Hubback / Peijnenburg

Arrows

Label: FMR Country: UK

Sound sculptist and percussionist Steve Hubback met with Dutch saxophonist Ad Peijnenburg on baritone and sopranino in a release of thoughtful and mesmerizing improvisation.

From the Ad Peijnenburg website:

"My main instrument is the baritone saxophone. As well as that I play sopranino sax, bombarde (this is a double reed instrument from Bretagne in France) and hichiriki (a double reed instrument from the Japanese gagaku music). I play the piano too.

Most people know me as the founder of a saxophone sextet "De Zes Winden" / The Six Winds. This group is concerned with composing and improvising and includes the whole sax family in one group. With this group I made 2 lps and 6 cds. Besides me this ensemble consists of Mariette Rouppe van der Voort on sopranino sax, Dies Le Duc on soprano sax, Kazutoki Umezu on alto sax, Andrew White on tenor sax and Klaas Hekman on bass sax. With this group I've been on the road now for 23 years.

My other steady group is a trio together with Thebe Lipere on percussion and Louis Moholo on drums, both from South Africa. I've been playing with them for 14 years. So far we produced one home-made cd called Live In Japan. This cd was only available at live concerts and is now sold out. The trio is called JJTOU. I have a special interest in percussion players and drummers so I worked with Alan Purves (Dino records, The Pretty Original Brainstormers), and with the Welshman Steve Hubback (who is also a blacksmith, we made And Other Stuff on FMR records). In the past I worked briefly with drummers like Takashi Kazamaki, Denis Charles, Wim Janssen, Han Bennink, Yoshimitsu Ichiraku and Sabu Toyozumi.

My next group is called the Dejima Ensemble. But maybe it would be better to say this is a long running project with different people each time. What is essential here is the musical communication between Dutch musicians, such as myself, and the Japanese impro-scene. For each tour I make a new combination of European and Japanese improvisers. In this way I played with people like Takashi Kojima (sampling), Shozan Tanabe (shakuhachi) Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar), Masafumi Ezaki (trumpet) and Sato Michihiro (shamisen). The Dejima Ensemble has toured so far in three different forms.

Promotion for The Bizz, a series of concerts of Ad Peijnenburg, Thebe Lipere and Billy Jenkins

Another part of my musical life consists of my temporary projects. In these temporary projects, I invite a musician whom I like. This way of working brought me into contact with a lot of musicians of the global village such as Butch Morris (conducting, cornet), Lol Coxhill (soprano), Raoul van der Weide (bass), Joe Sachse (guitar), Lars Rudolph (trumpet), Michiel Braam (piano), Billy Jenkins (guitar), Eugene Chadbourne (guitar, Dilaver Goktasz (sasz), Carl Beukman (bass), Rik van Iersel (drums, painting), Tari Ito (dance), Theo Bodewes (drums), Wilbert de Joode (bass), Huub Bogaers (cello), Min Xiao Fen (pipa) Muneer B. Fennell(cello)Jacques Palinckx (guitar), William Parker(cd brooklyn calling), Mola Sylla(voice & perc.), Motuharu Yoshizawa(base), Wataru Ohkuma,(clarinet) Jodi Gilbert(voice), Takero Sekijima(tuba), Satoshi Sakurai(gitar), Nick Le Beat(dj). In my home town, Eindhoven, I've been running a jazz club and organised a workshop. I started the South Netherlands Jazzfestival and retired after 18 editions. And last but not least: My life as a street musician still goes on, playing solo mostly on sopranino sax, free music, jazz, rock, popular music, gospel, folk and children's songs, communicating with the sounds of the street........ real live music. And now some music........"

From the Steve Hubback website:

"After having turned professional as a drummer in 1980 and touring on the working club scene for a few months, I left the UK. In Paris I developed a mini drumset (20 years before the modern Jungle Kits of today) and played with rock groups, jazz, theatre and solo. I also performed in all kinds of locations. Developing my identity and creativity. All through the 80's I performed all over Europe from Norway to Yugoslavia. Recording for various labels in Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

Paris Lights

In 1990 I hammered out my first gong. This opened up a whole new world for me and I constantly worked on my metalcraft with guidance from metalworker friends and a Norwegian blacksmith who after a long time of observation gave me a masterclass in forging techniques. I learnt welding and started creating steel sculptures. In 1995 I had my first solo exhibition in Aarhus with steel sculptures, gongs and mobiles and since then I've exhibited in Norway, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, England and Wales.

After a very vivid dream in the early 90's I saw a drummer playing a percussion set with a living bronze dragons wing. I knew I had to try and make this into an instrument. It was in 1997 that I finally forged my first Dragon Cymbal. This led to a new direction of creating cymbal and gong sculptures which opens up new possibilities with sound and a different approach to performing on these sculptures. My percussion set eventually became a sculpture in itself, incorporating forked (wood) branches for the stand with a forged iron beam that everything is bolted onto. For practical reasons I built a lightweight set around 20 kilo's. Which is about as light as I can get it with the sounds I need. I've also started to use aluminium for drum shells and drum rings, I recently have started to use sticks, branches or bamboo which I aquire on location to assemble pyramid gong stands. Since 1999 I have made my own sticks and mallets from branches that I find in woodlands and forests in different countries.

I'm working constantly with sculpture. Mostly cut and forged stainless steel, ocassionaly forged iron. My sonorous sculptures are now mostly forged in stainless steel, although I still work with bronze for certain works. I create all the forms I work with by cutting and grinding, hammering and fire.

I'm developing my solo performances with my percussion sculptures and gongs, moving towards a trancelike experience with resonant metal sounds and powerful rhythms. I'm involved with the English group Cipher with Theo Travis and Dave Stuart and visual artist Jim Boxhall for Elemental Forces project for the East Midlands Arts Council in England.

I still perform with some of Europes best improvisors. Dietmar Diesner, Frode Gjerstadand Ad Peijnenburg. Percussion duo recording projects with Paal Nielsen Love and Erik Qvick. Contemporary percussion with Trevor Taylor and Dirk Wachtelaer in Kortrijk Percussion Ensemble. I'm also working more with frame drums and bohdran and rediscovering my Celtic roots. Recreator will be recording and performing more in the future and Metal Moves will be performing on new sculptures with more trancelike, powerful energies in unusual locations - such as castles, forests, docklands, industrial zones and old buildings."