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John Butcher


Guest Chaney

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Guest Chaney

This man has never had his own thread on this board.

This man deserves his own thread on this board.

This is that thread.

John Butcher

What say ye of this man's talents (or -- don't be afraid -- lack thereof)?

Favorite recordings? Wished for encounters?

How 'bout that haircut?

Q: Has he ever recorded a dud?

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Q:  Has he ever recorded a dud?

At least two: Equation with local Toronto players Mike Hansen and Tomas Krakowiak, & Shooters & Bowlers with Gerry Hemingway.

Everything else I've heard by him--about a dozen or so albums--has been superb, though. I like Intentions with Peggy Lee & Phil Durrant, which I don't think gets mooted a lot. & the trio with Russell & Durrant (three discs strong now--WHEN will Conceits & Concert Moves be reissued??) is a classic.

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I'll highly recommend his recent album Cavern With Nightlife, released on his own Weight of Wax label. It is credited to Butcher and Toshimaru Nakamura, but Toshi only appears on the last track. The other four tracks are solo tenor or soprano recordings, all performed at the Oya Stone Museum in Utsunomiya City, Japan. The museum is "a mountain of soft lava hollowed out by 70 years of quarrying, The huge mining space is 60 m underground...and has an extraordinary acoustic resonance and atmosphere.

The track with Toshi is really nice, as well. I am not a huge fan of the no-input mixing board but it works well here, on a live duo recording from 2002.

I enjoy each of his two recordings on Erstwhile, Requests and Antisongs, with Phil Durrant processing Butcher's saxophone sounds in realtime and Polwechsel / Fennesz - Wrapped Islands quite a bit, although Wrapped Islands has never quite connected with me as much as I expected it to, given the outstanding lineup of musicians on the disc. (Butcher, Fennesz, Werner Dafeldecker, Burkhard Stangl and Michael Moser.)

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I haven't heard much of Butcher's work, but I got this disc from a kind fellow rat:

f83216hlibb.jpg

And I find it very good, to say the least!

AMG blurb by Steve Loewy:

The fifteen tracks comprising this CD are miniature masterpieces of pure delight. A minor gem of free improvisation Light's View presents saxophonist Butcher in tandem with pianist Georg Graewe. Unlike much of the music in the free genre, this duo generally eschews high energy bombastic to focus on sensitive interaction. Butcher is never less than brilliant, demonstrating a wealth of possibilities. Like a cat in the evening, the saxophonist negotiates crevices without misstep. Totally in control, he exposes himself to naked emotionalism, performed openly yet surprisingly quiet. Butcher commands his horn, merging classical and jazz sensibility. Graewe is a splendid partner, punching and jabbing, then caressing the keys of the piano. His astonishing technique places him as an equal partner, taking the lead as often as not.

I also heard a live set (on radio, alas) by the trio with Dörner & Charles, and recently got their Potlatch disc (but didn't play it yet).

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I like Intentions with Peggy Lee & Phil Durrant, which I don't think gets mooted a lot. 

I just picked up this one used, as well as the one Roi Ubu mentioned and three others (Music on Seven Occasions, London and Cologne and Points, Snags and Windings)

Hopefully I can find time to listen to them soon and bring this thread back up to the top with some quick reviews.

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Both Points, Snags and Windings (meniscus) and Light's View (nuscope) are excellent.

LV is the more mellow and accesible of the two. 15 duets wth pianist Georg Graewe. P,S and W features duets with percussionist Dylan van der Schyff, and is the more challenging of the two discs. On first listen I found this one to be the more interesting album. although both are fantastic.

I believe Meniscus has gone out of business ( or is at least "inactive" currently), so, if you see a copy of Points I highly recommend grabbing it while still available.

Edited by John B
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  • 1 year later...

up for some air...

John Butcher has a new duo album with Paal Nilssen-Love out on Clean Feed called Concentric.

CF067.jpg

On first listen I am really enjoying this. A very nice blend of a "traditional" jazz sax/drums duo with more abstract free improv mixed in.

From a Marc Medwin review over at AAJ:

"To define saxophonist John Butcher’s sound, or style, or vocabulary, is equivalent to attempting to describe a product of nature in every detail. The more examination is attempted, the more is revealed.

Of the three discs under discussion, the duo with Nilssen-Love is the most conventional in terms of what might be considered saxophone-and-drums hierarchy. Energy is high throughout, the two engaging in some extraordinarily intricate dialogue, often at fever pitch and at relatively high volume. Far from a simple blowing session however, the music bristles and crackles in very early Spontaneous Music Ensemble fashion and the results are thrilling, a sense of innocent discovery absolutely palpable throughout. "

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I played his 17 minute solo off of Hornbill (Matchless) to a class yesterday. They loved it. It's an amazing combination of musical/dramatic macrostructure and really testing microexperiments, where he tests the threshold between pitch/noise etc from note to note.

It's a CD of an Ongaku concert (a regular London series). Also contains ace solos by Evan P, Lou Gare etc - highly recommended.

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I played his 17 minute solo off of Hornbill (Matchless) to a class yesterday. They loved it. It's an amazing combination of musical/dramatic macrostructure and really testing microexperiments, where he tests the threshold between pitch/noise etc from note to note.

It's a CD of an Ongaku concert (a regular London series). Also contains ace solos by Evan P, Lou Gare etc - highly recommended.

That's a phenomenal recording for sure. And, music aside (which I know, one should probably never say!), it's an astonishing piece of saxophone playing, technically speaking.

Was talking to someone who was at the gig (forget who), who said that Evan and John were definitely 'pushing' each other, musically speaking, and that this friendly competition - in this guy's opinion - really added to the playing of each.

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up for some air...

John Butcher has a new duo album with Paal Nilssen-Love out on Clean Feed called Concentric.

CF067.jpg

On first listen I am really enjoying this. A very nice blend of a "traditional" jazz sax/drums duo with more abstract free improv mixed in.

From a Marc Medwin review over at AAJ:

"To define saxophonist John Butcher’s sound, or style, or vocabulary, is equivalent to attempting to describe a product of nature in every detail. The more examination is attempted, the more is revealed.

Of the three discs under discussion, the duo with Nilssen-Love is the most conventional in terms of what might be considered saxophone-and-drums hierarchy. Energy is high throughout, the two engaging in some extraordinarily intricate dialogue, often at fever pitch and at relatively high volume. Far from a simple blowing session however, the music bristles and crackles in very early Spontaneous Music Ensemble fashion and the results are thrilling, a sense of innocent discovery absolutely palpable throughout. "

I'm intrigued to hear this one as well - I've heard good things about it.

I have the privilege of playing with Mr Butcher for the first time in a couple of weeks - very excited!

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I played his 17 minute solo off of Hornbill (Matchless) to a class yesterday. They loved it. It's an amazing combination of musical/dramatic macrostructure and really testing microexperiments, where he tests the threshold between pitch/noise etc from note to note.

It's a CD of an Ongaku concert (a regular London series). Also contains ace solos by Evan P, Lou Gare etc - highly recommended.

That's a phenomenal recording for sure. And, music aside (which I know, one should probably never say!), it's an astonishing piece of saxophone playing, technically speaking.

Was talking to someone who was at the gig (forget who), who said that Evan and John were definitely 'pushing' each other, musically speaking, and that this friendly competition - in this guy's opinion - really added to the playing of each.

Was there, didn't really get that impression - did get the impression that Butcher had been sizing up the acoustic while listening to the earlier performances - his made by far the best use of the huge church reverb that day.

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I played his 17 minute solo off of Hornbill (Matchless) to a class yesterday. They loved it. It's an amazing combination of musical/dramatic macrostructure and really testing microexperiments, where he tests the threshold between pitch/noise etc from note to note.

It's a CD of an Ongaku concert (a regular London series). Also contains ace solos by Evan P, Lou Gare etc - highly recommended.

That's a phenomenal recording for sure. And, music aside (which I know, one should probably never say!), it's an astonishing piece of saxophone playing, technically speaking.

Was talking to someone who was at the gig (forget who), who said that Evan and John were definitely 'pushing' each other, musically speaking, and that this friendly competition - in this guy's opinion - really added to the playing of each.

Was there, didn't really get that impression - did get the impression that Butcher had been sizing up the acoustic while listening to the earlier performances - his made by far the best use of the huge church reverb that day.

I can well imagine that - I think use of the acoustic is one of his great strengths (that said, he's equally nailed-on to play a blinder in, e.g., the Red Rose!)

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That one on Clean Feed is nice. For whatever reason, reminds me a bit of the Gare-Prevost AMM duo, though I feel the intent is different.

I never regretted being thrown out of the Empty Bottle for muttering shit-talk to a friend about Glenn Kotche's "drumming" in a trio with Butcher and Lonberg-Holm. I guess Kotche's too cool have his improv talents questioned...

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When Hemmingway and Butcher appeared live on Blue Lake Butcher mentioned he was deeply influenced by friends of his who played strings, and getting inner voicings and multiple layers of sound from his saxophone was in part inspired by the sound of stringed instruments. During that broadcast Hemmingway played midi-percussion, too. Though John's contacted us a number of times since to come back and play we, alas, haven't had the bread he's wanted.

Edited by Lazaro Vega
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More an ensemble session, but I like News from the Shed--early-ish EAI in a fashion one might expect, but the playing here is so galvanizing that I'd tend to ignore that these same sounds have since become de rigueur among numerous less interesting musicians. Then again, I'm a fan of the more sanguine of EAI contexts, and there's as much fire as you can get from Butcher and anarchic guitarist John Russell (who's always struck me as a harsher Derek Bailey) here. Then there's Radu Malfatti in almost-ultra-minimalist mode, which is as enjoyable (to me), in its own way, as gutbucket Radu...

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  • 9 months later...
Guest Bill Barton

I just returned a few minutes ago from hearing Butcher with Torsten Muller and Dylan van der Schyff. It was my first experience with his music and I was blown away. It was an absolutely superb concert. I picked up the new Way Out Northwest CD on Drip Audio by this trio plus The Contest of Pleasures disc that aloc mentioned. Does anyone have recommendations for other "essential" Butcher discs?

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All the solos discs are recommendable--I've heard the new one, it's excellent--as well as the earlier trio with Durrant & Russell, the quintet News from the Shed, the discs with Polwechsel.... the trio with Durrant & Lee, the duos with Bailey & Davies (Vortices & Angels), there's probably lots more I'm forgetting.

The only avoidable ones I know of are Equation (Toronto visit) & the duo with Gerry Hemingway.

If you like The Geometry of Sentiment make sure to get Cavern with Nightlife on Weight of Wax too, it's got more from the same session from the Japanese quarry.

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