An evening celebrating improvised music.
A trio and a duo
First meetings
A strong team of some of the most inventive and fearless improvisers from the London and UK improv scene.
Doors 7:30 | music 8pm | entry £8
Trio
Alan Wilkinson – saxophone
Paulo Duarte – guitar
Mark Sanders – drums
Duo
Thurston Moore– guitar
Julie Kjær – alto saxophone / flute / bass clarinet
Paulo Duarte is a Portuguese award winning guitarist and composer whose music is very versatile. He works within a field of improvised music and compositional ideas, composingfor different ensembles a.o. for his own bigband The Overground Collective, but he also writes music for contemporary dance, theatre and cinema. “Duarte’s ability to write music that is at once melodic and accessible but highly challenging and unexpected where the improvised elements hold primacy, is the key to the inevitable success of this music” London Jazz News
Alan Wilkinson was a formative part of the Leeds experimental music scene in the 80s, founding the Termite Club and as part of the ferocious Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio. Since relocating to London in 1990 he has continued to play and promote the music and remains one of the most powerful saxophone voices around today, recently adding bass clarinet to his usual Alto and Baritone. He has played with Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann, Chris Corsano, Akira Sakata, Thurston Moore, Spiritualized and many others, and is currently active with his Norwegian quartet Akode, Wilkinson/Edwards/Noble, Mark Wastell groups, and running his club night flimflam.
Mark Sanders has had a career taking in many styles and genres, this history informs his now mainly free improvisation based work, but he also works in theatre, dance, contemporary classical and conceptual art situations. He has played with many renowned improvising musicians including Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Derek Bailey, Henry Grimes, Roswell Rudd, Okkyung Lee, Barry Guy, Jah Wobble, Charles Gayle, Peter Evans, Trevor Watts, William Parker, Nate Wooley, Ivo Perelman and Nicole Mitchell. He works with John Edwards in a duo and with groups including trios with Evan Parker, John Butcher, Elliott Sharp and many other groups visiting the UK and in Europe.
Thurston Moore moved to NYC at 18 in 1976 to play music in a band called The Coachmen. He founded Sonic Youth in 1980. He edited the music and literary fanzines KILLER, Sonic Death, and Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal and started the Ecstatic Peace records + tapes label. He is a co-editor of Ecstatic Peace Library. He has been on faculty at the Naropa University summer writing program since 2011. He has worked collaboratively with Yoko Ono, Merce Cunningham, Cecil Taylor, Rhys Chatham, Lydia Lunch, John Zorn, Takehisa Kosugi and Glenn Branca. He has composed music for films by Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, and Allison Anders. He presently records and tours both solo, with various ensembles and with his own band. Thurston currently resides in London.
Julie Kjær’s edgy and thoughtfull playing and ‘dark, otherworldly imagery’ (Jazzwise) has become increasingly evident around Europe, inhabiting ground between composition and free improv. She tours internationally with Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and his Large Unit and has toured internationally and recorded with Django Bates and StoRMChaser. She also plays with London Improvisers Orchestra and is a leader and side woman of several other English and Danish ensembles. In 2014 she was chosen as a featured composer by the British Music Collection.
“…one of the most impressive new voices on the London jazz and improv scene”
Stewart Smith, The Wire July ’16.
