Joe McPhee & Decoy : Day One

Event information

This quartet came together for the first time at OTO in December 2009 and established an instant rapport with a roof-raising set of ecstatic improvisation. It suggested amazing possibilities for a future engagement and we're very pleased to be able to finally bring them back together again for what should be two fascinating days - where the group will have the chance to stretch out and explore.

"There’s not one slack moment.... This could be an awesome proposition as a long-running concern, though they’d have to excel themselves to top this." Tim Owen, The Jazzmann

"While at first you might be startled by the amount of music being played here (and there are a lot of statements and forms to take in, from all-stops-out freedom to a revelatory calypso), Hawkins, Edwards, Noble and McPhee have created a performance—and a record—for the ages. It will take a number of listens for the music on Oto to sink in, but once it does, it won't be forgotten." Clifford Allen, AllAboutJazz

DECOY are
ALEX HAWKINS – hammond organ
JOHN EDWARDS – double bass
STEVE NOBLE – drums

JOE MCPHEE – saxes/pocket trumpet

Since his emergence on the creative jazz and new music scene in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Joe McPhee has been a deeply emotional composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist, as well as a thoughtful conceptualist and theoretician.

McPhee’s first recordings as leader appeared on the CjR label, founded in 1969 by painter Craig Johnson . These include Underground Railroad by the Joe McPhee Quartet in 1969, Nation Time by Joe McPhee in 1970, and Trinity by Joe McPhee, Harold E. Smith and Mike Kull in 1971.

By 1974, Swiss entrepreneur Werner X. Uehlinger had become aware of McPhee’s recordings and unreleased tapes. Uehlinger was so impressed that he decided to form the Hat Hut label as a vehicle to release McPhee’s work. The label’s first LP was Black Magic Man, which had been recorded by McPhee in 1970. Black Magic Man was followed by The Willisau Concert and the landmark solo recording Tenor, released by Hat Hut in 1976. The earliest recordings by McPhee are often informed by the revolutionary movements of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; for example, Nation Time is a tribute to poet Amiri Baraka and Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II at WBAI’s Free Music Store, 1971 (finally released as a Hat Art CD in 1996) is a sometimes anguished post-Coltrane cry for freedom.

During the 1990’s, McPhee finally began to attract wider attention from the North American creative jazz community. He has since been performing and recording prodigiously as both leader and collaborator, appearing on such labels as CIMP, Okkadisk, Music & Arts, and Victo. In 1996, 20 years after Tenor, Hatology released As Serious As Your Life, another solo recording (this time featuring McPhee performing on various instruments). McPhee also began a fruitful relationship with Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark , engaging in a set of improvisational dialogues with Vandermark and bassist Kent Kessler on the 1998 Okkadisk CD A Meeting in Chicago. The Vandermark connection also led to McPhee’s appearance on the Peter BrotzmanChicagoOctet/Tentet three-CD box set released by Okkadisk that same year. As the 1990s drew to a close, McPhee discovered two like-minded improvisers in bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen- TRIO X.

"He is a stellar improviser, relishing his sound materials so caringly and for so long, the kind of player that invites you to really step outside of whatever mix you're and think and feel for a while." Hank Shteamer, Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches

DECOY

"this…might just be the best new band to emerge this year…a band that redefine the words “shock and awe”… this is an improvising trio that rocks and swings so hard it’s dangerous…it made me want to dig out all those records, watch those films and set the controls for the heart of the sun. That’s how good it is."

Duncan Heining, Jazzwise

Decoy is the stunning organ trio featuring Alex Hawkins, John Edwards and Steve Noble. Hawkins - whose early training as a pipe organist encourages him to exploit the full potential of the Hammond Organ and Leslie speaker is joined by arguably one of the greatest rhythm sections in music who combine a gift for unstoppable rhythmic propulsion and beguiling sonic abstraction - from furious swing to metallic klang and slapped strings...


ALEXANDER HAWKINS

Although better known as a pianist, Alexander Hawkins was called in a recent review ‘[t]he most interesting Hammond player of the last decade and more’, where it was commented that he had 'already extended what can be done on the instrument’ (Brian Morton, Point of Departure). In 2010, he was named on the official ballot for the 75th Annual Downbeat Reader’s Poll in the organ category. Writers in the Spanish journal El Intruso voted him #1 in the keyboard category, and #5 in the piano category, in their end of year poll for the same year.

His first album as leader, 'no now is so' (FMR), met with critical acclaim, featuring in various 'top ten albums of the year' lists; its sequel, 'all there, ever out' is due for release shortly on Babel. He also co-leads the collaborative Convergence Quartet, featuring American Taylor Ho Bynum, Canadian Harris Eisenstadt, and fellow Briton Dominic Lash, whose second album, 'Song/Dance', recently appeared on the Clean Feed label.

He has performed with the likes of Evan Parker, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Joe McPhee, Sonny Simmons, and many others, and is the pianist in the band of the master Ethiopian composer, Mulatu Astatke. He has performed across the UK, Europe, and beyond.

STEVE NOBLE

Steve Noble is London’s leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Stephen O’Malley, Joe McPhee, Alex Ward, Rhodri Davies and many, many more.

From playing with Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde ,Rip Rig and Panic ,Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, Noble went on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987,89 and 90) and was featured (along with Alex Ward) in the TV series based on Baileys book ‘Improvisation; its nature and practise’. He has toured and performed throughout Europe , Africa and America. Currently leads the groups ‘4tet’ - ‘Say What’- ‘Shakedown Club’- ‘Harry Love All Stars’ and a trio with Lol Coxhil / Edwards - he also fills the drum chair in the following groups ; SFQ, Badland , Gannets , Aethenor, Freebase and Tim Hills group Tongues of Fire.

Noble has also been MD for the Spanish dance company MAL PELO since 1998. He also runs the record company PING PONG PRODUCTIONS.

"An engaging mix of jazz time, free–rock and abstract improv , Noble is one of the country’s most creative drummers” (the Guardian)

" If you want to turn some friends on to improvised music take them to see one of Noble’s bands. The chemistry makes for explosive, exhuberant playing, seemingly endless creativity and- shocking though it may seem to some - fun” (Phil England, the Wire)

JOHN EDWARDS

John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, John Wall, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, and many others.