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Phil Minton started as a trumpeter and became one of free improv's most outside vocalists; Joelle Leandre is a double bassist who also performs free vocal improv; this is their first recorded collaboration, and it's an unusual and wonderful album of heavy tone improvisation, plucked and bowed, and a masterfully odd free association of vocalisation. |
In Stock Shipping Weight: 2.00 units Quantity in Basket: None Log In to use our Wish List ![]() UPC: 3491570054420 Label: Fou Records Catalog ID: FR-CD24 Squidco Product Code: 24797 Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2017 Country: France Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at 19 rue Paul Fort, in Paris, France, on October 8th, 2016, by Jean-Marc Foussat. Personnel: Joelle Leandre-contrebasse, voice Phil Minton-voice Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist. Highlight an instrument above and click here to Search for albums with that instrument. ![]() ![]() Artist Biographies: • Show Bio for Joelle Leandre "French double bass player (born 12 September 1951 in Aix-en-Provence, France), improviser and composer, Joëlle Léandre is one of the dominant figures of the new European music. Trained in orchestral as well as contemporary music, she has played with l'Itinéraire, 2e2m and Pierre Boulez's Ensemble Intercontemporain. Joëlle Léandre has also worked with Merce Cunningham and with John Cage, who has composed especially for her - as have Scelsi, Fénelon, Hersant, Lacy, Campana, Jolas, Clementi and about 40 composers. As well as working in contemporary music, Léandre has played with some of the great names in jazz and improvisation, such as Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Irene Schweizer, William Parker, Barre Phillips, Pascal Contet, Steve Lacy, Lauren Newton, Peter Kowald, Urs Leimgruber, Mat Maneri, Roy Campbell, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Mark Naussef, Marilyn Crispell, India Cooke and so many others... She has written extensively for dance and theater, and has staged a number of multidisciplinary performances. She got the DAAD at Berlin, is welcomed as artist resident at Villa Kujiyama (Kyoto). In 2002, 2004 and 2006, she is Visiting Professor at Mills college, Oakland, CA, Chaire Darius Milhaud, for improvisation and composition. Her work as a composer and a performer, both in solo recitals and a part of ensembles, has put her under the lights of the most prestigious stages of Europe, the Americas and Asia. From 1981 to 2009, Joëlle Léandre has about 150 recordings to her credit. -Joelle Leandre Website (https://www.joelle-leandre.com/biography/2/)5/16/2022 Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography. ^ Hide Bio for Joelle Leandre • Show Bio for Phil Minton "Phil Minton comes from Torquay. He played trumpet and sang with the Mike Westbrook Band in the early 60s- Then in dance and rock bands in Europe for the later of part of the decade. He returned to England in 1971, rejoining Westbrook and was involved in many of his projects until the mid 1980's. For most of the last forty years, Minton has been working as a improvising singer in lots of groups, orchestras, and situations, all over the place. Numerous composers have written music especially for his extended vocal techniques. He has a quartet with Veryan Weston, Roger Turner and John Butcher, and ongoing duos, trios and quartets with above and many other musicians. Since the eighties, His Feral Choir, where he voice-conducts workshops and concerts for anyone who wants to sing, has performed in over twenty countries." -Phil Minton Website (https://www.philminton.co.uk/8-2/)5/16/2022 Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography. ^ Hide Bio for Phil Minton ![]() 1. Si, lence 31:42 2. Is 7:31 3. Blu, ish 6:10 |
sample the album:
![]() "When it comes to free-improvisation you most likely don't need more than the surnames of French double bass master Joëlle Léandre and British vocal master Phil Minton. The front cover of their first-ever recorded duo betrays no other information besides the surname and an incidental photo of sky. Actually, you need nothing more. Just mentioning the surnames of these elder statespersons of free-improvisation (Léandre was crowned earlier this year as a French knight, member of the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres) together is enough. Their names alone act as a powerful incantation, and you, the listener, already know that you had better surrender. Surrender fully to the beautiful, elusive art of creating-improvising-composing in the moment. Léandre and Minton were captured playing live in Paris in October 2016. The inside cover quotes influential Dadaist poet, essayist and performance artist Tristan Tzara's (1896-1963) poem L'homme approximatif, chant VI. And, indeed, this live recording - as can be seen in the attached you-tube video - radiates a similar anarchist spirit, one that defies all conventions and conceptions. The recording is divided into three, koan-like titles, the 32-minutes "Si,lence" and the shorter "is" and "blu,ish". "Si,lence" brings together the hyperactive, trains of thoughts, associations and ideas of Léandre and Minton. Both are wandering through abstract, free-associative textures, chatting and sharing obscene secrets in undecipherable languages, losing their minds and way in colorful-psychedelic labyrinths and sudden rhythms and totally enjoying this close, busy improvisation. Léandre's associative operatic-conversational-vocalizations are answered beautifully by Minton and both sound as not only as master improvisers but also as experienced performance artists-actors who know how to win bemused audiences with their nuanced weird stories and their unique physical performances. Minton opens the following, short "is" with suggestive bird calls, whistling and singing fragmented melodies. Léandre's surprisingly economic and disciplined playing puts some order to his ornithological stream of vocalizations, but eventually joins Minton's playful attempt to lure as many birds as possible to their stage. "bluish" proves again and again that Léandre and Minton play as inseparable twins, communicating instantly and telepathically. Both transform any idea, strange and bizarre as it may, into a colorful, ecstatic operatic act, and this one even ends with few symbolic snores. Magnificent!"-Eyal Hareuveni, The Free Jazz Collective Get additional information at The Free Jazz Collective ![]() Improvised Music Free Improvisation London & UK Improv & Related Scenes European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms Stringed Instruments Unusual Vocal Forms Duo Recordings |