Jazz breaking news: Vortex Hosts Evan Parker’s Might I Suggest Part Three With ICP
Thursday, December 20, 2012
London’s Vortex jazz club has announced the line-up for iconic UK saxophonist Evan Parker’s third annual Might I Suggest mini-festival, which runs between 29 January and 2 February 2013.
Following the inaugural 2011 event’s focus on London’s forward-looking jazz scene with collaborative performances between Parker and the likes of Django Bates and Stan Tracey, and this year’s showcase of exciting German improv musicians (a country where Parker spends much of the year playing live and whose scene he’s had a huge influence on), the theme for next year will be a series of performances with the legendary ICP (Instant Composers Pool) Orchestra from Amsterdam.
Parker has worked with members of the group for the last 40 years, notably with highly respected drummer/visual artist Han Bennink (pictured above left) on German sax terroriser Peter Brötzmann’s landmark 1968 album, Machine Gun. The first three days of the festival will consist of various collaborations between Parker and ICP members and selected UK improv musicians, as well as other associated musicians such as Californian avant garde saxophonist Michael Moore and pianist/keyboardist/composer Alex Maguire, who’s studied with John Cage and Howard Riley, and worked with the late Elton Dean among many others. The last two days will feature performances by the full ICP Orchestra, on what will be their first visit to the UK for over six years.
The Vortex remains Parker’s spiritual home and his regular monthly gig there he says is “my haven from the demands of the road. To play music in a club of that size for an audience who has come to listen is the optimal situation for small group improvisation. The spectrum of music that I am involved in ranges from ‘free jazz’ to ‘free improvisation’ – these are both terms that are very approximate – but The Vortex is, for me, a place to play ‘free jazz’. I cannot imagine life without it.”
For more info go to www.vortexjazz.co.uk
– Mike Flynn