Weston pianos, Tony Marsh, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Mark Sanders* drum sets, Orphy Robinson steel pan, Jaap Blonk voice [on 3 only] [* on 2 - 6 only; ** on 1 & 7 only]

Album information

Title: Responses, Reproductions & Reality | Year Released: 2005 | Record Label: Emanem

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