The Squid's Ear Magazine


Butcher / Muller / van der Schyff: Way Out Northwest (Drip Audio)

British saxophone phenomenon John Butcher meets Vancouver's premiere bassist Torsten Müller and drummer Dylan van der Schyff for an amazing live set at the Western Front.
 

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Personnel:



John Butcher-tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Torsten Muller-contra bass

Dylan van der Schyff-drums


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UPC: 875531002720

Label: Drip Audio
Catalog ID: DA00272
Squidco Product Code: 9375

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2008
Country: Canada
Packaging: Jewel Tray
Recorded live at the Western Front, in Vancouver, Canada, in June, 2007, by Dylan van der Schyff.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"For nearly a quarter century Vancouver BC's Coastal Jazz and Blues Society has presented many important premiere collaborations featuring the greatest jazz improvisers from around the world. On June 24th, 2007 an enthusiastic audience at the Western Front (Vancouver) was on hand to witness just such a stellar event. British saxophone phenom John Butcher teamed up with Vancouver's premiere contrabassist, Torsten Muller, and drummer extraordinaire, Dylan van der Schyff, for an incredible set aof improvised music of the highest order. From the first note the trio was awe-inspiring, sharing an impeccable sense of structure and space. The results, while adamantly abstract and free, demonstrated a remarkable continuity and focus and the music flowed naturally throughout the entire concert. It was absolutely one of the most rewarding gigs in the festival that year and gave notice of a superb new working trio. Luckily, for those unfortunate souls who were unable to be there, the concert was recorded in its entirety and the good folks at Drip Audio have had the foresight to make it available in all its digital brilliance. This really is "crucial music" and I give it the highest recommendation without any reservation. Consider it your opportunity to experience one of the most important and satisfying recordings of the early 21st century. - Brad Winter (Creative Music Guild - Portland, Oregon)

English soprano and tenor saxophonist John Butcher is a wonder of modern music, master of a saxophone vocabulary that he has developed to a rare level of expression and execution. A first offspring of the London free-improvising revolution of the 1970s, he employs a vast range of saxophone sounds, from the traditional to the most idiosyncratic. Since moving to London in the late 1970s, he has collaborated with a who's who of the world's great freely improvising musicians, and he continues to be in demand for recording and performance appearances around the world.

German bassist Torsten Muller, now residing in Vancouver, B.C., has long been at the forefront of international free improvisation. Woefully and inexplicably under-recorded, the innovative Muller has radically departed from the sometimes limiting traditional sound of, and approach to, the double bass. Muller has enjoyed improvised music meetings with many of the most accomplished musical artists of the day, including the late Paul Rutherford and Ken Vandermark. He is also co-curator of one of the world's finest annual showcases of free improvisation, the Time Flies Improvised Music Meeting, held on three nights in February in Vancouver.

Percussionist extraordinaire Dylan van der Schyff brings masterful chops and scintillating sensitivity to a wide range of musics, from small-group jazz to big band extravaganzas to the most adventurous free improvisation. His expanded drum kit vocabulary and uncanny sense of what the music requires put him at the top of the list for co-conspirators from Vancouver and around the world. Evan Parker, George Lewis, Dave Douglas, Mark Dresser, Mark Helias, Barry Guy, Michael Moore -- van der Schyff's list of high-profile collaborators goes on and on."-Drip Audio



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Artist Biographies

"John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics.Originally a physicist, he left academia in '82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians - Derek Bailey, John Tilbury, John Stevens, The EX, Akio Suzuki, Gerry Hemingway, Polwechsel, Gino Robair, Rhodri Davies, Okkyung Lee, John Edwards, Toshi Nakamura, Paul Lovens, Eddie Prevost, Mark Sanders, Christian Marclay, Otomo Yoshihide, Phil Minton, and Andy Moor - to name a few.

He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with the uniqueness of place. Resonant Spaces is a collection of site-specific performances collected during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.His first solo album, Thirteen Friendly Numbers, includes compositions for multitracked saxophones, whilst later solo CDs focus on live performance, composition, amplification and saxophone-controlled feedback.

HCMF has twice commissioned him to compose for his own large ensembles. Other commissions include for Elision (Australia), the Rova (USA) & Quasar (Canada) Saxophone Quartets, reconstructed Futurist Intonarumori (USA), "Tarab Cuts" (based on pre-WWII Arabic recordings, and shortlisted for the 2014 British Composer's Award) and "Good Liquor .." for the London Sinfonietta. In 2011 he received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists.

Recent groupings include The Apophonics with Robair and Edwards, Anemone with Peter Evans, Plume with Tony Buck & Magda Mayas and a trio with Okkyung Lee & Mark Sanders.Butcher values playing in occasional encounters - ranging from large groups such as Butch Morris' London Skyscraper and the EX Orkestra, to duo concerts with David Toop, Kevin Drumm, Claudia Binder, Paal Nilssen-Love, Thomas Lehn, Fred Frith, Keiji Haino, Ute Kangeisser, Matthew Shipp and Yuji Takahashi."

-John Butcher Website (http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk/Biog.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Torsten Müller (born November 25, 1957 in Hamburg, Germany) is a free improvising bassist in Vancouver, Canada. He plays a 5 string double bass. He lived in Bremen and Hamburg from 1976 to 2001, where he started his musical career and worked as a radio host and producer at Radio Bremen, a public radio and television broadcaster.

He came into the free improvised music scene in the mid 70s, first playing with Free Music Communion (an ensemble with guitarist Herbert Janssen and pianist Udo Bergner) recording three LPs on their own Fremuco Records label. He was a member of the large improvising ensemble King Ubu Orchestra for 10 years.

Torsten Müller has performed concerts all over the world with a diverse array of improvisers, including Evan Parker, John Russell, Jon Rose, Joelle Léandre, John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Lol Coxhill, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Paul Lovens, Phil Minton, Charles Gayle, Melvin Poore, Paul Rutherford, Peter van Bergen and Alfred Harth.

He moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2001 where he has been performing at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and acts as co-curator of the annual Time Flies Improvised Music Festival. He plays in various ensembles, including Vancouver based drummer Dylan Van Der Schyff's Bande X and his own ensemble, Hoxha, with British trombonist Paul Rutherford and Dylan Van Der Schyff."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsten_M%C3%BCller_(musician))
3/13/2024

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

"Dylan van der Schyff was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1970. He now makes his home in Vancouver, Canada, where he lives with his wife, cellist Peggy Lee, and their two children. Van der Schyff attended the schools of music at the University of Victoria and, briefly, McGill University; and he studied military drumming while with the Band of the Ceremonial Guard in Ottawa. He received his MA from Simon Fraser University and is currently engaged in graduate research in music psychology at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

As a performer and producer, van der Schyff has appeared on close to 100 recordings spanning the genres of jazz, electro-acoustic, improvised, experimental and new music; he has performed in almost every major centre in Europe and North America including international festivals in Berlin, Lisbon, Stockholm, New York, Chicago, Montreal, Trento (Italy) and Molde (Norway); and he has collaborated in numerous interdisciplinary projects involving theatre, dance and film. A partial list of notable performance and recording collaborators includes: George Lewis, Joelle Léandre, Dave Douglas, Mark Helias, Peggy Lee, Eyvind Kang, Nicole Mitchell, Brad Turner, Tony Wilson, Wayne Horvitz, Marilyn Crispell, Torsten Muller, Robin Holcolmb, Michael Moore, Ellery Eskelin, Sylvie Courvoisier, Rob Mazurek, Talking Pictures, Ken Vandermark, Paul Rutherford, John Butcher, Tobias Delius, Louis Sclavis, Evan Parker, Mark Dresser, Fred Frith, and Gary Peacock. Van der Schyff has also performed as a sideman with Roswell Rudd, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Misha Mengelberg, Georg Graewe, Oliver Lake, Wadada Leo Smith and the Kenny Werner Sextet with Randy Brecker.

Van der Schyff has served on the music faculty at Capilano University in Vancouver, Canada, since 2009. He also served on faculty at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music between 2002-2005, and at the Vancouver Institute for Creative Music in 2006. Additionally, he has given seminars and workshops at the University of Indiana and at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Van der Schyff has appeared on Austrian television and Swedish radio as well as NPR, the CBC and Radio Canada. Articles about his work as an improviser have appeared in publications such as Downbeat, Jazz Times, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Chicago Reader, The Wire, Coda, and MUZIK."

-Capilano University (https://www.capilanou.ca/jazz-studies/bios/Dylan-van-der-Schyff/)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. haufig eine hydraulische Metaphertendenz 10:53

2. Magic Clock Machine 8:29

3. Sibila e Succhia 11:02

4. Sharpening the Windings until they roll up, roll up and snag on the point of the Tear 8:37

5. Taktgebertendenz 7:22

6. Gone, Goner 2:06

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
John Butcher
Top 20 for 2008
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Free Improvisation
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Trio Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Drip Audio.


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