SOLD OUT.
Globe Unity Orchestra perform on the occasion of their 50 year anniversary alongside the second ever outing for the duo of Peter Brötzmann & Heather Leigh and a quartet of London free improv renegades: cellist Ute Kanngiesser, alto saxophonist Seymour Wright, Billy Steiger on violin and Paul Abbott on drums.
Globe Unity Orchestra's appearance was made possible with support from the Goethe Institut, Sweden.
This year is the 50th anniversary of the big band Alexander von Schlippenbach originally convened for the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1966. Since then Globe Unity has gone on to be one of "the most remarkable assemblies of outside jazz talent since the AACM big bands" (John Litweiller, The Freedom Principle).
Henrik Waldforff saxophones
Gerd Dudek saxophones
Frederik Ljungkvist saxophones
Axel Dörner trumpet
Manfred Schoof trumpet
Christof Thewes trombone
Mats Äleklint trombone
Alexander von Schlippenbach piano
Paul Lytton drums, percussion
Peter Brötzmann is one of the most important and uncompromising figures in free jazz and has been at the forefront of developing a unique, European take on free improvisation since the 1960s.
Brötzmann first trained as a painter and was associated with Fluxus (Participating in various events and working as an assistant to Nam Jun Paik) before dissatisfaction with the art world moved his focus towards music. However he continued to paint and his instantly recognisable visual sensibility has produced some of our favourite LP sleeves as well as a number of gallery shows in recent years.
Self-taught on Clarinet and Saxophone, Brötzmann established himself as one of the most powerful and original players around, releasing a number of now highly sought after sides of musical invention including the epochal 'Machine Gun' session in 1968 - originally released on his own Brö private press and later recordings for FMP (Free Music Production) the label he started with Jost Gebers. Brötzmann's sound is "one of the most distinctive, life-affirming and joyous in all music" and he has performed with almost all of the major players of free music from early associations with Don Cherry and Steve Lacy to regular groupings with Peter Kowald, Alex Von Slippenbach, Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove, the Chicago Tentet (Mats Gustafsson/Joe McPhee/Ken Vandermark and more) and various one-off and ad hoc associations with many others including Keiji Haino, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton and Rashied Ali.
The daughter of a coal miner, weaving a trail from West Virginia to Texas and now residing in Scotland, Heather Leigh furthers the vast unexplored reaches of pedal steel guitar. She’s performed and released music since the 1990s as a solo artist and with a wide range of uncompromising collaborators from Peter Brötzmann to Jandek and has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Her playing is as physical as it is phantom, combining spontaneous compositions with a feel for the full interaction of flesh with hallucinatory power sources. With a rare combination of sensitivity and strength, Leigh’s steel mainlines sanctified slide guitar and deforms it using hypnotic tone-implosions, juggling walls of bleeding amp tone with choral vocal constructs and wrenching single note ascensions.
She’s played/performed/released music with Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast, Charalambides, Scorces (a duo with Christina Carter), the Dream/Aktion Unit (a group with Thurston Moore, Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano and Matt Heyner), Taurpis Tula, Jailbreak (a duo with Chris Corsano) and Jandek, as well as collaborated with Peter Brötzmann, Lynda (as Termas), Stefan Jaworyzn (as Annihilating Light), Richard Youngs, Blood Stereo, MV & EE, Robbie Yeats of The Dead C, John Olson of Wolf Eyes, Smegma, Jutta Koether, Kommissar Hjuler & Mama Baer and many others.
“Pedal steel guitar player from hell. Not for the faint-hearted.” The List Magazine
“All notions of the pedal steel’s laid-back, country harmony are shattered as Leigh extols jagged notes and blocks of electric noise that seem to rail against rock, jazz and other notions of freedom music.” Dusted Magazine
“She is summoning the spirits of the ghost-women of rock ’n’ roll past who were perceived as the sponges of the love-cloaked-violence and guitar-death-gazes of the almighty rocker” Tiny Mix Tapes
Seymour Wright is a saxophonist. His work is about the creative, situated friction of learning, ideas, people and the saxophone – music, history and technique – actual and potential.
Seymour's solo music is documented on four widely-acclaimed collections - Seymour Wright of Derby (2008), Seymour Writes Back (2015) , Is This Right? (2017) and RITES (2023).
Current projects include: @xcrswx with Crystabel Riley; abaria with Ute Kanngiesser; [Ahmed] with Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Pat Thomas; GUO with Daniel Blumberg; XT with Paul Abbott; The Creaking Breeze Ensemble; a trans-atlantic duet with Andy Guthrie, and, with Jean-luc Guionnet a project addressing an imaginary lacunae in Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne.
@xcrswx
Billy Steiger was born in Howth on the 16th December, 1986. Now he plays the violin.
“Then he sat down by a pond and began to play a tune. As he played, the most extraordinary thing happened. One by one the fish in the pond began to jump out and fly about in the air. And what is more, they were all different colours and they were singing to the music.” — Patrick, Quentin Blake.
Ute Kanngiesser is a German, London based cellist:
“For over 10 years, I have only played unscripted/improvised music. I have experimented with the sound of the cello, limiting myself to the alive material at hand: vast and complicated layers within the instrument and myself; and to let this music evolve continuously in relationship with others. It relates to the process of uncovering an endless multiplicity of coexisting sense perspectives. And it deals with the energy that this gives rise to. For me, it is the most exciting place to play music from.”
Most recent collaborations have been with Seymour Wright, Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga, Rie Nakajima, Jennifer Allum, John Butcher, Terry Day, Billy Steiger, Tom Wheatley, Paul Abbott, Guillaume Viltard, and Daniel Blumberg.
Saxofonisten och klarinettisten Fredrik Ljungkvist föddes i Kristinehamn 1969. Han växte upp i en musikalisk familj, farfadern var fiolspeleman och fadern är saxofonist. Efter studierna på Skurups Folkhögskolas musiklinje och musikhögskolan i Stockholm i början av 90-talet blev han snabbt en av de mest efterfrågade saxofonisterna i Stockholm. Han spelade bland annat med Fredrik Norén Band, Jan Levander och sin egen kvartett. Hans subtila och expressiva saxofonspel har imponerat på såväl publik som kritiker världen runt.
