Category Archives: improv

5th June: Metamorphic & Nut Club

This week we have a double bill of fantastic bands, featuring musicians from the Leeds and London scenes. Pianist Laura Cole brings her sextet Metamorphic, and bassist Seth Bennett will play a set with his new trio Nut Club. We caught Metamorphic’s set at the Vortex in April (with Seth guesting on second bass!), so we know we’re in for a great night of music!

Metamorphic

Metamorphic are a contemporary jazz/folk sextet based in London. They have released two album on the ‘F-ire presents’ label to critical acclaim: The Rock Between (2011) and Coalescence (2013). The instrumentalists in the group all met while studying on the Jazz Degree at Middlesex University in London in 2001, and vocalist Kerry Andrew became involved with the group through the promoter Moose Factory. Kerry also sings with the highly respected vocal trio Juice, whose album ‘Songspin’ recently won Best Contemporary Classical album of the year at the Independent Music Awards. Alto sax player Chris Williams is part of 2009 Mercury Prize nominated group Led Bib, and tenor/soprano sax player John Martin is a successful bandleader in his own right. Drummer Tom Greenhalgh also plays in the acclaimed group World Sanguine Report, led by Andrew Plummer, and double bass player Paul Sandy has worked with various groups such as The Rude Mechanicals.

Laura Cole – bandleader, piano/composer/arranger
Chris Williams – alto sax
John Martin – tenor/soprano sax
Kerry Andrew – vocals/loops
Tom Greenhalgh – drums
Paul Sandy – bass

Nut Club

Nut Club are an exciting new Leeds-based trio. Seth Bennett writes:

‘We set up Nut Club at the beginning of 2013, because we wanted to have a band that could workshop ideas for new tunes together, and could take their time over developing new material and a group aesthetic. We fit loosely into the mould of a jazz band, but play mostly original material with an emphasis on groove – groove in the New Orleans sense, not repetitive figures, but three people juggling music and rhythm between them. We explore the idea of jazz as a dance music – even in its most avant-garde manifestations; We still hear dance rhythms in free jazz and free improvisation.’

Ollie Dover – reeds
John Arnesen – drums
Seth Bennett – bass

As usual it’s doors 8pm, with the music starting at 8.30pm, and it’s £5 on the door. Some of you might remember the Stolen Project gig in April: when we have a sextet playing it can be tricky to get into Long White Cloud if you arrive after the gig has started! Plus, we’ve heard on the grapevine that a certain pianist/bandleader will be celebrating a special birthday on the night too. We advise showing up nice and early…

29th May: Lauren Kinsella Quintet

Award-winning vocalist Lauren Kinsella and her band bring us an evening of new music and improvisation.

Lauren Kinsella Quintet

Lauren Kinsella is a contemporary vocalist and composer based in London. Hailed as ‘a completely down to earth and exquisitely vivacious young Irish singer’ (Katie Bull The New York City Jazz Record), she has performed in venues across Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, Hungary, France, Germany, Portugal, Norway and India. She is the 2013 Kenny Wheeler Prize winner and performs in many groups including Thought-Fox, Blue-Eyed Hawk, The Bears and Alex Huber / Lauren Kinsella Duo . Her music regularly appears on BBC Radio 3, Jazz FM, RTE Lyric FM and BBC Radio Scotland and she has released albums on WideEar Records and Diatribe to critical acclaim.

Lauren Kinsella – vocals

Laura Jurd – trumpet

Dan Nicholls – keyboard

Conor Chaplin – bass

Simon Roth – drums

As usual it’s doors at 8pm, with the music starting at 8.30pm, and £5 entry. Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, E2 8JL…just around the corner from Hoxton overground station.

22nd May: Nightjar & Andre Canniere’s Freeway

This week we have a great double bill: Joe Wright brings his quartet Nightjar, and Andre Canniere presents his new band Freeway. Both projects feature acclaimed vocalist Alice Zawadzki.

Nightjar

Saxophonist and composer Joe Wright’s totally hypnotic and individual band plays brooding, atmospheric songs. Nightjar creates a totally unique world of sound and colour, from blissed out, dreamy, ambient soundscapes to dark and dirty grooves, all tied together by Wright’s intense and lyrical improvising.

Joe Wright saxophone / compositions / electronics

Alice Zawadzki voice / violin

Jeff Spencer bass

James Maddren drums

Andre Canniere’s Freeway

Andre Canniere is an acclaimed trumpet player, composer and educator currently based in London. Originally from rural Pennsylvania (USA), Canniere spent the first five years of his career in New York City where he worked with artists such as Maria Schneider, Bjorkestra, Ted Poor, Ingrid Jensen, Donny McCaslin and Darcy James Argue. He has toured widely throughout the United States and Europe with performances at Carnegie Hall, Birdland, the London Jazz Festival, The Hague Jazz Festival and the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Andre’s second album ‘Coalescence’ was released on Whirlwind Recordings in October 2013.

For this gig, Andre will bring his new ensemble ‘Freeway’, featuring a stella lineup of top London musicians.

Andre Canniere trumpet, compositions

Alice Zawadzki voice

Hannes Riepler guitar

Max Luthert bass

Ollie Howell drums

As usual it’s doors at 8pm, with the music starting at 8.30pm, and £5 entry. Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, E2 8JL…just around the corner from Hoxton overground station.

8th May: Alex Bonney Trio with James Allsopp

After a great duo set last month with Hannah Marshall, Alex Bonney returns to LUME this week with his own band. As LUME regulars will tell you, Alex is well-known on the London improv/jazz scene, co leading a variety of projects including Leverton Fox, Splice and BABs. He has a critically acclaimed improvising duo with bassist Dave Kane and appears frequently as a sideman in several London based bands such as Brass Mask, Golden Age of Steam, World Sanguine Report, Nostalgia 77 and more. Joining him in the trio are Olie Brice (recently sighted at LUME in Stolen Project and playing duo with Fumi Okiji) and world-renowned drummer Jeff Williams.

Alex Bonney – cornet

Olie Brice – bass

Jeff Williams – drums

In the second set, the group will be joined by multi-instrumentalist and Golden Age Of Steam leader James Allsopp on bass clarinet. This promises to be an excellent night of original and improvised music! Doors 8pm, music 8.30pm, £5 entry.

(Photo by Nagib El-Desouky)

24th April: Ti/om and Molino de Otoño update

Quick update about this week’s gig. Sadly, Clive Bell has had to pull out of the Molino de Otoño set on Thursday, but electronic music composer and improviser Visa Kuoppala has kindly stepped in! He is a regular collaborator with the group and they have sent over a biog…

Visa Kuoppala is a Finnish composer, improviser and field recordist living in London. He is active in the areas of acousmatic composition and electroacoustic improvisation, fascinated with the poetic and emotional qualities of enigmatic or ambiguous sounds. He has developed a granular synthesis and feedback-based instrument called Malegra, and is currently working on a PhD in electroacoustic composition at the University of Birmingham. His works have been performed in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, USA, China and Italy.

This should be a fascinating set! Come down to Long White Cloud and check them out, in a double bill with Tim/om (info in our original post below).

Doors 8pm, music 8.30pm, £5 entry.

24th April: Ti/om & Molino de Otoño

This week, we have a double bill of acoustic improvising groups incorporating sounds, influences and instruments from around the world.

Ti/om

Through free improvisation, Ti/om investigates the resonances and contrasts between the two players: Tom Ward on bass clarinet or flute, and Tim Fairhall on acoustic bass. The interplay between the two improvisers is considered from different angles, the result of which can be sprawling melodies, spontaneous grooves, brooding intensities, or more gestural, percussive playing. A cornerstone of Ti/om’s development as a unit has been the use of non-musical sources as starting points, in particular Japanese haiku written by zen monks on their deathbeds. The short-form poetry with its dense, distilled emotion and sense of place functions as an inspiration for improvised music with economy: an idea that has become almost a philosophy for Fairhall and Ward. Both the haikus and the two musicians share a love of the natural world, too, with the poets drawing metaphors from nature to convey the frailty of the human condition and the duo finding a connection in their fondness for ‘solitude in the wilderness’. A keen climber and mountain biker respectively, Tim and Tom would be planning a series of mountainside gigs were it not for the various logistical and acoustic challenges involved…

Tom Ward – bass clarinet, flute

Tim Fairhall – double bass

Molino de Otoño

Molino de Otoño is a wildly diverse new improvisation group, formed in London by the young Colombian musician John García Rueda. Spanning the worlds of improv, composition, cutting-edge electronics and field recording, the group places the familiar cello (Gabriella Swallow) alongside the traditional tiple Colombiano guitar (García), and Japanese shakuhachi flute (Clive Bell). Aiming to fuse all these elements into a beguiling, sensuous music, the group offers a colourful palette of sound like no other. The collaborative experience of Molino de Otoño’s members includes Nigel Kennedy, Gwilym Simcock, David Sylvian, David Toop, Jah Wobble, Karl Jenkins, and Complicite Theatre.

John García Rueda is a composer, sound designer and performer on the tiplé Colombiano – Colombia’s national instrument, a guitar with twelve strings arranged in four groups of three. His array of influences includes ethnological research, which he fuses with a passion for new sounds. He has studied in Bogota, Banff (Canada), Havana and London’s Guildhall, and is now pursuing musical research at Goldsmiths University.

Gabriella Swallow is a hugely celebrated, diverse and eclectic cellist. She made her London South Bank debut as a soloist with the London Sinfonietta. A passionate advocate for blurring boundaries between genres, Gabriella is just as comfortable on stage at the Wigmore Hall as she is performing at Ronnie Scotts, on tour with the Gwilym Simcock Quartet or with Nigel Kennedy’s band.

Clive Bell is a musician and composer specialising in East Asian musics. He studied the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) in Tokyo, and the khène (Lao mouthorgan) in Laos and Thailand. Recently he has worked with Jah Wobble, David Sylvian, Kazuko Hohki, Complicite Theatre, the BBC Singers, Sylvia Hallett, Karl Jenkins, Okeanos and Jochen Irmler of Faust. He writes for The Wire magazine.

As usual it’s doors 8pm – with the music starting at 8.30pm – at Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, E2 8JL. This promises to be a very special gig. See you there…

17th April: Our Own Decay & Olie Brice/Fumi Okiji

A double bill this week, with a set from trumpeter Nick Malcolm’s improvising trio plus a duo of Olie Brice and vocalist Fumi Okiji.

Our Own Decay

Improvising trio lead by the formidable trumpeter and composer Nick Malcolm, featuring vibraphonist Corey Mwamba and the fantastic drummer / composer / Pop-up Circus impressario Simon Roth.

Nick Malcolm – trumpet

Corey Mwamba – vibraphone

Simon Roth – drums

Olie Brice – bass

Fumi Okiji – vocals

Doors 8pm, music 8.30pm. Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, E2 8JL. £5 entry.

10th April: The Stolen Project

Back at Hundred Crows Rising last July, we had a lot of fun putting on Paulo Dias Duarte and his excellent band Overground Collective. They played in a double bill with On The Roof, and it was one of our most popular gigs of the year. We’re very happy to welcome Paulo back to LUME again this week, when he’ll be presenting two sets of new music with another of his ensembles: The Stolen Project. Come down and check out some great new compositions with an exciting line-up…

Paulo Dias Duarte – Guitar/Composition
Chris Williams – Saxophones
Danny Keane – Cello
Kit Massey – Violin
Olie Brice – Bass
Rob Pennel – Drums

Doors 8pm, music 8.30pm. Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, E2 8JL. £5 entry.

3rd April: Barrel & Alex Bonney/Dave Kane

This week we present an evening of improvised music from two ensembles: string trio Barrel and a duo of Alex Bonney and Dave Kane.

Barrel

These three musicians have been performing in various combinations with others on the London improvising scene for several years. As well as the numerous small groups they have participated in, all three are members of the London Improvisers Orchestra. The first performance of the trio, at the 2007 Freedom Of The City festival, was so musically successful that they decided to continue as such, and chose to call the group Barrel as it involved a lot of scraping. Since then, Barrel have performed widely around London, the UK and Europe. Their record ‘Gratuitous Abuse’, released on the Emanem label, was in the Wire’s ‘Critics’ Choice’ list of 2012 albums.

Alison Blunt – violin

Ivor Kallin – violin and viola

Hannah Marshall – cello

Alex Bonney/Dave Kane

Dave Kane and Alex Bonney’s improvising duo is full of surprises. Traditional roles of trumpet and double bass are exploded and the sonic potential of their instruments is explored. The duo’s action packed and playful range of textures and dynamics combine with a strong melodic sensibility and an uncanny interplay between the two musicians.

“In my opinion Alex and Dave play true music. Played at a very high level, it’s as good as any improvised music played anywhere in the world.”
Paul Dunmall

“Mixing energetic free improv with quirky melodies and lopsided rhythms Kane and Bonney’s interaction was mesmerizing, packed full of innate humour and off-hand virtuosity their dialogue was a joy to behold.”
Jazzwise

It promises to be a great night. Doors 8pm, music 8.30pm at Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, E2 8JL. £5 entry. See you there!

27th March: Julie Kjaer/Steve Beresford & Ripsaw Catfish

Another double bill week to round things off for March: this time Ripsaw Catfish are stopping in on their mini-tour of the UK to share the bill with an amazing duo of Julie Kjaer and Steve Beresford.

Jule Kjaer/Steve Beresford

Steve Beresford is internationally renowned as a free improviser on piano and electronics. He plays with and conducts the London Improvisers Orchestra and has worked with hundreds of musicians, including Derek Bailey, Han Bennink, Evan Parker, Otomo Yoshihide and John Zorn. Saxophonist and flautist Julie Kjær’s edgy and thoughtful playing and ‘dark, otherworldly imagery’ (Jazzwise) has become increasingly evident around Europe, inhabiting ground between composition and free improv.

Ripsaw Catfish

Ripsaw Catfish is Anton Hunter (guitar) and Cath Roberts (baritone saxophone). The Manchester and London-based duo started meeting in September 2013 to explore improvised and composed music, and whatever lies between those things. The music employs a collection of pre-composed elements which can then be drawn upon, or not, during the course of an improvisation. Sometimes one of these acts as a starting point that is then deconstructed; other times one or more might emerge from the music, or else they might be omitted in favour of a fully improvised piece..

Doors 8pm, music starts 8.30pm, £5 entry. Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, E2 8JL. Nearest station: Hoxton. See you there….