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Georgina Born
Georgina Emma Mary Born, is a British academic, anthropologist, musicologist and musician. As a musician she is known as Georgie Born and for her work in Henry Cow and with Lindsay Cooper. Background Born was born in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, the granddaughter of the physicist and Nobel laureate Max Born, daughter of the pharmacologist Gustav Born and Ann Plowden-Wardlaw, stepdaughter of American theatre director and writer George Mully, and cousin of the pop singer Olivia Newton-John. She is the partner of social theorist and political geographer Andrew Barry. Music Born studied the cello and piano at the Royal College of Music in London, and performed classical and modern music including stints with the Michael Nyman Band, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and the Flying Lizards. She also studied for a year at the Chelsea School of Art. In June 1976, she joined the English avant-rock group Henry Cow as bass guitarist and cellist, following the departure of John Greaves. Henry Cow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Nyman Band
The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, ''Il Campiello'' directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic. The band did not wish to break up after the production ended, so its director, Michael Nyman, began composing music for the group to perform, beginning with "In Re Don Giovanni", written in 1977. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebecs, sackbuts and shawms alongside more modern instruments like the banjo and saxophone to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified line-up of string quartet, double bass, clarinet, three saxophones, horn, trumpet, bass trombone, bass guitar, and piano. This lineup has been variously altered and augmented for some works. History The band's first recorded album on a professional label was Nyman's second, the self-titled ''Michael Nyman'' (1981), which mostly comprised pieces writte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lol Coxhill
George Lowen Coxhill (19 September 1932 – 10 July 2012) known professionally as Lol Coxhill, was an English free improvising saxophonist. He played soprano and sopranino saxophone. Biography Coxhill was born to George Compton Coxhill and Mabel Margaret Coxhill (née Motton) at Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK. He grew up in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and bought his first saxophone in 1947. After national service he became a busy semi-professional musician, touring US airbases with Denzil Bailey's Afro-Cubists and the Graham Fleming Combo. In the 1960s he played with visiting American blues, soul and jazz musicians including Rufus Thomas, Mose Allison, Otis Spann, and Champion Jack Dupree. He also developed his practice of playing unaccompanied solo saxophone, often busking in informal performance situations. Other than his solo playing, he performed mostly as a sideman or as an equal collaborator, rather than a conventional leader – there was no regular Lol Coxhill Trio or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Raincoats
The Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva (vocals, guitar) and Gina Birch (vocals, bass) formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London. Signed to the label Rough Trade, the band released three albums in their early incarnation: ''The Raincoats'' (1979), ''Odyshape'' (1981), and '' Moving'' (1984). They reformed in 1993 and released the album ''Looking in the Shadows'' in 1996. History 1977–1993 Da Silva and Birch were inspired to make a band after they saw the Slits perform live earlier that year. Birch stated in an interview with ''She Shreds'' magazine, "It was as if suddenly I was given permission. It never occurred to me that I could be in a band. Girls didn’t do that. But when I saw The Slits doing it, I thought, ‘This is me. This is mine.’” For the band's first concert on 9 November 1977 at The Tabernacle, the line-up included Birch, da Silva, Ross Crighton (guitar) and Nick Turner (drums). G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feminist Improvising Group
The Feminist Improvising Group (FIG) were a five- to eight-piece international free improvising avant-garde jazz and experimental music ensemble formed in London in 1977 by Scottish vocalist Maggie Nicols and English bassoonist/composer Lindsay Cooper. Their debut performance was at a "Music for Socialism" festival at the Almost Free Theatre in London in October 1977, and they toured Europe several times in the late 1970s and early 1980s. FIG were the first publicly performing women-only group of improvisers and challenged the hitherto male-dominated musical improvisation community. The group consisted of women from different backgrounds with different levels of musicianship, and their concerts were a combination of music and theatre that dealt with everyday women's issues. FIG also integrated "lesbian sexuality" into their performances that, Canadian academic Julie Dawn Smith said, "queered" the improvisational space and "demanded queer listening". FIG were generally not wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maggie Nicols
Maggie Nicols (or Nichols, as she originally spelled her name as a performer) (born 24 February 1948), is a Scottish free-jazz and improvising vocalist, dancer, and performer. Early life and career Nicols was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, as Margaret Nicolson. Her father was from the Isle of Skye, and her mother was half-French, half- Berber, from North Africa. In her mid-teens she left school and started to work as a dancer at the Windmill Theatre. Her first singing engagement was in a strip club in Manchester in 1965. At about that time she became obsessed with jazz, and sang with bebop pianist Dennis Rose. From then on she sang in pubs, clubs, hotels, and in dance bands with some of the finest jazz musicians around. In the midst of all this she worked abroad for a year as a dancer (including a six-month stint at the Moulin Rouge in Paris). In 1968, she went to London and joined (as Maggie Nichols) an early improvisational group, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, with John Steve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sally Potter
Charlotte Sally Potter (born 19 September 1949) is an English film director and screenwriter. She is known for directing ''Orlando'' (1992), which won the audience prize for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. Early life Potter was born and raised in London. Her mother was a music teacher and her father was an interior designer and a poet. Her younger brother Nic became the bassist for the rock group Van der Graaf Generator. When asked about her background, which influenced her work as a filmmaker, she responds, "I came from an atheist background and an anarchist background, which meant that I grew up in an environment that was full of questions, where nothing could be taken for granted." When asked about what she learned about filmmaking from trying to do it as a seventeen-year-old woman in the UK in the 60s, Potter laughs.You know, most kinds of securities are illusions, and we need to kind of duck and weave as filmmakers, go with the flow, go where the harvest is. ..I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Westbrook
Michael John David Westbrook (born 21 March 1936) is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces. He is married to the vocalist, librettist and painter Kate Westbrook. Early work Mike Westbrook was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, and grew up in Torquay. After a spell in accountancy and his National ServiceThe Wire, 1985 (some of it in Germany) he went to art school, studying painting, in Plymouth. There he also began his first bands in 1958, soon joined by such musicians as John Surman, Lou Gare and Keith Rowe. After moving to London in 1962, Westbrook led numerous bands, large and small, and played regularly at the Old Place and the Little Theatre Club at Garrick Yard, St Martin's Lane. Together with Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Westbrook shared the role of house-band at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. He became a key figure in the development of British jazz, producing several big-band records for the Deram label, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bruford (band)
Bruford were a band assembled and led by British drummer Bill Bruford (former Yes and King Crimson), originating in the late 1970s. Bill Bruford formed the jazz-fusion band for his debut solo album '' Feels Good to Me'', with keyboardist Dave Stewart (formerly Hatfield and the North), American virtuoso bassist Jeff Berlin and guitarist Allan Holdsworth (formerly Soft Machine and Pierre Moerlen's Gong). This first album also featured Annette Peacock on occasional vocals and British jazz stalwart Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn. Bruford and Holdsworth then joined the progressive rock group U.K. After Bruford and Holdsworth left U.K., a second album '' One of a Kind'' enlisted the same line-up as the first album (minus Peacock and Wheeler) and was all instrumental. On the live album ''The Bruford Tapes'' (a show originally broadcast for radio station WLIR), guitarist John Clark (formerly of Quasar) replaced Holdsworth. Clark remained and bassist Berlin sang vocals for the first time o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Health
National Health were an English progressive rock band associated with the Canterbury scene. Founded in 1975, the band featured members of keyboardist Dave Stewart's band Hatfield and the North and Alan Gowen's band Gilgamesh, including guitarists Phil Miller and Phil Lee and bassist Mont Campbell as original members. The band was named after Stewart's National Health spectacles. Bill Bruford (previously of Yes and King Crimson) was the initial drummer, but was soon replaced by Pip Pyle. Campbell was replaced by Neil Murray and then John Greaves. Alan Gowen stopped performing with the group after their first album, but returned for their final tours, replacing Dave Stewart, who resigned after their second album. Guitarist Phil Miller was National Health's only constant member. With a frequently changing line-up, they toured extensively and released their first album, ''National Health'', in 1978. Although it was created during the rise of punk rock, the album is characteri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Greaves (musician)
John Greaves (born 23 February 1950) is a British bass guitarist and composer who was a member of Henry Cow and has collaborated with Peter Blegvad. He was also a member of progressive rock band National Health and jazz-rock supergroup Soft Heap, and has recorded several solo albums, including ''Accident'' (1982), ''Parrot Fashions'' (1984), ''The Caretaker'' (2001) and ''Greaves Verlaine'' (2008). Biography Greaves was born in Prestatyn and grew up in Wrexham in northeast Wales. At the age of 12, he was given a bass guitar by his father, a Welsh dancehall bandleader, and within six months, he was playing in his father's orchestra. He continued playing in the orchestra for four years, during which time its varied musical styles gave Greaves valuable musician and arranger skills. He was educated at Grove Park Grammar School in Wrexham from 1961 to 1968. In 1968, Greaves entered Pembroke College, Cambridge to study English, and at Cambridge, he met members of the burgeoning Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avant-rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with some of the genre's distinguishing characteristics being improvisational performances, avant-garde influences, odd instrumentation, opaque lyrics (or instrumentals), unorthodox structures and rhythms, and an underlying rejection of commercial aspirations. From its inception, rock music was experimental, but it was not until the late 1960s that rock artists began creating extended and complex compositions through advancements in multitrack recording. In 1967, the genre was as commercially viable as pop music, but by 1970, most of its leading players had incapacitated themselves in some form. In Germany, the krautrock subgenre merged elements of improvisation and psychedelic rock with electronic music, avant-garde and contemporary classica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
