John BUTCHER
saxophone
John Butcher was born in Brighton, England and
has lived in London since the late 1970s. His playing ranges through
free improvisation, various structurings, his own compositions,
multitracked saxophone pieces and work with live electronics,
amplification and feedback.
He has toured and broadcast throughout Europe, Japan and North America,
and was featured, playing solo, in the BBC TV programme
Date with an Artist. Compositions include pieces for
Chris BURN's Ensemble, the Austrian group Polwechsel
and the American Rova Saxophone Quartet.
Butcher started playing the saxophone at Surrey University, where he was
studying physics -- and his first concerts were in an `avant'
(for want of a better term) rock group. Hearing musicians like
John SURMAN, Stan TRACEY and Louis MOHOLO
triggered an enthusiasm for jazz, and he started learning and playing
in various small and large groups -- often with pianist Chris BURN;
and sometimes with his brother Phil BUTCHER, on double bass.
In 1977 he began work on a Ph.D in the Theoretical Physics department
of Imperial College. It was published in 1982 as
Spin effects in the production and weak decay of heavy Quarks.
During this period he continued to work in Burn's large
Jazz Ensemble (which won the 1980 BBC Big Band competition), and
toured with a variety of projects (London Contemporary Dance Theatre,
New Arts Consort, Extemporary Dance). At the same time, he was
struggling to find the ways of playing that eventually led him to a
commitment to `free' improvisation. Rehearsals and monthly concerts,
with Chris Burn, at the Workers' Music Association in Notting Hill Gate
were an important ingredient.
After getting his doctorate in 1982, Butcher left academia and went off
with music; releasing Fonetiks (1984) -- a duo with Burn --
and playing in trumpeter Jon CORBETT's Freelance
(with Elton DEAN). Around this time he began working in a
trio with guitarist John RUSSELL and violinist Phil DURRANT.
They started the label ACTA to release Conceits (1987)
and were joined in 1988 by drummer Paul LOVENS and trombonist
Radu MALFATTI to form News from the Shed.
Various concerts in the 1980s included a soprano quartet in Rome
(with Evan PARKER, Trevor WATTS and Lol COXHILL),
a DDR tour with trombonist Alan TOMLINSON and drummer
Willi KELLERS -- and some performances with Derek BAILEY.
Butcher later played in a number of Company Weeks; produced a trio CD
with Bailey and the tuba player Oren MARSHALL; and released a
live duo with Bailey on Vortices and Angels (2000).
The quartet Frisque Concordance, formed in 1991 with
Georg GRÄWE and Martin BLUME, meant more regular visits
to Europe -- whilst in London he joined what became the final version
of John STEVEN's Spontaneous Music Ensemble.
A New Distance contains their performance at the 1993
LMC Festival -- the SME's last recorded concert.
Throughout the 1990s Butcher played in many contexts with singer
Phil MINTON and their collaborations continue with the duo
release -- Apples of Gomorrah. Minton's quartet (with
Veryan WESTON and Roger TURNER) has taken
Mouthfull of Ecstasy -- utilising texts from
Finnegans Wake -- throughout Europe and the US.
Other regular performances in the 1990s included a duo with another
singer -- Vanessa MACKNESS; and with Chris BURN's
Ensemble and a trio with Minton and German guitarist
Erhard HIRT.
Electronic music was an early influence on Butcher's approach to
saxophone playing, and became explicit in his electromanipulation duo
with Phil DURRANT, formed in 1997. In the same year he joined the
Austrian group Polwechsel, which has released three CDs
-- the last a
collaboration with laptop and guitar player Christian FENNEZ.
Some commentators have described his wind trio The Contest of
Pleasures, with Axel DÖRNER and Xavier CHARLES,
as electronic music by acoustic instruments.
He has also played and recorded with No-Input mixer
specialist Toshimaru NAKAMURA.
In 2003/4 Butcher spent periods at STEIM helping develop a system for
software recognition of his saxophone techniques with Californian
computer professor William Tsun-Yuk HSU. In 2004 he collaborated
with Newton ARMSTRONG at Princeton University on interactive
saxophone/electronic feedback manipulation.
Since the late 1990s Butcher has become involved with many North
American musicians -- in particular duos with three drummers;
Gerry HEMINGWAY, Gino ROBAIR and Dylan van der SCHYFF;
and a trio with cellist Fred LONBERG-HOLM and drummer
Michael ZERANG. Other current groups include the trios
Thermal with EX guitarist Andy MOOR and
synthplayer Thomas LEHN; with Fabrizio SPERA and
John EDWARDS; with Steve BERESFORD and Paul LOVENS
-- and duos with John EDWARDS, Steve BERESFORD (electronics),
harpist Rhodri DAVIES and Christof KURZMANN (laptop).
Solo concerts have long been a particular enthusiasm, and various solo
CDs are available. The first, recently re-issued, was
Thirteen Friendly Numbers which also includes
pieces for multitracked saxophones, whilst London and Cologne and
Fixations (14) focused on live performance.
The recent Invisible Ear (2003) explores close-miking,
amplification and saxophone-controlled feedback, whilst the latest,
Cavern with Nightlife includes a 2002 concert inside the
Japanese Oya Stone mountain.
Butcher was a director of the London Musicians' Collective from
1993 to 1997. Around this time he also organised, with flautist
Nancy RUFFER, two SoundArt festivals -- programming composed
and improvised music. He has given many workshops/lectures on
improvisation and the saxophone (Royal College of Music,
Barcelona Conservatory, Newfoundland Sound Symposium,
Swindon Arts Centre, Princeton University, Parthenay Festival,
Stanford University etc).
As an improviser Butcher continues to play in many occasional,
sometimes just one-off encounters. These have ranged from large groups --
Fred van HOVE's t'nonet, Radu MALFATTI's Orkestra,
Butch MORRIS' London Skyscraper, the EX
Orkestra, Richard BARRETT's SWR NEWJazz Meeting project --
to duo concerts with Fred FRITH, Carlos ZINGARO,
Kaffe MATTHEWS, Joe MORRIS, Jin Hi Kim,
Toshimaru NAKAMURA and Paul LOVENS.
May 2006
Photo by Brad WINTER
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