John Russell (19 December 1954 – 19 January 2021) was an acoustic guitarist who worked in

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its ...

beginning in the 1970s. He promoted concerts and appeared on more than 50 recordings.

Career

Russell was born in Battersea and grew up in Ruckinge, Kent. His grandfather gave him his first guitar at the age of eleven. A fan of blues, Russell taught himself guitar in school and started a band. At seventeen he moved to London and began playing at the Little Theatre Club run by drummer John Stevens, becoming a member of the Musicians' Co-op and organizing concerts.Grundy, David (2009
"An Interview with John Russell"
''Eartrip'' magazine Issue 4, pp. 26–34 In 1975, he helped start the journal '' Musics''. For a year Russell received weekly lessons in conventional technique from Derek Bailey. Two years later he gave up electric guitar to concentrate on acoustic. In 1983, he appeared in the Channel 4 TV documentary ''Jazz on Four: Crossing Bridges'', which examined guitarists

Brian Godding Brian Godding (born 19 August 1945, Monmouth, South Wales) is a pop music, pop, rock music, rock and jazz rock guitarist. Reviews Regarding his 1988 solo album ''Slaughter on Shaftesbury Avenue'', Dave Wayne in the ''New Gibraltar Encyclopedia ...

, Fred Frith,

Ron Geesin Ronald Frederick Geesin (born 17 December 1943) is a Scottish musician, composer and writer known for his unusual creations and novel applications of sound, as well as for his collaborations with Pink Floyd and Roger Waters. Career Ron Geesin ...

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, and

Keith Rowe Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...

. In 1988 Russell helped establish Acta Records with John Butcher and Phil Durrant to release the trio's debut album, ''Conceits''. In the mid-1980s Russell founded the club Mopomoso with pianist and trumpeter Chris Burn. The club promoted around 300 regular monthly concerts at the Red Rose Club in London until the venue's transfer of ownership in January 2008. The club was moved to the

Vortex Jazz Club The Vortex Jazz Club is a music venue in London, England. It was founded by David Mossman in the 1988. Background The Vortex started as a jazz club in 1988 and was located in Stoke Newington Church Street, north London. But after the acquisit ...

later that same year. Performers included Richard Barrett,

Steve Beresford Steve Beresford (born 6 March 1950) is a British musician who graduated from the University of York He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, suc ...

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, Tania Chen,

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 ...

, John Coxon,

Max Eastley Max Eastley (born 1 December 1944, Torquay, Devon, England) is a British visual and sound artist. He is part of the Cape Farewell Climate Change project. He studied painting and graphic art at Newton Abbot Art School and then went on to gain a BA ...

, Alexander Hawkins,

Tim Hodgkinson Timothy "Tim" George Hodgkinson (born 1 May 1949) is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group ...

, Caroline Kraabel,

Phil Minton Phil Minton (born 2 November 1940) is a British avant-garde jazz/ free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter. Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook' ...

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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 Ma ...

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, Roger Turner, Cleveland Watkiss,

Trevor Watts Trevor Charles Watts (born 26 February 1939) is an English jazz and free-improvising alto and soprano saxophonist. Biography Watts was born in York, England. He is largely self-taught, having taken up the cornet at age 12 then switched to s ...

, and Veryan Weston. Mopomoso hosted an annual Christmas event with improvising musicians, workshops, and Fete Quaqua where musicians played in groupings over three evenings, similar to Derek Bailey's Company Week. Russell led a trio with Butcher and Durrant and duos with Turner, Stefan Keune,

Evan Parker Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation. Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free ja ...

, and Luc Houtkamp. In 1981, he founded Quaqua, an ensemble that varies in size and draws from a pool of improvisers.

Later

In 2009 Russell formed House Full of Floors with Parker and John Edwards. In his later years he returned to electric guitar in several live performances, including as part of Parker's Electro-Acoustic band and in a duo with

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Mo ...

of the rock band Sonic Youth.Davidson, Martin (2015
sleeve notes for ''With…''
(Emanem) In December 2014 he played in a concert with Parker and Moore and to celebrate his 60th birthday, despite being under hospital supervision for a heart condition. His feature on the late Japanese improvising guitarist, Masayuki Takayanagi was broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Jazz on 3 on 22 February 2010. In 2013

Sound and Music Sound and Music is the UK's national agency for new music, established on 1 October 2008 from the merger of four existing bodies working in the contemporary music field: the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM), the British Music Inform ...

took the club on a seven date tour of England. Material recorded on this tour was later released as a box set on Weekertoft, a label Russell founded in 2016 with Irish pianist Paul G. Smyth.Release page for Mopomoso Tour 2013 'Making Rooms' on the Weekertoft label
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Personal

After a quadruple heart bypass operation in March 2015 Russell was reported to be "well on the road to recovery". He died from cancer in January 2021, aged 66.

Discography

As leader

* ''Home Cooking/Guitar Solos'' (Incus, 1979) * ''Artless Sky'' (Caw 1980) * ''Conceits'' (Acta, 1987) * ''Birthdays'' with Roger Turner (Emanem, 1996) * ''The Fairly Young Bean'' (Emanem, 1999) * ''The Second Sky'' with Roger Turner (Emanem, 2001) * ''From Next to Last'' (Emanem, 2002) * ''Mopomoso Solos 2002'' (Emanem, 2004) * ''Three Planets'' (Emanem, 2004) * ''Analekta'' (Emanem, 2007) * ''Duet'' (Another Timbre, 2010) * ''Hyste'' (Psi, 2010) * ''With...'' (Emanem, 2015) * ''The Dukes of Bedford'' with Henry Kaiser (Fractal/Balance Point, 2020)

As sideman

With John Butcher * ''News from the Shed'' (Acta, 1989) * ''Concert Moves'' (Random Acoustics, 1995) * ''The Scenic Route'' (Emanem, 1999) With

* ''London Air Lift'' (FMP, 1997) * ''Strings with Evan Parker'' (Emanem, 2001) * ''Crossing the River'' (psi, 2006) * ''House Full of Floors'' (Tzadik, 2009) * ''Walthamstow Moon'' (ByrdOut, 2017) * ''Reunion Live from Cafe Oto'' (FMR, 2017) With others * Martin Archer, ''Wild Pathway Favourites'' (Ladder, 1988) * Terry Day, ''2006 Duos'' (Emanem, 2007) *

Mats Gustafsson Mats Olof Gustafsson (born 29 October 1964) is a Swedish free jazz saxophone player. Career Gustafsson came to the attention of lovers of improvised music as part of a duo with Christian Munthe (started in 1986), as member of Gunter Chri ...

, ''Birds'' (dEN, 2012) * Mats Gustafsson, ''A Duo(s)'' (Bocian, 2015) *

Radu Malfatti Radu Malfatti is an Austrian trombone and harmonica player, and composer. He was born in Innsbruck, in the province of Tyrol, on December 16, 1943. Malfatti is associated with the style of music known as reductionism and has been described as "a ...

, ''Ohrkiste'' (ITM, 1992) * Jon Rose, ''Forward of Short Leg'' (Dossier, 1987)

References

External links

Official site

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, John 1954 births 2021 deaths Free jazz musicians Free jazz guitarists People from Battersea British experimental musicians Free improvisation Avant-garde jazz guitarists Acoustic guitarists Incus Records artists People from the Borough of Ashford