Track 1 Untitled (from ‘Excursions) –
Vinny Golia: Bb clarinet, soprillo, and sopranino saxophones; David Ryan: bass clarinet; Steve Beresford: piano; Jeremy drake: electric guitar; Joe Williamson: bass; Eddie Prevost: drums
Track 2 Duet (from ‘Excursions’) –
David Ryan: bass clarinet
Vinny Golia: bass clarinet
Recorded by Mick Ritchie at Barefoot Studios, Brixton, Nov 2005
Tracks 3-9 Duos -
David Ryan: Bb clarinet and bass clarinet
John Edwards: bass
Recorded by Richard Beard at Oxford House, Bethnal Green, London, Dec 2006
These tracks explore different aspects of improvisation, which I have been involved with for some time. The first two pieces are from a session that brought together a broad range of improvisers – each, in fact, playing more or less untypically. In my own case I have been best known for performing experimental indeterminate music, that of Christian Wolff, Earle Brown and Cornelius Cardew, to name but a few. But I have also been very interested in more jazz-inflected approaches, and the LA based composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia provided a push in this direction during his rare visit to the UK in 2005. Jeremy Drake is a fellow improviser from the LA scene – and one of the most inventive guitarists around to my mind (although always with understatement and subtlety as here). Steve Beresford, Eddie Prevost and Canadian bassist Joe Williamson need no introduction. But perhaps I should add that this recording was the first time this particular ad hoc group had played together. All the pieces were spontaneously realised without any discussion, plans or structures.
The duets with John Edwards are from a more recent session and explore perhaps a wider range of reference. John and I have been playing duets over the last 3 or 4 years and, I think, have a particular affinity with each other’s playing and general sensibility. Although there may well be a ‘chamber jazz’ feel to some pieces, generally, they organically grow wherever they want to go without anything being ruled out – textural playing, melodic or lyrical motifs or whatever, again without anything predetermined. We both have an admiration for a broad range of music: from jazz to Xenakis or Lachenmann, and hopefully this comes through.
David Ryan 07
David Ryan is a visual artist and writer, who is also actively involved in contemporary music. He studied at Liverpool and Coventry Universities and on a travelling scholarship to Germany, including Hamburg and Berlin.
As a performer he has been actively involved in new music and performed for Danish Radio (1997), Huddersfield International Contemporary Music Festival (2001,2002), working with the ensemble Apartment House as well as composers Christian Wolff and Earle Brown, and has also performed at New Music Marathon, Northwestern University, Chicago (2002), and the Barbican Art Centre, London (Cage Uncaged, 2004), The Freedom of the City improvisation festival (2003) in London, and is Director of Dal Niente Projects which presents neglected modernist and contemporary experimental works in London. He has recorded Cornelius Cardew: Chamber Music (2001), with the ensemble Apartment House, and Earle Brown's chamber music, with Dal Niente Projects (2003), both for Matchless Recordings. He is also currently working on sound and video projects, in collaboration with Richard Beard, which have included the short audio piece A Walk Mexico City (2001), published in Denmark, a video piece Monument (2004) and has collaborated with Italian composer Nicola Sani on his 'instrumental opera' for three instrumentalists and sound projection in October 2003, presenting a three-part video projection. He directed Dal Niente 4, devoted to Christian Wolff at 70 in collaboration with the composer (2004) at St Giles, Barbican and Kettles Yard, Cambridge. Future engagements include video presentations - in collaboration with Beard and Sani - in 2005 at Audio Arts Festival, Krakow, Poland and Syntheste Festival, Bourges France.