Some new music

Thought I’d share a couple of things here from projects I’ve been involved in recently.

The Mike Fletcher Trio, with Jeff Williams on drums, has been the band I’ve been most active in in 2015.  We’ve done a fair bit of touring, mainly thanks to Mike being selected as one of the European Concert Hall Organisation’s Rising Stars.  It’s a band I love playing in, with two of my favourite musicians and some great tunes.  Our debut album ‘vuelta’ came out in January, details here.

Here’s a video of the trio playing at the CBSO Centre in Birmingham:

Another project I’ve been particularly pleased to be part of is Alex Ward’s Quintet / Sextet.  His Quintet piece ‘Glass Shelves and Floors’ features Rachel Musson, Hannah Marshall, Tom Jackson, me and of course Alex, and has just been released on Copepod Records.  It’s a pretty incredible piece of work in my opinion, combining densely composed sections, free improvisation, conducted improvising, pitch sets and all sorts of other good stuff…  Alex has simultaneously released a live and studio version as a double album – you can both hear and buy them here:

https://alexward.bandcamp.com/album/glass-shelves-and-floor

We’ve also recorded some further pieces of Alex’s as a sextet (with Steve Noble added on drums) – details to follow…

Olie Brice / Tobias Delius / Mark Sanders – Somersaults

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I’m very pleased to announce the release of a new album, Somersaults, on Two Rivers Records.  The album is a freely improvised trio recording, featuring two of my very favourite musicians, Tobias Delius (tenor, clarinet) and Mark Sanders (drums).

The album was recorded, mixed and mastered by the multi-talented Alex Bonney, who did a great job as always, and the gorgeous artwork is by my brother Jethro Brice.

Thanks to Alya at Two River Records for the incredible support and getting it out so quickly!

We’re selling copies at gigs, or I can post to anywhere in the UK if you click here:

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In Europe, Instant Jazz have copies, and in the US the Downtown Music Gallery is your best bet

It will also shortly be available (digital download and CD) from the Two Rivers bandcamp page, where you will be able to listen to a track

More reviews for ‘Immune to Clockwork’

‘Immune to Clockwork’ has had some very flattering attention since it came out.  The quintet was named by the ‘El Intruso’ international critics poll as one of the 5 new bands of 2014, and we’ve had some more lovely reviews:

Olie Brice at the Vortex

http://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/olie-brice-quintet-immune-to-clockwork/

http://www.adambaruch.com/reviews_item.asp?item=104690

and in Polish: http://polish-jazz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/olie-brice-quintet-immune-to-clockwork.html

Immune to Clockwork

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I’m delighted to announce the release of my first album as leader / composer.  ‘Immune to Clockwork’ has just been released on the Polish record label Multikulti Project.  The album features some wonderful musicians – Mark Hanslip on tenor, Waclaw Zimpel on clarinets, Alex Bonney on trumpet and pocket trumpet and Jeff Williams on drums.

You can hear a track here: https://soundcloud.com/wawmak_multikulti/olie-brice-quintet-the-hands-from-immune-to-clockwork

I’ll have copies to sell at gigs, or if you’d like to buy a copy and have me post it to you within the UK use this link:

Buy Now Button

To buy a copy via paypal if you’re not in the UK, please email me at olie (at) riseup.net and I’ll let you know how much postage will cost

Or it should be available via various online sources – Multikulti’s website for example, or Instant Jazz.

And we’ve had one review already – here it is, via the delights of google translate…

Are rare recordings that can really impress on many levels. Especially in modern jazz. Musicians trying to create an interesting composition, very often forget about emotions, or playing free not pay attention to the intellectual aspects of music, its structure and used for its building measures. And there is one aspect that often escapes the attention of critics, and which is present in jazz since its inception. It is the joy of making music, resulting largely from the creative freedom autonomous partners. Perhaps, at some point, these three elements are mutually exclusive, but the musicians are still trying to find the musical formula, in which they are all present. And the music quintet Olie Brice fits precisely in addition successfully in the search.

Recorded in a rather unusual composition – no harmonic instrument, but with extensive brass section plate, shows the full range of possibilities for musicians in this combination of instruments. Decisive is the key selection of musical personalities that come here (Mark Hanslip, Waclaw Zimpel, Alex Bonney), it is not only outstanding instrumentalists and Sid, but the artists have their own individual sound and vision of their own music. Abide by the concept of Olie Brice, but also bring a lot of each other, whether in the solo or collective improvisations.

Leader moreover seems to leave them enough amount of creative freedom, but also carefully watching over the structure and texture of each composition. Eject bass tone to the fore in critical moments of each composition when he takes over the helm in your hands, it very easy to pick up this recording. It is also a demonstration of how you can realize the vision of his music, not sacrificing creative creativity stage partners. Evenly played lots of tutti” are a necessity, but also represent only a starting point, not thus determining the shape of the whole work. Well you can hear it even in The Hands” or “Snake Path”, which transforms the individual instrumentalists sonically.

Olie Brice is when the leader of an experienced, otrzaskany on scenes of contemporary jazz, a variety of free or completely free improvisation. It is quite well known in our country along with Mikolaj Trzaska and Mark Sanders creates because Riverloam Trio. But the list of his collaborators and partners stage is much longer Paul Dunmall, Tobias Delius, Achim Kaufmann, Ingrid Laubrock, Louis MoholoMoholo and Ken Vandermark is the most important among them.

And this stage, great musical experience can be heard on the album. Brice can create plans with various instrumentalists and combined them into blocks in a logical manner, at the same time surprising. Even more so I hope for a great feast of music, which can be concerts of this composition, with the hope that the Polish do not miss it. Because the great music non-flammable, improvisations excellent, and even the joy of the meeting, the making of music, even in the studio recording you can hear a lot.
by Joseph Paprocki

news update…

Currently between legs of a tour with Dave Birchall and Phillip Marks, and switching my attentions briefly for the first gig of a new band I’ve put together  called the Carracks Project (named after some rocks that stick out of the sea halfway between St Ives and Zennor, one of my favourite walks and where I was when the band took a definite form in my mind…)

The Carracks Project features James Allsopp on tenor sax and clarinets, Nick Malcolm on trumpet, Alex Bonney on laptop and Mark Sanders on drums.  Despite being all my compositions it sounds very different to my quartet…  Our first gig is tonight, at the Oxford in Kentish Town, and we’ll be at the Vortex on the 12th of March.

The Birchall / Brice / Marks trio have released a limited edition tour release CDr, called ‘Spitting Feathers’.  We’ll be selling it at our gigs (see here for details), or if you can’t make it to a gig and want a copy email me (olie at riseup.net), they’re £5 plus postage…

that’s all for now folks….

Paul Motian R.I.P

I usually only use this blog to report on what I’m up to, and I’ve never sat down and written about what another musician means to me before, but the news of Paul Motian’s death yesterday has made me want to do so. There are very few musicians who I don’t know personally who have been as important in my life as Paul Motian.

I have never met Paul Motian, and never heard him live. But I have listened so much to his records, transcribed and played his tunes, and been constantly inspired by his music and approach. I’m pretty sure he appears on a higher percentage of my record collection than anyone else… Here are a few thoughts on what I love about his music:

  • The tunes. I’ve always loved his writing, since first discovering the Lovano / Frisell trio in my teens. ‘Dance’ and ‘Folk Song for Rosie’ were the first I fell for. A couple of years ago I started a project of transcribing several of them, to get a better understanding of how they work (and also because I wanted to play them with my quartet). That process was one of the most important things I’ve done in my musical development. Paul Motian was one of the truly great jazz composers, someone with a completely personal and unique voice who with a short, often simple melody and a hint of implied harmony could create a complete world. Like with his drumming, the things that aren’t there (or that are subtly hinted at) are as important as the things that are. I’ve mostly stopped playing his tunes as I wanted to focus more on writing my own, but still can’t resist including ‘Abacus’ in the book.
  • Everyone who ever played with Paul Motian sounded better with him than they did without him. I can’t think of an exception to that rule!
  • It got better and better. The last few years have seen some of the heaviest Paul Motian records, and his playing pared down to an ever deeper core. There are very few musical greats who have continued to develop and go further every year – there are no Paul Motian records or projects that feel like easy or commercial choices.
  • Paul Motian’s musical vision and personality were so strong that you can be listening to a pianist playing an unaccompanied introduction to a standard on one of his records, and it is still unmistakably Paul Motian music. He didn’t need to touch the drums or write the tune to make that happen!
  • Always completely open and free, while always swinging as heavily as anyone.

There are lots of tributes and obituaries around, a few that I found moving are here:

http://elleryeskelin.blogspot.com/2011/11/paul-motian.html

and here:

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2011/11/22/musicians-on-paul-motian-i-jerome-sabbagh-remembers/

and here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2011/11/23/142680423/dinners-and-drum-music-a-friendship-with-paul-motian

New Blog

Hello,
got a bit fed up with dealing with myspace, so this blog will now be the way I’ll list gigs. I’ll also put any reviews etc up here, but not planning any fascinating musicological analysis for now…