John Butcher (saxophonist)
John Butcher (* 1954 in Brighton ) is a British jazz and improvisation musician (tenor, soprano and baritone saxophone).
Live and act
Butcher studied physics at the University of Surrey and earned a Ph.D. in 1982. with the work Spin effects in the production and weak decay of heavy Quarks . After starting out as a rock musician, he performed as a jazz saxophonist a. a. with the jazz ensemble of pianist Chris Burn , which won the BBC Big Band Award in 1980 , and with his brother Phil Butcher , a double bass player. He has also toured with music and dance projects such as the London Contemporary Dance Theater , the New Arts Consort and Extemporary Dance .
After graduating, Butcher gave up his academic career and devoted himself entirely to music. In 1984 he recorded the LP Phonetics in a duo with Burn . At the same time he formed a trio with the guitarist John Russell and the violinist Phil Durrant , with whom he recorded the LP Conceits in 1987 . With the addition of the drummer Paul Lovens and the trombonist Radu Malfatti , the group continued to perform under the name News from the Shed .
Butcher appeared in Rome with saxophonists Evan Parker , Trevor Watts and Lol Coxhill , and toured the GDR with trombonist Alan Tomlinson and drummer Willi Kellers . He worked in duo formations with Phil Minton , Will Evans and Claudia Ulla Binder and with Derek Bailey , with whom he recorded the album Vortices and Angels in 2000 .
He also worked with the singers Phil Minton and Vanesse Mackness . In the early 1990s he performed in Europe with the Frisque Concordance quartet (with Georg Graewe and Martin Blume ), while in London he worked as a member of John Stevens ' Spontaneous Music Ensemble (with guitarist Roger Smith ).
Butcher gained his first experience in the field of electronic music in 1997 as a duo partner of Phil Durrant . In the same year he became a member of the Austrian group Polwechsel , with whom he recorded five albums. In the early 2000s he worked on electroacoustic experiments with the Californian scientist William Tsun-Yuk Hsu and with Newton Armstrong from Princeton University . Further electroacoustic works were created with the Japanese Toshimaru Nakamura and the Austrian Christof Kurzmann .
With Axel Dörner and Xavier Charles he founded the trio The Contest of Pleasures , whose music has been described as "electronic music on acoustic instruments". Since 2006 he has been working with the Australian Elision Ensemble . His discography now includes around forty albums, plus a larger number of recordings as a sideman.
In 2008 John Butcher founded the John Butcher Group with Chris Burn , Thomas Lehn , Clare Cooper , Gino Robair , dieb13 , Adam Linson and John Edwards .
Discography (selection)
- 1989 News from Shed
- 1995 Concert Moves
- 1999 Lights View
- 2000 Requests and Antisongs
- 2001 The Contest of Pleasure
- 2001 Vortices and Angels
- 2002 Apples of Gomorrah
- 2003 Invisible Ear
- 2003 Optic
- 2004 New Oakland Burr
- 2005 Albi Days
- 2006 Concentric
- 2008 Buffalo Pearl
- 2009 somethingtobesaid
- 2011 John Butcher / Toshimaru Nakamura: Dusted Machinery
- 2012 John Butcher / Mark Sanders: Daylight
- 2012 Bell Trove Spools
- 2014 John Butcher / Fred Frith : The Natural Order
- 2016 John Butcher / Ståle Liavik Solberg : So Beautiful, It Starts to Rain (Clean Feed)
- 2017 John Butcher / Damon Smith / Weasel Walter : The Catastrophe of Minimalism (Balance Point Acoustics)
- 2017 John Butcher, John Edwards, Mark Sanders; Last Dream of the Morning (Relative Pitch)
- 2019 John Butcher / Phillipe Lauzier / Éric Normand : How Does This Happen?
Web links
- John Butcher's website
- Discography at Allmusic
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Butcher, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British saxophonist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1954 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brighton |