Category Archives: Gigging

BRÅK Festival of Improvised Music

Happening in a couple of weeks’ time is the inaugural BRÅK Festival of Improvised Music, a.k.a BRÅKFest! We’re taking a trip outside of our normal beer shop setting and pitching up at Hundred Years Gallery for an all-dayer packed full of exciting improvisers. There are two sessions, afternoon and evening, with tickets on sale for both the whole day and each session separately. Head to the Musicglue tickets page to buy yours.

In a tip of the hat to our usual BRÅK format at waterintobeer Colin, Tom and I each booked a group to play as well as organising a lineup to play in ourselves. I invited Sam Andreae, Hannah Marshall and Alison Blunt for my guest group, and my own set will be with Dee Byrne and Craig Scott; a first time meeting! I’m looking forward to finding out what happens when the three of us play together.

See the poster below for full info on the festival. I’m really into the fact that it’s happening on a LEAP DAY, 29th February, so come and join us for a once-in-four-years experience…

Duo with Benedict Taylor – now Alex Bonney!

Update: Benedict has had to pull out of the gig duo to injury :-(( But, Martin Clarke has sorted out an excellent new collaborator for me…Alex Bonney! We had a great time playing together at BRÅK in December, so I’m looking forward to doing it again. Get well soon Benedict!

Quick post to alert you to a last-minute gig! I’m playing a duo set with Benedict Taylor this Friday 14th February at Hundred Years Gallery. It’s part of an album launch night organised by Martin Clarke for his label oem. Info on the flyer below….

Trio date and BRÅK Festive Special

A lovely couple of mid-December gigs coming up. On Friday 13th December it’s the return of my trio with Otto Willberg and Tullis Rennie, this time at Hundred Years Gallery:And then the next night, Saturday 14th December, it’s the last BRÅK of 2019 at waterintobeer! With a host of Yuletide guests….

Come one, come all, to hear some improvised music this festive season…

LUME back on the Barbican freestage

This Sunday 23rd November sees the return of LUME to the Barbican Centre! As part of London Jazz Festival 2019 we’re presenting two trio sets starting at 5pm:

Rachel Musson, Andrew Lisle and Cath Roberts: the second outing of our new double-sax trio.

Deemer + 1: Dee Byrne’s long-running duo with sound artist Merijn Royaards is joined by special guest Johnny Hunter.

It will be great to play there again: we had such a great day doing the LUME Freestage in 2015 (which you can read about in the archives).  Join us in the foyer for some fresh improvised music!

Afterwards I’ll be heading straight down to Brockley for the November BRÅK, where I’m playing duo with Johnny Hunter. The full lineup is on our website…why not round off your day with some beer shop-based improv?

IMPETUS GROUP

At Hundred Years Gallery on Sunday 17th November: the first meeting of Dirk Serries’ new ensemble IMPETUS GROUP. Dirk has been inspired to put this group together by Derek Bailey’s Company group, Iskra 1903 and John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble. It’s a great lineup that I’m happy to be a part of:

Saxophones : Alan Wilkinson, Cath Roberts, Martin Clarke
Bass Clarinet/Flute : Tom Ward
Trumpet : Charlotte Keeffe
Acoustic Guitars : Daniel Thompson, Dirk Serries
Double Bass : Otto Willberg
Cello : Hannah Marshall
Viola : Benedict Taylor

It’s an afternoon gig, with doors at 3.30pm. More info about the concert is on the HYG site, and you can read more about Dirk’s projects on the website of his label A New Wave Of Jazz.

Two nice gigs this week

Quick post about two nice gigs coming up this week, both of which have lovely flyers.

On Tuesday 1st October I’m playing a trio set with Steve Noble and Otto Willberg at SET, Dalston. Otto has organised this gig and there’s a duo of Yoni Silver and Sharon Gal on the other side of the bill…should be an excellent evening.

Then on Saturday 5th October I’m playing at another SET space, this time their project space in Lewisham. I’ll be in duo with Charlotte Keeffe, as part of the first ever edition of the s10c series, organised by Sam Andreae and Mio Ebisu. Two other sets full of lovely people at this gig, plus an exhibition of Mio’s paintings, and food!

Excellent times in Antwerp

Quick post to say that I had a great weekend at Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerp! The organisers Sound In Motion had put together a trio of Tullis Rennie, Dirk Serries and me, so it was a first meeting; although I knew both of them and had played with them separately before, the two hadn’t met! We all felt the set went well, and plans are afoot to do more with the group. Summer Bummer is a fantastic festival that I’d really recommend going to next year, and we were incredibly well looked after too. The set was recorded, so I’m looking forward to hearing it back – meanwhile here’s a nice photo by Geert Vandepoele…