avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Orig ...
/ free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter.
Minton is a highly dramatic
baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...
who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
with
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 Hig ...
's group,
Daniil Kharms
Daniil Ivanovich Kharms (russian: Дании́л Ива́нович Хармс; – 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist.
Early years
Kharms was born as Daniil Yuvachev ...
and
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (; russian: link=no, Иосиф Александрович Бродский ; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist.
Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), USSR in 1940, ...
with
Simon Nabatov
Simon Nabatov (born 11 January 1959) is a Russian-American jazz pianist.
Early life
Nabatov was born in Moscow on 11 January 1959. His parents were Leon, a professional pianist and choir conductor who was a native of Belarus, and Regina. Nabatov ...
, and extracts from
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
's ''
Finnegans Wake
''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction whi ...
'' with his own ensemble. He sings on a
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
tribute album, belting out the lyrics in over-the-top fashion. Between 1987 and 1993 Minton toured Europe, North America, and Russia with
Lindsay Cooper
Lindsay Cooper (3 March 1951 – 18 September 2013) was an English bassoon and oboe player and composer. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and t ...
's ''
Oh Moscow
''Oh Moscow'' is a 1991 live album by English experimental musician and composer Lindsay Cooper. It is a recording of a song cycle of the same name performed at the 7th Victoriaville Festival in Quebec, Canada on 8 October 1989. The work was com ...
'' ensemble.
He is perhaps best known, however, for his completely free-form work, which involves "extended techniques" that can be as unsettling as they can be mesmerising. His vocals often include the sounds of retching, burping, screaming, and gasping, as well as childlike muttering, whining, crying and humming; he also has an ability to distort his
vocal cords
In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speech ...
to produce two notes at once. As the DJ/poet
Kenneth Goldsmith
Kenneth Goldsmith (born 1961) is an American poet and critic. He is the founding editor of UbuWeb and since 2020 is the ongoing artist-in-residence at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (CPCW) at the University of Pennsylvania, where ...
has described it,
Minton's most frequent improvising companions are the pianist Veryan Weston and the drummer Roger Turner, but he has worked with most of the improvising musicians in the European scene. Unlike some first-generation free improvisers, he has also become a frequent participant in
electroacoustic improvisation
Live electronic music (also known as live electronics) is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the pr ...
.
Discography
* ''
A Doughnut in Both Hands
''A Doughnut in Both Hands'' is a live album by British vocalist Phil Minton. His first solo album, it was recorded during 1975–1982 at various locations, and was initially released on LP in 1981 by Rift Records. In 1998, Emanem Records reissued ...
'' (Rift, 1981)
* ''
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
'' with Fred Frith, Bob Ostertag (Rift, 1982)
* ''Ways'' with Veryan Weston (ITM, 1987)
* ''The Berlin Station'' (FMP, 1988)
* ''Mouthful of Ecstasy'' (Les Disques Victo, 1996)
* ''My Chelsea'' with Noel Akchote, Lol Coxhill (Rectangle, 1997)
* ''Two Concerts'' (FMP, 1998)
* ''A Doughnut in One Hand'' (FMP, 1998)
* ''Apples of Gomorrah'' with John Butcher (GROB, 2002)
* ''Mopomoso Solos 2002'' with Chris Burn, Lol Coxhill (Emanem, 2004)
* ''Five Men Singing'' (Les Disques Victo, 2004)
* ''Constant Comments'' with Fred Van Hove (FMR, 2005)
* ''The Enigma Carols'' (Recorded, 2005)
* ''Scatter'' with Pat Thomas (FMR, 2007)
* ''Tasting'' with Sophie Agnel (Another Timbre, 2007)
* ''Slur'' (Emanem, 2007)
* ''No Doughnuts in Hand'' (Emanem, 2008)
* ''Midhopestones'' with Michel Doneda (Another Timbre, 2009)
* ''Fragments of the Cadastre'' with Michel Doneda (Another Timbre, 2010)
* ''Anicca'' (Dancing Wayang, 2011)
* ''The Knowledge of Its Own Making'' with Simon Fell (Huddersfield Contemporary, 2014)
* ''A Doughnut's End'' (Fataka, 2015)
* ''Leandre – Minton'' (Fou, 2017)
* ''Say Yes. Till No.'' (Neos, 2018)
* ''Ductus Pneumaticus'' with Torsten Muller (WhirrbooM! 2018)
* ''Blasphemious Fragments'' (Rastascan, 2019)
With the
Tony Oxley
Tony Oxley (born 15 June 1938) is an English free improvising drummer and one of the founders of Incus Records.
Biography
Oxley was born in Sheffield, England. A self-taught pianist by the age of eight, he first began playing the drums at s ...
Celebration Orchestra
* ''
The Enchanted Messenger
''The Enchanted Messenger'' is a live album by a fifteen-piece ensemble called the Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra, led by English percussionist Tony Oxley, and with trumpeter Bill Dixon appearing as a featured artist. It was recorded in November ...
'' (Soul Note, 1995)
With
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 Hig ...
* ''Plays for the Record'' (Transatlantic, 1976)
* ''Goose Sauce'' (Original, 1978)
* ''Mama Chicago'' (RCA, 1979)
* ''Bright as Fire'' (Original, 1980)
* ''The Paris Album'' (Polydor, 1981)
* '' The Cortège'' (Original, 1982)
* ''
On Duke's Birthday
''On Duke's Birthday'' is a live album by the Mike Westbrook Orchestra performing a five song suite dedicated to the memory of Duke Ellington which was recorded in France in 1984 and released on the Hat Hut label in 1985.hat Art, 1985)
* ''Off Abbey Road'' (Enja, 1990)