John Butcher, maverick, groundbreaking saxophonist célèbre, celebrated his 70 years in style, with a three day residency at Cafe Oto. I caught the second night, the only one which featured a rare solo performance prefacing his duet with percussionist Gino Robair and his quartet with violinist Angharad Davies, pianist Sophie Agnel and drummer Mark Sanders.
Each set was marked out by invention of the highest order, a key characteristic which has defined Butcher’s impressive pathway through the musical challenges he has embraced throughout his career. Butcher said in an interview with FreeJazzBlog, ‘I guess we all want to keep making music that connects to our history but still feels fresh and relevant. Staying enthusiastic about experimenting and working in new situations is important.’ For his epiphany, in The Wire magazine, he picked out his experience of playing inside the hollowed-out mountain, Oya Shiryokan, Utsonomiya, with its spectacular resonances.
Butcher opened with a stunning solo set. ‘I’ll also play solo,’ Butcher wrote on the Cafe Oto site, ‘something I lost a taste for during/after the lockdowns but have recently felt ready to revisit.’ A raw blast on tenor sax set out his stall for a journey along jagged, gritty pathways, circular breathing pauses, squalling, and high alarm calls countered by softly uttered spells of near silence. Breath was blown over the mouthpiece, a minor respite in advance of masterly jazz runs, hints of Ayler, Coltrane and Ornette, and a deep wail, closing magisterially with notes spat out with Machine Gun intensity.
Follow that – and he certainly did, with his long-term collaborator, Gino Robair, dropping in from European excursions. Robair’s sticks clanged the metal beer barrels under the record rack, then he crawled to his drum kit scraping one stick along the floor, much to the bemusement of the audience! Once settled, a frenzy of invention followed from both musicians. Robair working his kit and processing sound electronically, while Butcher, swapping between soprano and tenor saxes, interspersed intense runs with modulated breaths of air to add atmospheric mystery. Cymbals were lightly (and heavily) struck, electric insects scuttled over drum skins, the large gong shimmered and Robair lifted one drum to blow air directly on to its body, in response, perhaps, to Butcher’s technique. Possibly taking a cue from artist, Robert Rauschenberg, Robair placed a towel over the drums before Butcher concluded by clacking the keys while holding the sax at arm’s length with Robair pounding rushes of reverberations from the gong.
Post-interval, Butcher’s quartet passed the initiative around with a similar spirit of invention. Agnel delved inside the body of the piano and mined for hidden sounds before, late on, playing the keyboard with and without dampening. Davies brushed her bow on the violin body with the lightest of touches, and introduced tension as she held on a note in the high register. Butcher added flutters and breathy interventions on a detached mouthpiece to complement Sanders’ maritime bell sounds and liminal taps and scrapings on metal and skin, whilst underpinning the group’s rhythmic core throughout their final extended improvisational melée.
Rounding off generously, Agnel started up the trio’s joyful improvisation on Happy Birthday for Butcher.
