Duo 1 : Steve Noble (percussion) & Alex Ward (clarinet)
Duo 2 : Steve Noble (percussion) & Marcio Mattos (double bass)
Doors 3.30 | music 4pm | £10 cash
Steve Noble is London’s leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Stephen O’Malley, Joe McPhee, Alex Ward, Rhodri Davies and many, many more. In the early eighties, Noble played with the Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde, Rip Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, before going on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987, 89 and 90).
Alex Ward is a composer, improviser and performing musician living in London. His work over the last 30-plus years has encompassed free improvisation with the likes of Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, John Edwards and Steve Noble; leading his own ensembles such as the Alex Ward Quintet, Item 4, Predicate and Forebrace; collaborative projects Camp Blackfoot, Dead Days Beyond Help (with Jem Doulton), Noonward (with Sean Noonan) and his duo with Dominic Lash; and diverse sideman work including tenure with This Is Not This Heat, The Flying Luttenbachers, the Duck Baker Trio/Quartet and Eugene Chadbourne’s Hellington Country. His primary instruments throughout this activity have been clarinet and guitar; but he has also performed on a variety of other instruments, and his multi-instrumental leanings were employed to their fullest capacity on his 2021 solo album “Gated”, his most ambitious and wide-ranging work to date.
The Brazilian-born Marcio Mattos studied acoustic guitar in early teens, eventually switching to double bass and cello after becoming interested in jazz. Later, Mattos entered the Villa-Lobos Institute where he became involved in improvisation and electronic music. Since coming to Europe in 1970, Mattos has performed, recorded, and broadcast in Britain and abroad with such musicians as Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, Derek Bailey, and Marilyn Crispell.
