The Squid's Ear Magazine


Ashbury Stabbins Duo: Fire Without Bricks (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

A lost gem from of British free sax and drums & percussion duo of saxophonist Larry Stabbins and percussionist Roy Ashbury, originally released in 1976 on the Bead Label, their interplay including masterful and extended techniques from Stabbins and an array of chimes, chains, wood blocks, shakers, and bowed cymbals augmenting Ashbury's kit; captivating dialog.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Roy Ashbury-Percussion

Larry Stabbins-Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone


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UPC: B08VFWDWGY

Label: Corbett vs. Dempsey
Catalog ID: CvsDCD067
Squidco Product Code: 30057

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2021
Country: USA
Recorded at Riverside Studios, July 1976. Originally released in 1977 on the Bead Records label (UK) as catalog code BEAD 4. emastered from original tapes. Mastered for CD by Alex Inglizian.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The duo of saxophonist Larry Stabbins and percussionist Roy Ashbury was a mainstay of the London improvised music scene in the early 1970s. They recorded their lone LP, Fire Without Bricks, in 1976, and issued it in a tiny edition on the cooperatively run Bead label.

Stabbins has toggled between more pop oriented projects like Working Week and Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA Orchestra and adventurous free music in bands led by Peter Brötzmann and Tony Oxley. Born in Wolverhampton and based initially in the Midlands, Ashbury gets less attention than his music deserves, but he, too, was an important figure in the period of the London Musician's Co-operative; he had left the scene by the mid-80s and worked in Media & Film Studies at St. Mary's College.

The duo's music is super intimate and rooted in free jazz - sometimes recalling great American saxophone/drum twosomes, or the other major touchstone of its time from closer to home, Evan Parker & Paul Lytton, but it has its own distinct flavor. Stabbins unique approach to tenor included a flinty quality and willingness to go all in on registral extremes with direct instrumental interplay on soprano, while Ashbury deploys a vast battery of metallics from chimes to chains, wood blocks, shakers, and bowed cymbals, all augmenting his minimal basic kit, which he approaches as a series of brilliant flourishes and almost Gagaku-like extended soundscapes.

Their sound on this studio recording is an important untold part of the development of British improvised music. Mastered from pristine tapes, initially planned as part of John Corbett's Unheard Music Series, this reissue has been in the works for nearly two decades. Featuring facsimile cover from the original Bead issue."-Corbett vs. Dempsey



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Artist Biographies

Roy Ashbury is an American drummer, known for the groups Ashbury Stabbins Duo, Crystal Palace, and the Roy Ashbury Band.

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/985810-Roy-Ashbury)
4/2/2025

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

"Larry Stabbins: Born Bristol, England, 1949; saxophones.

Larry Stabbins started playing saxophone at the age of eleven. He started a long association with pianist Keith Tippett when he was sixteen, at the same time serving his musical apprenticeship in countless soul bands. He later contributed to many of Tippett's projects such as Centipede, Ark, Tapestry and the Septet. In addition to occasional duo performances, in the mid-eighties they also worked as a trio for a time with percussionist Louis Moholo, recording the album Tern for FMP Records in Berlin.

In London in the early 70's after a short spell in the Brotherhood of Breath, he attended John Stevens' Ealing workshops and played with the Spontaneous Music Orchestra, and occasionally with SME and the Dance Orchestra. As a result he met many of the 'second generation' of British improvisors and often played the Little Theatre Club, sometimes solo, often in combinations with people such as Terry Day, Marcio Mattos, Ken Hyder, Paul Burwell, Maggie Nicols and particularly Roy Ashbury with whom he formed a regular duo, recording Fire without bricks for Bead Records in 1976. Back in Bristol in the late seventies he was involved with the then thriving Bristol Musicians Co-op while still performing in London with Peter Cusack and Tony Wren's Mama Lapato.

In 1979 he joined the Tony Oxley Quintet alongside Howard Riley, Barry Guy (later replaced by Hugh Metcalfe) and Phil Wachsmann and played in various permutations of it for many years (including one with Pat Thomas, Manfred Schoof and Sirone in 1992) and also the Celebration Orchestra. At the same time he also joined the London Jazz Composers Orchestra with whom he played until about 1985, and also Peter Brötzmann's Alarm Orchestra and its successor, the Tentet "Marz Combo". The early 80's also saw him play in the Eddie Prévost Quartet, Trevor Watt's Moire Music and Louis Moholo's Spirits Rejoice, as well as touring (the then East) Germany with Heinz Becker's Quintet with Uli Gumpert, Radu Malfatti, Peter Kowald and Stefan Hubner.

Alongside this he played with the seminal pop group Weekend and formed a key writing partnership with its guitarist Simon Booth. This became the basis for Working Week, a project that took a melange of latin, soul and jazz into the world of pop and dance music. The band toured extensively in Europe and Japan, performing at most of Europe's major Jazz Festivals, recording five albums for Virgin Records, in addition to writing for film and TV. The demise of Working Week was followed by QRZ? a fusion of jazz and rap which also recorded for Virgin and the German label Loud Minority.

After a several years away from music - among other things, doing philosophy at Kings College, London - he currently works solo, as a trio with Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders under the name "Game Theory", in a quartet with Howard Riley, Tony Wren and Mark Sanders, with The Dedication Orchestra, with Keith Tippett's Tapestry and with Soupsongs playing the music of Robert Wyatt. Other projects include working with DJ/ programmer and graphic artist Oktal, and a duo with Louis Moholo."

-European Free Improv site (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mstabbins.html)
4/2/2025

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


Track Listing:



1. Rough Cut 3:22

2. Fire Without Bricks 12:24 3. Wych Elm 4:23

4. Malodor 7:45

5. Puff! 5:08

6. Formants of the Deep 6:30

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Saxophone & Drummer / Percussionist Duos
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Duo Recordings
Jazz Reissues

Search for other titles on the label:
Corbett vs. Dempsey.


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