Monthly Archives: May 2016

5th June @ The Vortex: Mike Chillingworth Trio & Entropi

To round off this season of LUME at The Vortex, we’ve got an exciting double bill of new and improvised music from Mike Chillingworth Trio and Dee Byrne’s Entropi.

ENTROPI

Entropi is a vehicle for Dee Byrne’s ‘space-jazz’ compositions, exploring a narrative of life-pondering, stargazing and risk-taking. Juggling order and chaos, composition and improvisation, the group takes listeners on a journey with compelling group interplay, strong themes, open-ended improvisation, dark grooves and interweaving melodic textures. The ensemble comprises alto saxophonist Dee Byrne, trumpeter Andre Canniere, keyboardist Rebecca Nash, drummer Matt Fisher and bassist Olie Brice. Having performed live together for some time, the band has achieved a striking empathy and freedom to take risks.

Entropi’s debut album ‘New Era’ was released on the F-IRE Presents label in June 2015. Their second album will be released on Whirlwind Recordings in 2017.

‘Interesting, stimulating music that is quite hard to pigeonhole gripped by a strong group instinct that moves from hard bop and structured modal sounds into more improv-soaked free-bop.’  Marlbank

Dee Byrne alto sax/compositions
Andre Canniere trumpet
Rebecca Nash keyboard
Olie Brice double bass
Matt Fisher drums

ENTROPI

PHOTO CREDIT: CARL HYDE

Mike Chillingworth Trio 

We are really looking forward to welcoming alto saxophonist and composer Mike Chillingworth and his trio. In his own words:

‘I formed this trio last year as a means to play music with an emphasis on spontaneity and improvisation. I have another project, a septet, which is all about detailed written compositions. This trio is the antidote to that. I will be performing with two fantastic improvisers: US drum legend Jeff Williams, who has played with everybody, including two of my favourite saxophonists Joe Lovano and Stan Getz; and Conor Chaplin on bass who plays in many of the most exciting new UK bands at of the moment. 

I often deliberately avoid choosing repertoire for a gig until the last moment, often writing new tunes in the days leading up to a performance, or taking ideas from whatever I happen to be listening to at the time. Whatever we choose to play on this occasion the emphasis will be on improvising, communicating, listening and exploring together.’

Mike Chillingworth alto saxophone/compositions
Conor Chaplin bass
Jeff Williams drums

Mike Chillingworth

As usual, doors are at 7.30pm and the music will start at around 8pm. Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Street, N16 8JH.

 

20th May @ Hundred Years Gallery: Richard Scott’s Lightning Ensemble & Sam Andreae solo

This month we return to Hundred Year’s Gallery to host a fantastic touring double bill of improvised music. It’s great to have Sam Andreae back at LUME after his appearance last year with Rodrigo Constanzo, and more recently of course as part of Sloth Racket. Doors are 8pm, music 8.30pm, and tickets are available in advance from the Luminous Bandcamp site.

Hundred Years Gallery, 13 Pearson Street, E2 8JD. Nearest station: Hoxton overground.

Richard Scott’s Lightning Ensemble

The Lighting Ensemble is Richard Scott’s UK-based hyper-interactive free improvising group with longtime collaborators Phillip Marks and David Birchall. Intricate, intimate, dynamic, molecular and often explosive music.

The ensemble focuses on a highly interactive, conversational post-free jazz form of free music that Scott calls ‘molecular improvisation’, influenced by disciplines originally pioneered by John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Scott’s approach to electronics is fast and visceral and the group’s sound reflects his interest in speed, intensity and collective musical communication.

The Lightning Ensemble itself has been in existence for five years but the individual players in the group have a much longer history of playing together. Scott and Marks have been working together for over two decades in groups such as Grew Trio and Bark! Marks and Birchall, separated in age by 30 years, nonetheless discovered their absolutely compatible natural musical affinity over the past five years via the improvising scene in the north of England. In 2016 there are 3 new albums prepared for release: one is the trio alone, one featuring Sam Andreae on saxophone and one with Jon Rose on violin.

lightning

Sam Andreae

Sam’s music explores ideas of stasis through chaos, concrete gestures vs abstraction, subversion of learned behaviours/actions, extremes of attack or sustain and spontaneity. All the audible possibilities of the saxophone are approached with a concept of sound equality – one language formed from many contrasting parts – informed by playing with many percussion and electronic musicians and driven by a desire to blend with these instruments in order to form a cohesive ensemble sound. His composition work focuses on exploiting behavioural/interaction based elements through sound and gesture, these ideas also mix into his improvised performances. However deeply thought out a concert or work might be, Sam believes keeping a lightness and fragility in any performance situation is essential in order to achieve an engaging and truly spontaneous musical experience.

“Andreae delves into an impressive vocabulary of skilfully controlled overtones, rapid keypad flutters and fragile harmonics, glistening like filaments held up to the light” 

– Daniel Spicer, The Wire (2015)

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