New Music Coop Presents Saxophonist John Butcher [Show Preview]

Gerrard Martin, 2006

Austin New Music Co-op Presents: John Butcher
Friday, March 4
Mexican American Cultural Center (600 River Street)
8 PM, $12/$15
[info]

When one listens to the throaty growl of Coleman Hawkins or the lithe elisions of Lester Young, or even the chirps and twirls of Steve Lacy, the first thing to come to mind might not be sound at its nakedest. Phrases and how they're put together, trying to follow a melodic line - those aspects of saxophone playing appear front and center. Sound is, after all, an abstract and very large thing that's difficult to narrow, whereas the things one makes with sounds are easier to connect with one's observations and experience.

English tenor and soprano saxophonist and improviser John Butcher is, in some ways, a sound artist who has chosen the saxophone as his medium, working quite often as a soloist and paring down his litany of materials to breath, air, reed, teeth, tongue, fingers, pads, metal and the various sounds or actions that result (sometimes abetted by amplification/electronics). While certainly direct and specific, Butcher's work is not entirely "minimal" or "micro," despite not at first glance being obviously connected to the instrument's history, especially in jazz and improvised music. In fact, some of what he conjures seems related more to electronic or non-saxophone sounds than anything possible from a reed instrument. There is an inherent logic and engagement within this approach - not only that of the mechanics of instrumental music-making, but also with the space or environment in which the work is occurring (check out his solo CD Resonant Spaces on Confront from 2006, recorded in both indoor and outdoor settings; he's also performed in dialogue with artworks by Dan Flavin and James Turrell).

Butcher's work didn't come out of nowhere - it's certainly indebted to saxophonists like Lacy, Evan Parker, Lou Gare, and Larry Stabbins as well as the work of improvisers like percussionist John Stevens and guitarist Derek Bailey - but he's refined the exploration of instrumental resonance and the dialogue of "pure sound" with phraseology to a major degree. As one of the most singular voices in contemporary European free improvisation, Butcher does still find value in collaboration - he was the director of the London Musicians' Collective and has performed and recorded in contexts ranging from saxophone-percussion duos to orchestras. And though something about the area has attracted Butcher to Austin, Houston and West Texas before, regional performances are still rare and always exciting. He'll be performing both unaccompanied (though that's clearly a loaded term) and in conjunction with the New Music Coop string trio, the Imbroglio Ensemble (James Alexander (viola), Henna Chou (cello), and Travis Weller (violin)) for this presentation. The quartet will interpret sections of composer Cornelius Cardew's (1936-1981) extended work Treatise.