MIKE GIBBS 70TH ANNIVERSARY UK TOUR OCTOBER 2007

BILL FRISELL guitar
STEVE SWALLOW bass
ADAM NUSSBAUM drums
CHRIS HUNTER saxophone
STAN SULZMANN saxophone
JULIAN SIEGEL saxophone
HENRY LOWTHER trumpet
GERARD PRESENCER trumpet
CLAUS STÖTTER trumpet
JOHN BARCLAY trumpet
JEREMY PRICE trombone
ANDY WOOD trombone
SARAH WILLIAMS trombone
PETE BEACHILL trombone
JIM RATTIGAN French horn
HANS KOLLER piano, keyboards

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On September 25th 2007 Mike Gibbs will be 70 years old and many great musicians, who have huge respect for Mike’s achievements, will be celebrating his genius in a major UK a tour in early October. The programme will include both new arrangements and re-workings of some of Mike’s most famous pieces and will feature a number of extraordinarily distinguished world-class musicians with whom he has collaborated closely over the years. These include former Mike Gibbs student Bill Frisell, who is regarded as one of the greatest jazz guitarists in the world and who also has a reputation for working across musical boundaries, the hugely admired bass player Steve Swallow, drummer Adam Nussbaum, saxophonists Chris Hunter, Julian Arguelles, Julian Siegel, trumpeters Henry Lowther, Gerard Presencer, Claus Stötter, John Barclay, trombonists Jeremy Price, Andy Wood, Sarah Williams and Pete Beachill, French horn Jim Rattigan, Hans Koller keyboards.

Mike Gibbs is one of the most influential composers of the last 50 years. He has worked with many of the leading lights of the music world including Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, Michael Mantler, Mike Stern, Joni Mitchell, Whitney Houston and Peter Gabriel. He has always been eclectic in his musical tastes and his work has spanned many genres. His work derives from many and diverse sources – rock, pop, jazz, classical. His ability to draw on these influences and his skills as a big band arranger are legendary. Mike’s visionary approach to music, reaching across boundaries and allowing influences to come from just about anywhere, is highly relevant in today’s music culture.

The 5 date tour at some of the major venues in the UK will start at Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (Oct 2), and continue to The Sage, Gateshead, (Oct 3) St. George’s Bristol (Oct 4), Cadogan Hall in London’s Chelsea (Oct 5), and Birmingham CBSO (Oct 6).

Basho Music gratefully acknowledges the support of the Arts Council of England.

Biography

Mike Gibbs is a composer, arranger and trombonist. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, Boston, he has worked with many of the leading lights of the music world including Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, Michael Mantler, Mike Stern, Joni Mitchell, Whitney Houston and Peter Gabriel.

Mike Gibbs was born September 25th, 1937, in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) and grew up playing trombone and piano. In 1959 he relocated to the USA, where he enrolled at Berklee College of Music, Boston. In the summer of 1960 he obtained a full scholarship to Lenox School of Jazz, where he studied with Gunther Schuller, George Russell and J.J.Johnson. He graduated from Boston Conservatory of Music (B.Mus) in 1963 and subsequently secured a full scholarship at Tanglewood Summer School where he studied with the likes of Aaron Copland, Iannis Xenakis, Gunther Schuller and Lukas Foss. By this stage he had already made his recording debut (1962) as arranger and composer for Gary Burton with Phil Woods, Tommy Flanagan and Joe Morello.

In 1964 Mike moved from the USA to the UK where he went on to play trombone for the likes of Tubby Hayes, Graham Collier, John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. He also worked as a studio musician for radio, television, film and music albums, as well as doing arranging work in these contexts. Between 1968 and 1974 he worked with his own bands, playing concerts, clubs and radio broadcasts in UK and Europe; he also performed his music with radio bands of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Hamburg and with the Hannover Radio Symphony. In the early 70's he won several Melody Maker Awards, including First Composer, Best Big Band, Musician of the Year, First Arranger and his own album In the Public Interest was voted Best Album of 1974.

By the late 1960’s Mike Gibbs was generally recognised as being one of the leading younger composer/arrangers in Jazz. He had already absorbed his main influences (Gil Evans, Charles Ives, Olivier Messiaen) and found his own sound and style. His buoyant rock rhythms and his use of assymetry anticipated the jazz-rock movement of the 1970's and compositions as Family Joy, Oh Boy! and Tanglewood '63 showed extraordinary melodic gifts as well as great orchestral sonority. In particular, his writing for the lower instruments was often powerfully dramatic and his work already showed considerable emotional resonance, ranging from the ominous brooding of And On The Third Day to the irrepresible high spirits of Family Joy,Oh Boy - one of the most joyous compositions in jazz or any other music. His composition Sweet Rain has been recorded many times (Stan Getz, Stephane Grappelli, Gary Burton, Randy Weston et al) and is now something of a jazz standard.

In 1974, Mike returned to the USA to take up the post of Composer-In-Residence at Berklee College of Music, but continued to do occasional tours and concerts with his own bands as well as performances with European Radio Bands and Orchestras. In the early 1980's he also worked briefly as a producer for Elektra/Asylum records.

In 1983, Mike resigned his post at Berklee to freelance in New York for two years, then moved back to London in '85. In 1988 he resumed recording with his own ensembles, resulting in the highly praised Big Music album for Virgin/Venture; he also returned to live performance, notably in 1991 with John Scofield for a UK national tour and in 1995 with Gary Burton and the NDR Big Band for a radio concert.

Over the years, Mike Gibbs has composed and arranged music for films, television, albums, ballet, jazz groups, symphony orchestras and is equally conversant in modern, traditional, jazz and classical styles. His recent projects include a composition for Bill Frisell and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (Bloods of Dust); a piece for London Brass (About Face); an album of European Folk Music (Europeana) for Joachim Kuhn with the Hannover Radio Symphony; music for Bill Forsyth's film (Gregory's Two Girls); arranging and conducting a concert of Ellington music in Weimar with Gary Burton and NDR Big Band and Radio Symphony Orchestra; and for the academic year 1999/2000, he took up a part-time professorship in Jazz Composition and Arranging at the Sibelius Academy Jazz Dept. in Helsinki.

In 2001, Mike recorded his debut album for Provocateur Records titled Nonsequence travelling to Hamburg and New York to complete the sessions.

'Gibbs music is full of intriguing inner detail that does not deflect from the ultimate destiny of his pieces.' BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Discography at:

http://gibbs.onttonen.info/

Bill Frisell is one of the most singular musicians of his generation, a jazz guitarist with a unique voice, notable for his exploitation of variable timbre, and with an audience and an aesthetic that transcends the boundaries of any given style. Much acclaimed by critics for his sophisticated yet accessible work, he has recorded prolifically for ECM Records, as leader and sideman with such musicians as Paul Motian and Jan Garbarek.

Steve Swallow has long been many jazz critics' favourite electric bassist, emphasizing the high notes and approaching the electric bass, to an extent, as if it were a guitar. Closely associated with Carla Bley's groups, Swallow is also a talented composer.

Closely inspired by David Sanborn (who he often sounds like on alto saxophone), Chris Hunter is best known for his work with Gil Evans, Mike Westbrook and Mike Gibbs and for his recordings as a leader for Atlantic and the Japanese Paddle Wheel label.

Henry Lowther is a trumpet player of formidable talent with no superiors amongst European jazzmen, and precious few anywhere. One of only two or three trumpeters who has played lead trumpet with both Gil Evans and George Russell, he is, unusually for a jazz musician, also engaged frequently as a classical trumpeter by major symphony orchestras and has recorded with Simon Rattle and the London Sinfonietta.

A very versatile drummer who generally plays in advanced settings, Adam Nussbaum is one of the finest jazz drummers, having played regularly with Dave Liebman, John Scofield, Stan Getz, Gil Evans, Sonny Rollins and Lee Konitz along with countless others.

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'Gibbs music is full of intriguing inner detail that does not deflect from the ultimate destiny of his pieces.' BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

'Rich, warm and spiced with gentle wit … [Mike Gibbs] has the rare talent of being able to compose music which is both highly original and entirely listener-friendly, and his style is instantly recognisable.' THE OBSERVER

'One of the most respected composers and arrangers in jazz … revered by musicians and enthusiastic listeners around the world … Gibbs compositions and arrangements are really like no-one else's, a perfect assimilation of formality and freedom, with exquisitely-voiced interlocking section parts and chord changes that bring out the best in the soloists.' BIRMINGHAM POST

'Mike Gibbs [is] back where he belongs – at the heart of British jazz and among the elite of its composers.' JAZZWISE