Weekend – Concession £65
Weekend – General £75
Weekend – Legacy £90
Mark Sanders is a celebrated & prolific drummer, playing with greats including Wadada Leo Smith, Henry Grimes & Evan Parker. John Edwards grew up in London & is deeply rooted in free jazz & improvisation. He is widely regarded as one of the great double bass players of his generation. A strutting intensity that acclaimed journalist Richard Williams observes as, ‘absolutely remarkable: there’s never been anything like him before, anywhere in jazz.’
“all working at the very pinnacle of European improv…the level of rapport and collective virtuosity is astonishing.” – Daniel Spicer, Jazzwise
“Lands somewhere pretty fresh and, by my reckoning, largely unoccupied” – Noel Gardner, The Quietus
“One of the most exciting debut albums of the year” – Rough Trade
That all too rare thing, a supergroup of considerable individual acclaim & experience, free of ego, connecting instead through musical commitment to the collective. Their strong individual identities remain however, and only act to weave together a web of determined sound. Larry Stabbins, collaborator with Keith Tippett, Louis Moholo, Tony Oxley & Peter Brötzmann alongside popular soul-jazz success with his 1980s group Working Week, frequently snakes & soars above a driving post-rock bedrock of Jim Barr’s thundering bass lines, the shadowing menace of Adrian Utley’s sidewalk crunching guitar & the shuffling undercurrent of Seb Rochford’s drums: the percussive & rhythmic voice of Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear, Sons of Kemet & Patti Smith’s live band amongst many others.
137 are sure to shake St Mary’s Hall.
“Tremble and bristle together like post-rockers Mogwai, had they cut their teeth on Weather Report and Barry Adamson” – Tariq Goddard, The Quietus
Theo May’s New Odd Unit emerges from the ashes of last year’s celebrated album Alive in the Forest of Odd. That quintet’s wild set of European folk, modal jazz & avant-garde compositions was released with a triumphant sold out hometown show & airplay on BBC Radio 3’s specialist jazz programme Round Midnight. Theo’s abundant energy, wide musical reach & renaissance style intensity suggests him to be something of a contemporary David Munrow.
Sunday lunchtime promises to be a blistering start to the day’s programme – wake the town & tell the people indeed.
“an approach to music-making that takes such delight in the journey of a composition, travels across so many musical traditions and countries, and reaches out to explore novel ways of bringing familiar instruments together [with] a vision that is so all-embracing, enthusiastic, and warm” – Chris Barber, Jazz Views
Of Antiguan heritage and unwilling to be bound by genre, race or class, Pat began playing on a cardboard piano before learning classically from 8 years old. He became a Sufi in 1990, drawn to the traditions of scholarship and social justice, and this spiritual and intellectual foundation informs his searching music. He is a pioneering historic presence in the Oxford Improvisers Collective & his energetic, wide open approach is broad; it ranges from his 1997 solo debut Remembering: New Jazz Jungle, a wild sound of Amen-break drum’n’bass, mutant funk and post – Western atonality to playing in one of the great jazz quartets performing today – [Ahmed] – who imaginatively explore the music of double bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik.
It is a true honour to have Pat grace Westport Sound, twice, with a solo piano performance & then drawing Sunday to a close with the trio Shifa.
“Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude.” – The Jazz Mann
They have a distinguished portfolio, performing internationally, participating in multiple residencies & festivals including Manchester Jazz Festival & Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Dominic performed with the late violinist Tony Conrad, recorded with Chris Corsano & has had a solo double bass piece composed especially by Éliane Radigue. Heather has recorded 23 albums with Apartment House, performed with the London Symphony Orchestra & London Sinfonietta, and premiered countless solo works for clarinet including a specially commissioned concerto performed at Glasgow’s Tectonics festival.
On Dominic, “a master of the extreme” – Paul Medley, Oxford Times
On Heather, “a figurehead for contemporary music performance practice” – Neil Luck, BBC Radio 3
“Something new, something ancient and something on the wind. Mesmerising” – Sophie Parkes, Songlines
They have released on Alter, Slip Imprint and Opal Tapes among other labels. Their musical project has an innate portability. They have performed at international festivals including Sonic Acts, Borealis, Counterflows, Supernormal and now Westport Sound in Malmesbury!
Ecliptic is their new album released on Discus following two acclaimed live recordings from London’s Cafe OTO & Oslo’s Blow Out Festival in 2019 (both on New York-based 577 Records). Pat Thomas is one of the great contemporary pianists. Rachel Musson is an extensive collaborator, a ‘free-improviser sensitive to melody-like narrative and dramatic pacing’ (John Fordham, The Guardian). Mark Sanders is a renowned drummer who has performed with a who’s who of jazz & experimental musicians and features on a staggering 220 (& counting) recordings. Last year’s performances at Westport Sound now sit amongst major festival appearances across Europe, Brazil & the UK’s WOMAD & Glastonbury.
“True mind-meld…free-jazz [of the] highest order” – Mike Jurkovic, All About Jazz
