Detail

SLAMCD 323 "FROM WYCHFORD HILL"

Artists: Lol Coxhill Soprano sax, George Haslam Baritone sax, Tarogato, Richard Leigh Harris piano, Steve Kershaw double bass.

Recorded at The Holywell Music Room, Oxford. 12 March 2006.

By Eric Smith

Tracks:

1 From Wychford Hill 13:33 Coxhill, Haslam, Harris, Kershaw.

2 Waltz of the Happy Buddhas 8:27 Coxhill, Haslam, Harris, Kershaw.

3 Alone and Unnoted 13:15 Coxhill.

4 All in One Uphill 15:47 Coxhill, Haslam, Harris, Kershaw

5 Forward; Forward; Forward, Stupid Criminals! 10:46 Coxhill, Haslam, Harris, Kershaw.

Reviews

When Lol Coxhill was busking, it was as if you among passing thousands could hear his soprano saxophone all over London in every crevice of brick, concrete and tar.

 

His notes, pouring from his spiky horn over the Thames from his favourite spots like Waterloo Bridge or outside Embankment station, flowed as if they were comrades of nature to the Thames water as it was sucked under the arches and rolled on towards estuary and sea, all around the world.

Coxhill died earlier this year. London pigeons lost an accompanist and music lost a master. Not a hidebound, studio-bound or conservatory-bound master, but a virtuoso of the streets, the small venues and anywhere where democratic souls would listen, marvel and learn from his artistry of the byways.

Listening to him on these albums, all on the British-based Slam label produced by his old confrere, baritonist George Haslam, you realise again how his sound, brilliantly terse and unique, full of edge, surprise, audacity and lyrical beauty, expressed the truly human spirit of music, simultaneously of the ordinary and the glorious - and always of the real world, of humour, pain, discovery, perplexity, happiness and inordinate skill.

From Whichford Hill is an album shared with Haslam, pianist Richard Leigh Harris and bassist Steve Kershaw.

It was recorded live in 2006 in the acoustic sanctuary of Oxford's Holywell Music Room, which seems like a galaxy away from the streets of London.

Perhaps it was a venue Coxhill dreamed of because he plays like a timbral prophet.

In this room where history eats the ears, Coxhill and Haslam's horns sound as if the past has backfired on the present, particularly on the title track, where Kershaw's strings seem to dig deep into the Thames earth.

The Waltz Of The Happy Buddhas gives Leigh Harris some joyously jaunty passages, but it is during Coxhill's 13-minute solo piece Alone And Unnoticed that memories of his lonesome busking erupt in the listener's mind - his breathiness, his lyricism on the edge of sound, his human birdsong, his sudden unique and utterly spontaneous melodies carry you with the eastern Thamesflow from Oxford to his old pitches in central London.

There's a whirling flourish of Coxhill's soprano notes to begin All In One Uphill before his confreres enter and Haslam's baritone growls its response.

And then there is the concluding imperative, Forward, Forward, Forward, Stupid Criminals!

Is he addressing his bandmates? Or the listeners? Or the world's people?

Who knows, only the breath and power of the horns.

Sixteen years earlier, Coxhill was at the same venue with Haslam, Yorkshire pianist Howard Riley and the south London trombone genius Paul Rutherford for the recording of The Holywell Concert.

Riley and Coxhill begin the proceedings with the serpentine curves of In Transit and the vocalese banter and throttle of Rutherford's unique solo slides are garrulous all through Half Pisced.

There's a three-way horn colloquy in the solos and exchanges of No How, and Gliss is all Coxhill, beautifully recorded and resonant with his solo soul.

The final track Oxford is the full quartet unleashing and Coxhill is playing as a true co-operator, as he did as a member of the 30-plus-strong London Improvisers' Orchestra or rock-steady bands with Rico Rodriguez or bop formations with Stan Tracey and Bobby Wellins - full of empathy, sonic unity and ensemble generosity with whomever he shared the performance.

In July 1999 the Slam label celebrated its 10th anniversary with a "Slam-fest" at The Premises in London. Among the delights on the twofer CD that was cut are three tracks by CHAR (Coxhill, Haslam and Rutherford) where the musical comradeship of the three veteran hornmen reaches a true communal apex.

CHAR 1 is almost 20 minutes long and is full of breath, fire and astonishing notes. Coxhill's shuddering soprano spikes its cry over the two deeper, rumbling horns and the rhythmless surge of the dynamic counter-sounds create a mystery and musical oneness which is wondrous to hear - voices within instruments, speaking and singing their own lives and the lives of the world.

CHAR 2 has Haslam playing his Hungarian tarogato and the threesome in a more sprightly mood, and Coxhill is warbling, inventing and laughing through his horn all through the conversations of CHAR 3.

It was Loren Coxhill's old London ancestor, Blake, who "wander'd down each charter'd street" of the city 200 year before him, saw the "mind forg'd manacles" and wrote how "my streets are my ideas of my imagination."

Coxhill did the same and his sonic poems resonated over the air of Londoners.

With these priceless records he can still do that, and carry our consciousness with his brilliant sound all over the world.

Chris Searle Morning Star Monday 12 November 2012 http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/126031

 

Coxhill/Haslam/Harris/Kershaw

Lol Coxhill (ss), George Haslam (bs, tarogato), Richard Leigh Harris (p), Steve Kershaw (b).

Born in 1932, Lowen "Lol" Coxhill grew up with bebop. In 1950-51 he was "temporarily inconvenienced" by national service in the RAF, then worked with such evocatively-titled outfits as Denzil Bailey’s Afro-Cubists, and Sonny G and the G Men, and with players such as Joe Harriott and Tubby Hayes. Since the ‘70s he’s become more known as an improvising musician and solo player, working in Company, Brotherhood of Breath, Spontaneous Music Ensemble and more recently with Steve Beresford, with whom he shares a love for the absurd and surreal.

But as this is a serious, family magazine, we’ll pass over that malarkey and turn to the new recording. Lol Coxhill was an early guest in the Oxford Jazz Masters Series, and this quartet featuring him was recorded live at the historic Holywelll Music Room in 2006. The result now appears on George Haslam’s Slam label, with the quartet appearing on all tracks except for one unaccompanied Coxhill solo. With Haslam’s baritone featured extensively, and some dark pianism and bass by Harris and Kershaw – names new to me – there’s some weighty free improvisation on offer. The most compelling track, however, is "Alone And Unnoted", a solo performance by the soprano saxist. Coxhill’s work has been touched by genius, and this beautiful meditation shows a free master still at the height of his powers. Coxhill is happy to allude to the blues and to jazz standards – thought not, on this occasion, to "Strangers On The Shore", as far as I could tell – and near its end, he throws in some bebop lines and licks to remind us of his inheritance.

Beautiful.

Andy Hamilton JazzReview, August 2008.

 

 

 Lol Coxhill | Slam Records(2008)

Angelo Leonardi

L'Oxford Jazz Master Series, di cui questo disco fa parte, è un progetto concepito nel 2005 per ospitare grandi esponenti della musica improvvisata britannica e non (tra gli italiani c'è Stefano Pastor) nella Holywell Music Room di Oxford, rinomata nel mondo per la sua perfetta acustica. La serie di concerti è stata inaugurata nel febbraio 2006 da Evan Parker assieme al gruppo base, costituito dal sax baritono George Haslam, dal pianista Richard Leigh Harris e dal bassista Steve Hershaw.

In questo secondo disco della serie, registrato il 12 marzo, l'ospite è il sopranista Lol Coxill uno dei padri della libera improvvisazione europea ed artista quanto mai eclettico: ricordiamo brevemente che iniziò dal blues (accompagnando anche Otis Spann e lavorando con Alexis Corner) poi entrò nei Brotherhood of Breath di Chris McGregor, ed in anni più recenti ha collaborato con complessi rock (Henry Cow), militato a lungo col Moire Music di Trevor Watts e fondato l'eccentrico Melody Four, il suo gruppo più noto.

In questo contesto la libera improvvisazione è sovrana. Coxill emerge in qualità di protagonista ma la relazione coi partner è intensa e questi evidenziano ottime doti individuali. Eccetto il terzo episodio ("Alone and Unnoted") e l'inizio del quarto, dove Coxill s'esibisce in solo, il gruppo dà vita ad una libera esplorazione delle forme entro un quadro dominato da un ricco senso architettonico, con situazioni d'astratto camerismo ma anche d'intensa partecipazione emotiva. In "The Waltz of the Happy Buddhas", addirittura, la dimensione è quasi jazzisticamente tradizionale: dopo un'introduzione vagamente ayleriana, il percorso si snoda sorretto dall'ostinato walkin' bass di Steve Hershaw e dal possente baritono di Haslam, su cui improvvisano Leigh Harris e Coxill. Il brano finale, "Forward, Forward; Forward, Stupid Criminals!" mette in luce le doti solistiche di George Haslam, un veterano del suo strumento (ha oggi 69 anni) quasi del tutto sconosciuto in Italia. Disco e registrazione eccellenti. Una chicca per gli amanti dell'avanguardia.

http://italia.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=3003

From Wychford Hill Slam CD 323

Registrato dal vivo il 12 marzo 2006 nella storica Holywell Music Room di Oxford, nell’ambito di una serie di lodevoli iniziative a favore del free jazz e delle musiche improvvisate, il cd mette a confronto un giovane trio – George Haslam (baritono), Richard Leigh Harris (piano), Steve Kershaw (basso) – con un padre nobile della creative music Britannica: Lol Coxhill, al sax soprano, con un passato tra blues, rhythm’n’blues, ska, progressive rock, bebop, si conferma talento assoluto del radicalismo inglese, come ben mostrano I tredici minuti di Alone and Unnoted o le alter Quattro performance di collettivismo informale estemporaneo (g.mic.)

ALIAS N20 – 12 Maggio 2008

 

Solo e quartetto di Vittorio LoConte

Lo spazio in cui è stata registrata la musica è antico di secoli ed ha visto già risuonare la musica Händel ai tempi in cui è stata scritta. Fortunatamente per i musicisti e gli ascoltatori è rimasto ed oggi l´avanguardia trova un luogo dove potersi esprimere. Questa volta è un quartetto intorno al veterano Lol Coxhill, al sax soprano curvo, uno che ha attraversato quaranta anni di musica inglese, dal blues degli inizi e le jam sessions con Jimi Hendrix al progressivo degli anni `70, proseguendo per strade insolite: i concerti in solo, i confronti con colleghi americani come Steve Lacy o Borah Bergman e le techno band che hanno utilizzato il suono del suo sassofono, così diverso da quello che fanno i musicisti da studio. Con lui ci sono George Haslam al sax baritono ed al tarogato, Richard Leigh Harris al pianoforte e Steve Kershaw al contrabbasso, impegnati in un dialogo che ha forme familiari, ormai consuete per chi ha scelto di uscire dalla tonalità, ma senza l´aggressivitá del free storico, quiete, pacate, alla ricerca di una bellezza dalle forme inconsuete, fuori dall´accademia. Il solo di "Alone and Unnoted" è uno dei momenti forti del disco, con quelle linee di note ad inseguire un sogno che corre via, ad ammaliare le fantasie di chi lo segue. E poi gli scambi fra sax soprano e tarogato coinvolti in uno scambio fra i cupi accordi del pianoforte e le corde di un contrabbasso che suggerisce sviluppi sempre nuovi di un collettivo che ha scelto di proseguire insieme ispirandosi al momento, fidando nella propria creativitá inesauribile È così che si ascolta un disco ispirato, un concerto che non è svanito nell´aria, ma ha ancora modo di risuonare da un supporto digitale, oggetto e tecnica impensabile nel momento in cui la Holywell Room ospitava i colleghi musicisti di qualche secolo fa.

http://www.musicboom.it/mostra_recensioni.php?Unico=20080622205257