89CD - Article Xl - Live In Newcastle - CD plus download

Reviews

Article XI is a project initiated by Anton Hunter in 2014 when he was commissioned by the Manchester Jazz Festival to create a set of works for a large ensemble. In 2018 they released their debut work on Efpi Records. Their latest recording is released by Discus music, which is no surprise as Hunter participated already on numerous releases for this label (Story Tellers, Ron Caines/Martin Archer Axis, Beck Hunter). The name of this ensemble refers to article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights defining the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, a freedom that is practised by this ensemble, as well freedom in another sense. Although their music starts from composed ingredients by Hunter, there is plenty of room for free improvisation what makes this one a collective undertaking. Hunter intends to give room to the specific characteristics and qualities of the musicians involved. Two titles ('Municrination’ and ‘Always A Fox’) are new ones and first recorded here. Article XI is another exponent of the lively Manchester-scene so well documented by Discus Music. In my perception, we are not on the forefront of new developments over here. But Manchester is fertile soil for a community of improvisers who practice their craft with enormous dedication and love. This live recording of 2017 is a perfect example of this. The open and inviting frames composed by Hunter provide an overall homogenous style, leading us through very introspective sections versus parts where they go full steam. There is room for solo improvisations as well as collective ones. Very free and open spaces are contrasted with more grooving sections. The performance is warm and enthusiastic with a modest presence by Hunter himself as a guitarist.- Dorf Mulder, VITAL WEEKLY

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Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights : Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their interests. Interesting in this Coronavirus (Covid -19) time that this right to assembly becomes a no no, and outright problem that carries fear in its pocket, to keep us from even thinking about close contact with even one other person, and surely not a crowd of people. But this is about music so away from the chaos and to some magnificent performance for your ears.

An especially intimate mingling of free jazz, free expression, peaceful assembly, and brilliant skillset among eleven exceptional musicians, all in the name of the human rights stated clearly in Article 11 of the European Convention. Although recorded live at the Bridge Hotel, 2017, along with a double bill tour with Favorite Animals, this not to be missed official release on Discus Music in 2020, is available in 6 panel digipak with standout artwork by Angela Guyton. Nothing short of incredible.

The 2nd release by Article XI, led by Anton Hunter, who has perked up my ears for several years in various outfits, some simply stunning, all staying in a utmost inventive field. On this live performance, the arrangements have rare air, and a fresh dash of impulse, yet they are fully loaded as if each and every note were rehearsed for a year or more (well actually 2 of the works are reinvented from their debut album). There is nothing shapeless or jumbled here, just plentiful puzzles of progressive thinking big band with tease, twists and boiling over attainment. Article XI reach for something or some things, and find heights much further up in reality.

The compositions are either 'reimaginnings' of previous arrangements or improvised parts from the musicians in response to a framework already established. ‘Municrination’ (opening track) was in fact birthed from a melody chain by Anton that he presented to Johnny Hunter (his brother) and Graham South, where they improvised around the parts, and then in the end, Anton wrote their results into the final composition. This is the magic that happens with the ensemble and one of several ways the pieces of music get creation and life.

The stellar performers are: Sam Andreae - alto saxophone / Oliver Dover - alto saxophone / Simon Prince - tenor saxophone & flute / Cath Roberts - baritone saxophone / Graham South - trumpet / Nick Walters - trumpet / Kieran McLeod - trombone / Tullis Rennie - trombone / Seth Bennett - double bass / Johnny Hunter - drums / and Anton Hunter - guitar. For this writer/listener, this is like finding another wave of life changers like I did back in the early 70's with Tippetts, anything goes jazz rock, Soft Machine, Henry Cow, and a wide assortment of avant-garde ensembles from all over the globe. I have a second bloodrush with all these implacable, multi metrical, prize releases coming my way over the last decade.

Article XI have slight of hand at times, hop into trespass mode, get robust, lay back, find a new fountainhead, and retreat only momentarily, sidestep, and then create a new groove, all in a flawless exhibition of first class resolution. Think a live album won't have the same zip or drive? WRONG! If anything, this outfit has more presence and punch than anything they could have done in the studio. Folks this is alive and as poignant as one could dream of. An unforgettable live musical performance. MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. - Lee Henderson, BIG BEAUTIFUL NOISE

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Encouragement, like a great many aspects of life, can come from many quarters, and it’s downright encouraging, not to say grounds for optimism, to hear a large ensemble going about some musical business with vigour and a sense of purpose not unlike that which marks the largely Dutch ICP Orchestra’s work, albeit without such potent measures of iconoclasm and disruptive humour. 

 

It’s a band that sounds live too, in the sense that if there are routines stitched into the fabric of this programme, they’re very much engulfed by the whole, happening in the moment, which maybe why Municrination can cover a wide expanse of ground, including an episode of more than convincing free play, without toppling over into striving for effect. 

 

While there’s little of the cunning about Always A Fox, an enduring impression is of a band that knows its worth without having to grandstand about it. Freedom, in the sense of nothing predetermined, is embraced wholeheartedly, and without the borderline primal screaming which has with the passing of time and the documentation of records become something of a by-product of large free and near-free ensembles.

 

The initial hints of fractured pastoralism in Not The Kind Of Jazz You Like highlight how light and shade and the demands they make can be successfully evoked as long as a band retains its individual identities at the same time as it reads off the same page, so to speak. 

 

So regardless of what state the jazz industry is in, whatever the hell that is / was, the object lesson that it’s not always the most visible names who produce the most substantial music applies in abundance to this release, and thus encourages this still curious yet often wearied and dismissive jazz hack to keep on looking, and to keep the ears open. – Nic Jones, JAZZ JOURNAL

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I have been present at several live album recordings, perhaps the most notable was 40 years ago to the month that I was  at Ronnie Scott's for Mole Jazz’s inaugural release, Blues for the Fisherman featuring the Art Pepper Quartet. A truly memorable evening that I still look back on with fondness to this day with the added bonus of being able to listen to the album knowing that somewhere I am featured within. 

 

It was a great pleasure to receive the latest CD from Anton Hunter’s Article XI band  Live in Newcastle.  This album was recorded at The Bridge Hotel in December 2017 as part of a double bill with Cath Roberts’s Favourite Animals  band. I remember giving the evening a very positive review on BSH.

 

The very first thing you get to hear on the recording is JNE’s Wesley Stephenson introducing the band. A double bass solo from Seth Bennett then kicks off the opening number, Municriation,  before the horns join up. A fairly thoughtful passage ensues with everybody in the team getting a go. Finally, things really ramp up delivering a rip roaring rollicking driving tour de force. 

 

Always A Fox is a tribute to Leicester City’s Premiership success  in 2016 it seems to mirror the mighty Fox’s miracle season – scratchy and searching at first, it builds up to a triumphant  strident blast as the title is secured before basking out in the reflected glory of their amazing feat. I look forward to the sequel, Forever a Magpie, to celebrate the Toon’s Premiership win in 2021. 

 

Not The Kind of Jazz You Like could be dedicated to BSH supremo Lance but for me, it was just the kind of jazz I like – featuring a great baritone solo form Cath Roberts and then developing with a real swinging contemporary big band type of sound. Given that this was a live recording I was taken with how amazingly tight the 11 strong ensemble comes across.

  

The album concludes with the uplifting I Dreamed I Spat Out a Bee. As the evening came to a close I’m sure that I could hear myself clapping and cheering among the sizeable crowd.  A great memento of a fine evening the CD cover has  great artwork from Angela Guyton and on the inside cover there is even a photograph from BSH ace photographer Ken Drew.  I am sure that even for those not lucky enough to be present on that  December evening this CD would still provide a highly  enjoyable listen. - Steve H, BEBOP SPOKEN HERE

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Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their interests.” Reproduced in the liner notes here, and no doubt intended as a statement of left-wing political solidarity, these freedoms seem painfully out of reach right now for those of us languishing in lockdown: wallowing in a lonesome heartache that’s made all the more acute when contrasted with this rambunctious recording of an enthusiastically attended 2017 live show by the gregarious 11-piece ensemble founded and led by Manchester-based guitarist Anton Hunter. Which isn’t to say that the four longish pieces here aren’t still a lot of fun. It’s clear that Hunter and his squad  – including brother Johnny Hunter on drums, bassist Seth Bennett, and saxophonists Sam Andreae and Cath Roberts (all of whom also play in Sloth Racket) – are entirely committed to exploring the various different routes to reconciling spontaneity and form suggested in Hunter’s compositions. 

 

“Municrination” is based around a gleaming, brass-heavy theme, powered by Johnny Hunter’s mercurial drums: a crackling, loose-limbed funkiness full of seething snare rolls that seems to sit somewhere between a march and a groove. When the theme collapses under the weight of its own horns, the group dissolves to silence before entering an interval of pointillist dabs – the conceptual offspring of John Stevens’ Click Piece exercises – eventually finding its way back to the big thematic reprise. You can kind of see what’s coming, but it’s still an enjoyable ride. “Always A Fox”, the other new piece on the album, is purportedly inspired by Ken Vandermark’s modular approach and navigates seven separate sections – but you’d be hard pushed to pinpoint what’s happening, except that an extended interlude of smears and whinnies finally gives way to another meaty, rockish coda. “Not The Kind Of Jazz You Like” and “I Dreamed I Spat Out A Bee” are both re-imaginings of tracks from Article XI’s 2018 debut, both tackled with similar brio, the former providing an opportunity for the understated Hunter to vamp some filthily smudged chording. - Daniel Spicer, THE WIRE

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Guitarist Anton Hunter’s eleven-strong ensemble is captured in a performance which shows impressive interweaving of compositions and group improvisation, wonderful varieties of texture and a shrewd eye on when to hold back and when to open the throttle.

Hunter created Article XI in 2014 when he was commissioned by Manchester Jazz Festival to create new music for a large ensemble, with their eponymous debut album released in 2018. The name is taken from Article XI of the European Convention of Human Rights, the right to freedom of assembly and association with others, including forming and joining trade unions. This new release lets us eavesdrop on a live show from December 2017 at Newcastle’s Bridge Hotel, when the band was sharing the bill (and not a small number of musicians) with Cath Roberts’ Favourite Animals group.

 

The opening two tracks are new compositions. Municrination opens the show with bassist Seth Bennett and drummer Johnny Hunter easing into a loping figure which brings in horns in a building melodic section. The music flows impressively; there are clearly written ideas being deployed as well as a good deal of freedom for the players. It’s a great credit to Anton Hunter that the join is never totally clear; sometimes it’s mostly written and then a moment later the extent of the improvising grows and floods around the band, like a pendulum moving back and forth. There’s an impressive trumpet solo from Nick Walters with the band gelling to provide some punchy backing, before the mood loosens again with ensemble blowing from brass and reeds; trombonist Kieran McLeod, seemingly on everyone’s list at the moment, is well to the fore.

Always A Fox is a nod to Leicester City football club’s Premier League triumph of 2016 and in particular to those whose allegiance grew (perhaps from nothing) as the season progressed. This piece takes a modular approach with seven sections which change order every time the work is performed, keeping it particularly fresh for the musicians. The compositional process had group members including trombonist Tullis Rennie and saxophonist Sam Andreae improvising responses to Anton Hunter’s melodic ideas, which were then used in constructing the overall work. Whatever, it makes for an engaging 11 minutes, with similar ebbing and flowing of improvisation and scored material where massive ensemble sections give way to gentler improvised passages. Simon Prince’s flute is a key voice here.

 

The other two tracks are from the debut album, although this being an improvising band they are not exact replicas. Not The Kind Of Jazz You Like, named after a Stewart Lee joke, features some particularly impressive baritone sax multiphonics from Cath Roberts and another belting trombone passage from Kieran McLeod. I Dreamed I Spat Out A Bee, a vivid title if ever there was one, builds into a fast and furious climax, and it’s only at this stage we realise the degree of restraint that the group has been using for so much of the preceding music. It’s all too easy to slide into full-of-sound-and-fury, signifying-nothing mode with large-group improvising, and Anton Hunter does a great job at marshalling his resources and deploying them with precision.

 

This is another impressive output from this group of young musicians who seem to be exploring all kinds of collaborations and methods. The music bears repeated listening very well, with the continuous flexing of musical muscle giving plenty of interest and variety. The sound recording is top quality (not always the case in upstairs pub room settings) and it’s well worth getting the physical CD for the excellent cover art by Angela Guyton. Another very interesting output from the never-knowingly-under-committed Discus Music. - Mark McKergow, LONDON JAZZ NEWS

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With major involvement in Beck Hunters, The Caines/Archer Axis and the Storytellers sextet, bandleader/guitarist Anton Hunter is fast becoming a fairly regular presence at ‘Le Club Discus’. His most recent recording project, Article XI initially came to fruition back in 2014 when Anton was commissioned by the Manchester Jazz Festival to create a number of scores for an expanded instrumental set-up. three years later, and this time at the behest of ‘Jazz North East’, a live set was recorded at the Bridge Hotel as part of a double-header with Cath Roberts’ Favourite Animals; another large, stage-crowding concern.

Not that we should quickly shuffle past a great respraying job on “Not the Kind of Jazz you Like” (a title coined from a Stewart Lee routine and featuring some barnstorming baritone sax from Cath Roberts), but the focus of attention really leans towards a pair of new eleven minute plus tracks, in which that alluring glint of an eight strong brass frontline is thankfully never far away.

The first, “Municrination” (not a word that the O.E.D. particularly likes), sees some stately elongated lines of a decidedly cool euro jazz shade being torn up by the roots by a bullish trumpet solo and a collective noun of free-blowing parpage that ties itself into a series of elegantly constructed knots. At times bringing to mind Sun Ra, caught in that brief moment between cosmic nightmare and full blown conciousness.

“Always a Fox” meanwhile, (referring to Leicester City’s shock smash ‘n’grab league title win back in 2016), is a complex body of work forged in seven segments. The interludes or links between these, deliberately tippexed and/or smudged in order to keep things fresh and happening for any future live performance.

As to the bizarro three-panelled sleeve image, I did wonder if the artist Angela Guyton might just be riffing on “Ophelia” 1 by Southampton’s finest export John Everett Millais? But no, apparently this artwork, “I Dreamed I Spat out a Bee” has its origins in a dream that Anton’s partner had and is now captured for posterity doublefold, as it’s also the title of this collection’s closing track. Another splendid retooling of a number from their debut recording. - SOUND PROJECTOR

 

http://www.thesoundprojector.com/2020/11/03/extensive-bridgework/

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Should you be searching for a composition title which more inadequately describes the music you’re hearing than put on Live in Newcastle’s “Not the Kind of Jazz You Like”. A misnomer, the track swings and sways with double-gaited polyphony that would impress the most cynical or hidebound listener. This energy and elation is brought to all of this CD by this Manchester, UK-based 11-piece ensemble.  Following a pushing and pumping introduction “Not the Kind of Jazz You Like” maintains its deep swing via a contrapuntal duet between baritone saxophonist Cath Roberts’ snorts and high-pitched tongue jujitsu from one or both trumpeters Graham South and Nick Walters. Gutbucket slides follow from trombonist Kieran McLeod or Tullis Ronnie, while comping frails from guitarist Anton Hunter leads the group to a shrill, accented climax.  Founded by Hunter who with his brother, drummer Johnny Hunter, also in Article XI, works regularly with Mick Beck and others. The ensemble, named for the European Convention on Human Rights guarantee of freedom of assembly, assembles a coterie of top-flight improvisers such as Robert, one of whose bands, Sloth Racket, includes the Hunters, bassist Seth Bennett and alto saxophonist Sam Andreae, also members of Article XI.  Drummer Hunter’s clapping patterns and Bennett’s buzzing scrubs maintain the groove throughout, with space aplenty for snaky and sliding brass stutters and flutters plus altissimo reed squeals when all horns aren’t combined into a chromatic vamp. “Always a Fox”, the other stand-out track, displays most of these qualities as it segues from slow-moving reductionist shuffles to brass-band-like jumps. Trombone bites and burrs, an aviary flute overlay from Simon Prince guitar string stings and reed vibrations and growls from the sax section, which includes Oliver Dover plus Andreae and Prince, lead the group to a limber finale.  Proof that there are plenty of advanced sounds emanating from all parts of the UK, the band’s name proves that along with exemplary musicianship, its heart is in the right place.  — Ken Waxman JAZZ WORD

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