Tony Bevan

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Tony Bevan (born June 9, 1956 in Aylesbury ) is a British saxophonist (bass, tenor and soprano saxophone) of free jazz and European improvisation music .

Live and act

Tony Bevan first learned to play the flute during his school days. At the age of sixteen, inspired by the music of Captain Beefheart and the minimal music of Terry Riley , he began playing the soprano saxophone . Bevan then played in the band of Lol Coxhill , who is also from Aylesbury; this gave him lessons in playing the soprano saxophone and was groundbreaking for Bevan's further musical career. The tenor saxophone was added a year later ; since then his playing has been influenced by musicians such as Sonny Rollins , Ornette Coleman and Warne Marsh . Then he came across the music of Derek Bailey , Evan Parker and Han Bennink and played with improvised musicians . After graduating in philosophy from Southampton University, Bevan returned to Aylesbury and played in the sessions of the London Musicians Collective , where he played improvised music with many musicians on the British scene, such as Steve Beresford , Dave Solomon , John Russell and Nigel Coombes . He later became a member of the more local Oxford Improvisers Collective and recorded with Oxford musicians such as Pete MacPhail and George Haslam , for example in Haslam's Four Corners Saxophone Group , and with Tony Moore and Pat Thomas, with whom he was in the Avant -Funk Formation M4 played.

In 1988 he played in an Oxford trio with Derek Bailey ; his first album with Matt Lewis was released in the same year on the Incus label . In 1992 the album Bigshots was released there , on which bassist Paul Rogers and drummer Steve Noble participated and which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize . In 1994 Bevan toured the UK as part of a trio consisting of Steve Noble and singer Phil Minton .

He also expanded his spectrum by playing the bass saxophone and recorded the short solo album Three Oranges with this instrument in 1998 . Together with Roscoe Mitchell , Anthony Braxton , Peter Brötzmann , Hamiet Bluiett , James Carter , Vinny Golia , Joseph Jarman , Jan Garbarek , Urs Leimgruber and Scott Robinson , he is one of the crowd of contemporary jazz musicians who play the bass saxophone (as a secondary instrument) .

The album Twister was created in autumn 1996 with Noble and the German bass player Alexander Frangenheim . With Sunny Murray he recorded the albums Home Cooking in the UK (2003) and The Gearbox Explodes! (2006). He also played in occasional duos with Adam Bohman and Derek Bailey. Currently (2008) Bevan plays in various formations, for example in a trio with Stefan Jawarzyn and Mark Sanders and a saxophone quartet with Jon Lloyd, Pete MacPhail and Tom Chant. His albums now appear on the Foghorn label.

According to Richard Cook and Brian Morton's judgment in the Penguin Guide to Jazz , Bevan is "a courageous improviser who plays in an idiom that maintains sufficient distance from the European free jazz dominant style of Evan Parker ". Bevan uses overblow techniques and simple motifs from folk songs.

Bevan should not be confused with the British painter Tony Bevan (* 1951).

Discographic notes

  • Original Gravity (Incus, 1988)
  • Bigshots (Incus, 1991)
  • Twisters (Scatter, 1995)
  • Nothing Is Permanent But Woe (Foghorn, 2000)
  • Derek Bailey: Bruise with Derek Bailey (Foghorn, 2006) Bailey, Bevan, Robinson, Edwards, Wales, Sanders

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bevan, Tony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British jazz saxophonist
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Aylesbury