Prende il via oggi a Londra un fitto programma di quattro giornate dedicate al poliedrico genio artistico e musicale di Tony Oxley, batterista e percussionista pioniere del free jazz britannico, sperimentatore nel campo dell'elettroacustica e dell'elettronica, insegnante e anche pittore, scomparso a Natale del 2023 all'età di ottantacinque anni. Principale promotore assieme alla vedova, Tutta Oxley, è Mark Wastell, che ha allestito due cicli consecutivi di eventi presso le sedi amiche della Hundred Years Gallery ('Tony Oxley: Combination') e del Cafe Oto ('Tony Oxley: Baptised Travels') con concerti, proiezioni, esposizione e vendita di manufatti artistici originali, momenti di confronto tra appassionati e in via eccezionale la ricostruzione completa del particolarissimo set percussivo ideato da Oxley custodito nella sua casa a Viersen (Germania) e lì rimasto inutilizzato per oltre quindici anni. Il calendario completo delle iniziative è su FB, mentre alcuni rari materiali discografici - alcuni in unica copia - li rende disponibili lo stesso Wastell tramite la sua etichetta Confront Recordings. 

Tony Oxley (1938-2023) is admired the world over as an extremely influential improvising drummer, band leader and educator. In addition to his drumming legacy, Oxley was also a prolific and very accomplished abstract-figurative painter. Visual art was an essential part of Tony’s personality, another way in which he was able to reveal his inner self and connect with the wider realm. Initially encouraged to start painting by his musical collaborator and friend, renowned Scottish artist Alan Davie (the influence of which is very apparent in Oxley’s early works from the 1970s), Tony navigated his way visually across five decades, working his way through many different styles, stages and approaches. Much like his music, complex textures, spontaneous gestures, and a sense of continually-flowing structure, are evident in Tony’s work. His paintings adorn dozens of album covers and he often performed his music to a backdrop of projected images. Oxley occasionally exhibited to the public in his home town of Viersen in Germany. This is Tony Oxley’s first ever exhibition in the UK, and anywhere in the world outside of Germany!

https://www.facebook.com/mark.wastell.9
http://hundredyearsgallery.co.uk/exhibition-tony-oxley-combination
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/tony-oxley-baptised-travels
https://confrontrecordings.bandcamp.com/merch

 

Sarà disponibile in cd da agosto, ma in formato digitale lo si può già ascoltare tramite Bandcamp: è l'atteso album del sassofonista Marc Hadley - il primo realizzato a proprio nome come titolare - contenente tra mille riferimenti canterburyani anche le ultime registrazioni in studio del compianto Phil Miller: How To Cut Water. 

L'autore ne parla per esteso a Phil Howitt per Facelift: "​This record was inspired by my time playing with Phil Miller, who had a built-in preference for the road less-travelled, thus he might choose to write a 5/4 melody rather than a 4/4. My connection to Phil came via bassist Jack Monck; the first bassist in one of the Canterbury origin bands, Delivery. After decades of orbiting one another, Phil, Jack, the late Paul Dufour, and I finally formed a quartet, recording a studio demo in 2016. ​Following Phil’s death in 2017, I was left with a sense of unfinished business. We had a collection of tunes to which Phil had been a generous contributor, including the enigmatically challenging piece he called Thing in 5. To capture Phil’s lifetime of fluid, evolving influence felt like a creative and emotional attempt at “cutting water” - trying to impose shape on an element that inherently resists it. I’ve felt at times with my own writing that I’m actually fishing for something I didn’t conceive but already exists - it just doesn’t want to linger in one place and time very long."

https://marchadley.co.uk
https://marchadley.bandcamp.com/album/how-to-cut-water
https://canterburyscene.com/an-interview-with-marc-hadley

 

Hugh Hopper e il suo distintivo utilizzo del fuzz-box sono in bella evidenza anche in Illusion, secondo capitolo degli Isotope che Esoteric e Cherry Red Records ripresentano in questi giorni nel box Upward Curve-The Recordings 1973-1976. Ci sono tutti gli album ufficiali del gruppo, più alcune sessioni registrate dal vivo per la BBC nel 1973 e 1974 e un pugno di brani ritoccati nel 2001; per una più completa conoscenza dell'impatto dal vivo della formazione guidata da Gary Boyle nel periodo clou del jazz-rock britannico rimangono però ineludibili i documenti pubblicati qualche anno fa da Hux (Live at the BBC, 2004) e Cuneiform (Golden Section, 2008).

Della sua breve permanenza nel gruppo disse Hopper: "We played a lot of gigs with Isotope, touring all the time in the UK and Europe and once in the States. The band had good sponsorship and backing, and jazz-rock was almost desirable for a few months in 1974-75! We were playing at least four or five times a week, all the time. Isotope certainly was good for me from the point of view of doing a lot of music. Since we were gigging so much, I was probably playing with more technical facility than when I was in Soft Machine."

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/isotope-upward-curve