Hundred Years is delighted to present the first ever London concert by New York saxophonist Sarah Manning with Alex Ward (electric guitar).
sarahmanningmusic.com/secret-sounds
Sarah Manning is a saxophonist and composer. She has released four critically acclaimed albums. Her current release, Harmonious Creature (Posi-Tone 2014) received 4 stars in DownBeat Magazine, was chosen as a top ten album of 2014 by the LA Times and was the focus of a profile feature in JazzTimes. Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa also honored Manning in his Artist’s Choice column in the June 2015 issue of JazzTimes. In addition to support as a composer in the form of a Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony in 2012, she has received grants from the Northampton Arts Council and the Puffin Foundation to support performance residencies that break down the barrier between artist and audience. As a bandleader, she has led groups at venues including Cornelia Street Cafe, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, the Jazz Gallery, the 2011 Tanglewood Jazz Festival and Yoshi’s. Recent highlights as a sideperson included performances with Kirk Knuffke, Alexis Marcello and Aram Bajakian at the Stone, with Zion80 and John Zorn at the Stone, and with Zion80 at the 2013 Saalfelden Jazz Festival in Austria.
Silver alto and electric guitar becomes a green lion that devours the sun. Drums and percussion to stir, rumble and clank like a furnace in a subterranean laboratory. The secret of alchemy is mastery of the illusion. We’ll take you somewhere in the dark – and leave you to find the way out.
Alex Ward is a composer, improviser, and performing musician. His primary instruments are clarinet and guitar, and he has also performed in public and on recordings on alto sax, piano/keyboards, bass guitar, and as a vocalist. He was based in Oxford from 1992-2000, and since then has lived in London. His involvement in freely improvised music dates back to 1986, when he met the guitarist Derek Bailey. As an improviser, he was initially principally a clarinettist (sometimes also playing alto sax), but since 2000 he has also been active as an improvising guitarist. On both instruments, hIs longest-standing collaborations in this field have been with the drummer Steve Noble. From 1993 to 2001, most of his activity as a composer took place in collaboration with Benjamin Hervé, mainly in the context of the rock band Camp Blackfoot. From 2002-2005, his writing was mostly done solo, and was primarily focused on songs. Since 2006, he has been heavily involved in both solo and collaborative composition, predominantly (though not exclusively) of instrumental music. Much of his writing and performing during this time has been done with Dead Days Beyond Help, a duo with drummer Jem Doulton. He also currently leads a number of bands including Predicate, Forebrace, The Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet, and Alex Ward & The Dead Ends. He has been a member of many other groups including ensembles led by Eugene Chadbourne, Simon H. Fell and Duck Baker, and has also done various work as a session musician and in collaboration with other media. Since 2005, he has co-run the label Copepod Records with composer/performer Luke Barlow. He does the recording, mixing and/or mastering of most of his own music, and for many of the groups he plays in.
Door 7:30 | music 8pm | entry £5 / £10 donation
