The Squid's Ear Magazine


Company: Once (Incus)

From Bailey's live recordings at The Arts Theater in May 1987, excellent groupings of players inc. Barre Phillips, Carlos Zingaro, Tristan Honsinger, Lee Konitz, Steve Noble &c.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Lee Konitz-alto saxophone, soprano saxophone

Richard Teitelbaum-keyboards

Carlos Zingaro-violin

Tristan Honsinger-cello

Barre Phillips-bass

Derek Bailey-electric guitar

Steve Noble-percussion, bugle



Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Label: Incus
Catalog ID: CD04
Squidco Product Code: 11517

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 1989
Country: UK
Packaging: Jewel tray, not sealed.
Recorded at the Arts Theatre, in London, England, on May 12th-17th, 1987, by Chris Clark, Paul Wilson and Michael Gerzon.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Company is a series of live recordings issued on Derek Bailey's label by a varying group of musicians who performed and were recorded over five nights in May of 1987 at The Arts Theater in London. As such, its pieces are titled: "Sextet," "Duo," "Trio 1," "Trio 2," and "Quartet" to denote how many performers were on each selection. Notable are the appearances of not only Bailey and Barre Phillips, who are stalwarts on Incus, but of Carlos Zingaro playing in a sextet with Lee Konitz, Tristan Honsiger, and Richard Teitelbaum as well. This "Sextet," which opens the record, is a stunner of restraint and beauty and is, for the most part, a lyrical exploration of the ambiguous side of harmony. There are shifting harmonics between the strings, the electric guitar, the bass, and the alto, with only Teitelbaum's keyboards to hold them all in balance with one another and to try to make something of the entire proceeding, which he does with their cooperation in a haunting, graceful, and heartbreakingly beautiful way. Also the quartet -- which features Konitz, Teitelbaum, Phillips, and percussionist Steve Noble -- is, for its 22 minutes, a stunning piece of work in that it reveals the depth of Konitz's understanding of the purely improvised form and how he in turn relates it all to the blues. He and Phillips wind around and through each other with such empathy and respect, it's positively moving. The other pieces are a gas in their own way too, but the aforementioned make up half the disc and could provide untold weeks of listening on their own before they gave up all their secrets."-Thom Jurek


Artist Biographies

"Lee Konitz (born October 13, 1927) is an American composer and alto saxophonist.

He has performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's association with the cool jazz movement of the 1940s and 1950s includes participation in Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool sessions and his work with pianist Lennie Tristano. He was notable during this era as one of relatively few alto saxophonists to retain a distinctive style when Charlie Parker exerted a massive influence.

Like other students of Tristano, Konitz was noted for improvising long, melodic lines with the rhythmic interest coming from odd accents, or odd note groupings suggestive of the imposition of one time signature over another. Other saxophonists were strongly influenced by Konitz, notably Paul Desmond and Art Pepper."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Konitz)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Composer/performer Richard Teitelbaum is well known for his pioneering work in live electronic music, and his early explorations of intercultural improvisation and composition. He received his masters degree in theory and composition from Yale in 1964. After continuing his composition studies with Luigi Nono on a Fulbright in Italy, he co-founded the pioneering live electronic music group Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) with Frederic Rzewski and Alvin Curran in Rome in 1966, bringing the first Moog synthesizer to Europe the following year.

He returned to the United States in 1970 to create the World Band, one of the first intercultural improvisation groups which was made up of master musicians from India, Japan, Korea, the Middle East and North America. His works since then have frequently combined live electronics with the music of other cultures. In 1977 he spent a year in Tokyo, studying shakuhachi (bamboo flute) with the great master Katsuya Yokoyama. His recent CD, Blends (New Albion), for shakuhachi, electronics and percussion, featuring Yokoyama was named one of the ten best contemporary classical CDs of 2002 by The Wire Magazine of London.

He has performed his works at Berlin's Philharmonic Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Almeida Theater and South Bank in London, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Kennedy Center in Washington, and in concerts and festivals throughout Europe, North America, East Asia and Latin America. He has been commissioned by leading performers, including pianists Aki Takahashi and Ursula Oppens. In 2002 he received a Guggenheim fellowship to create Z'vi, the second opera in a projected trilogy dealing with Jewish mystical expressions of redemptive hopes. Extended sections of Z'vi were premiered at the opening of the Frank Gehry designed Performing Arts Center at Bard College and at the 2003 Venice Biennale. It will be presented again at the Center for Jewish History in New York in April 2005. The first opera of this series, Golem: An Interactive Opera, was premiered at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1989, and subsequently performed in Amsterdam, Berlin, Linz, Victoriaville, Quebec and Seoul, South Korea.

Teitelbaum has received numerous awards, included a Guggenheim in 2002 to create his opera Z'vi, as well as two Fulbrights, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, and commissions from several German radio stations, the Venice Biennale, Meet the Composer/Readers Digest, and the Mary Flagler Cary Trust. In 2004 he received a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation to compose an interactive instrumental and computer work for the Da Capo Chamber Players to be premiered in fall, 2005.

In addition to Blends (New Albion), his many recordings include: Golem: an Interactive Opera, on Tzadik; The Sea Between with Carlos Zingaro, on Victo; Live at Merkin Hall with Anthony Braxton on Music and Arts; Concerto Grosso, for Human Concertino and Robotic Ripieno, on Hat Art; and Spacecraft with Musica Elettronica Viva, on Alga Marghen.

Teitelbaum maintains an active schedule. In March, 2005 he will be in residence at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico, and featured composer at their International Festival of Electroacoustic Music. Following performances of his opera-in progress Z'vi and with Musica Eletttronica Viva in April, he will travel to Japan on a Freeman Foundation Research Grant in May.

Teitelbaum is also a Professor of Music at Bard College, in upstate New York, where he teaches electronic and experimental music, and co-chairs the music department of the Master of Fine Arts program."

-Inside Bard (http://inside.bard.edu/teitelbaum/biography/)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Carlos Zíngaro (or Carlos "Zíngaro" Alves, born 1948 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a Portuguese violinist and electronic musician active in free improvisation.

He studied classical music in Lisbon and began working with a number of leading improvisers in the mid-1970s, becoming one of the European top improvisers presently. He has worked with such musicians as Richard Teitelbaum, Joëlle Léandre, Peter Kowald, Barre Phillips, Daunik Lazro, Derek Bailey, Jon Rose, Ken Vandermark, Ken Filiano, Rodrigo Amado, Ned Rothenberg, Rüdiger Carl, Dominique Regef, Evan Parker, Annick Nozati, Theo Jörgensmann and Paul Lovens.

Zíngaro has performed at new and improvised music festivals in Europe, Asia, and North America, produced several film scores, and collaborated with dance companies.

He is also a prolific illustrator and comics author."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Zingaro)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Tristan Honsinger told Kevin Whitehead, 'I grew up in New England, took up cello at age nine in Springfield, Massachusetts... My first teacher was a Dutch Jew. Almost all my teachers were European immigrants. Later I went to the New England Conservatory. It was quite a good school, but I didn't feel very welcome, so I went to Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore from '68 to '69. By then I'd had it, really, with the whole classical music world. I changed teachers so many times, I suppose I was confused by their contradictory advice'.

It was after moving to Montreal in 1969 that Honsiner began improvising and, after meeting Dutch percussionist Peter van Ginkel and listening to his copy of Topography of the lungs, decided he could play this music and uprooted to Europe, moving to Amsterdam in 1974: 'They arrested me the first time I played my cello in the street... confiscated our instruments'. As a result, he moved to Paris, travelled around France, eventually finding his way back to Amsterdam where he began playing with Maarten van Regteren Altena, Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg as well as being involved in Derek Bailey's Company Weeks and playing with Globe Unity.

The late '70s and early '80s were spent in Italy with Katie Duck, working with theatre - Duck had her group the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe - and Italian and Sardinian musicians. During this time, Honsinger started his group This, That and the Other, the early version including Tiziana Simona, Sean Bergin, Toshinori Kondo, Jean-Jacques Avenel and Michael Vatcher which recorded Picnic in Amsterdam in 1985. 'Because of a promoter's brilliant organising, the group kind of fell apart', but there have been fairly regular and recent incarnations, including an appearance at the Italian Angelica Festival in 1996.

Since the memorable set of concerts in Berlin in 1988, released on the much sought-after FMP box set, Honsinger has been a fairly regular member of Cecil Taylor's groups. At those concerts, Honsinger performed in a trio with Taylor and Evan Parker as well as being a member of the large European Orchestra but since then he has been a member of various Taylor groups, including the now-disbanded European Quartet with Harri Sjöström and Paul Lovens, including an unusual combination that performed at the Total Music Meeting in November 1999: the Cecil Taylor Ensemble with Franky Douglas, Tristan Honsinger and Andrew Cyrille."

-European Free Improv Site (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mhonsing.html)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Barre Phillips (born October 27, 1934 in San Francisco, California) is a jazz bassist. A professional musician since 1960, he migrated to New York City in 1962, then to Europe in 1967.[1] Since 1972 he has been based in southern France where in 2014 founded the European Improvisation Center

He studied briefly in 1959 with S. Charles Siani, Assistant Principal Bassist with the San Francisco Symphony During the 1960s he recorded with (among others) Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Giuffre, Archie Shepp, Peter Nero, Attila Zoller, Lee Konitz and Marion Brown.[1]

Phillips' 1968 recording of solo bass improvisations, issued as Journal Violone in the USA, Unaccompanied Barre in England, and Basse Barre in France, is generally credited as the first solo bass record. A 1971 record with Dave Holland, Music from Two Basses, was probably the first record of improvised double bass duets.[2]

In the 1970s he was a member of the well-regarded and influential group The Trio with saxophonist John Surman and drummer Stu Martin.[1] In the 1980s and 1990s he played regularly with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra led by fellow bassist Barry Guy. He worked on soundtracks of the motion pictures Merry-Go-Round (1981), Naked Lunch (1991, together with Ornette Coleman) and Alles was baumelt, bringt Glück! (2013).[3]

He has also worked with (among many others) bassists Peter Kowald and Joëlle Léandre, guitarist Derek Bailey, clarinetists Theo Jörgensmann and Aurélien Besnard, saxophonists Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker and Joe Maneri, and pianist Paul Bley.

Barre is the father of rock guitarist Jay Crawford from the band Bomb, of the bassist Dave Phillips and of singer Claudia Phillips, who was a one-hit wonder in France in 1987 with "Quel souci La Boétie". "

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barre_Phillips)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Derek Bailey (29 January 1930 - 25 December 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the free improvisation movement.

Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. A third-generation musician, he began playing the guitar at the age of ten, initially studying music with his teacher and Sheffield City organist C. H. C. Biltcliffe, an experience that he did not enjoy, and guitar with his uncle George Wing and John Duarte. As an adult he worked as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, dance hall bands, and so on, playing with many performers including Morecambe and Wise, Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse and Kathy Kirby, and on television programs such as Opportunity Knocks. Bailey's earliest foray into 'what could be called free improvised music' was in 1953 with two other guitarists in their shared flat in Glasgow. He was also part of a Sheffield-based trio founded in 1963 with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars called "Joseph Holbrooke" (named after the composer, whose work they never actually played). Although originally performing relatively "conventional" modal, harmonic jazz this group became increasingly free in direction.

Bailey moved to London in 1966, frequenting the Little Theatre Club run by drummer John Stevens. Here he met many other like-minded musicians, such as saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpet player Kenny Wheeler and double bass player Dave Holland. These players often collaborated under the umbrella name of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, recording the seminal album Karyobin for Island Records in 1968. In this year Bailey also formed the Music Improvisation Company with Parker, percussionist Jamie Muir and Hugh Davies on homemade electronics, a project that continued until 1971. He was also a member of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and Iskra 1903, a trio with double-bass player Barry Guy and tromboneist Paul Rutherford that was named after a newspaper published by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.

In 1970, Bailey founded the record label Incus with Tony Oxley, Evan Parker and Michael Walters. It proved influential as the first musician-owned independent label in the UK. Oxley and Walters left early on; Parker and Bailey continued as co-directors until the mid-1980s, when friction between the men led to Parker's departure. Bailey continued the label with his partner Karen Brookman until his death in 2005[citation needed].

Along with a number of other musicians, Bailey was a co-founder of Musics magazine in 1975. This was described as "an impromental experivisation arts magazine" and circulated through a network of like-minded record shops, arguably becoming one of the most significant jazz publications of the second half of the 1970s, and instrumental in the foundation of the London Musicians Collective.

1976 saw Bailey instigate Company, an ever-changing collection of like-minded improvisors, which at various times has included Anthony Braxton, Tristan Honsinger, Misha Mengelberg, Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Steve Beresford, Steve Lacy, Johnny Dyani, Leo Smith, Han Bennink, Eugene Chadbourne, Henry Kaiser, John Zorn, Buckethead and many others. Company Week, an annual week-long free improvisational festival organised by Bailey, ran until 1994.

In 1980, he wrote the book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice. This was adapted by UK's Channel 4 into a four-part TV series in the early '90s, edited and narrated by Bailey.

Bailey died in London on Christmas Day, 2005. He had been suffering from motor neurone disease."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bailey_(guitarist))
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"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). He was featured in the Bailey's excellent TV series on Improvisation for Channel 4 based on his book 'Improvisation; its nature and practise'. He has toured and performed throughout Europe, Africa and America and currently leads the groups N.E.W (with John Edwards and Alex Ward) and DECOY (with John Edwards and Alexander Hawkins)."

-https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/steve-noble/ (Cafe Oto Website)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Sextet 12:17

2. Duo 13:22

3. Trio I 10:49

4. Trio II 11:17

5. Quartet 22:15

Related Categories of Interest:

Incus

Improvised Music
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Bailey, Derek
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Free Improvisation
Miva Delete Product Category

Search for other titles on the label:
Incus.


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