Saxophonist/flutist/singer Arthur Doyle is hardly alone in his position as a marginal jazz figure. In an art form known for its many trials and tribulations (both artistic and financial), Doyle hasn’t made his situation any easier by attempting to carve a singular path along the music’s outskirts. Performing in a style he calls “free jazz soul,” Doyle combines the liberated freedom flights of the avant-garde with the gritty, gut-wrenching emotion of gospel and R&B.
Arthur Doyle will be joined tonight by a cooperative of his sonic and attitudinal acolytes, including the Louisiana-based curator and sound artist Robert Peterson and members of the Brooklyn-based avant-psych band NYMPH. Peterson began this process in Summer of 2010 when he contacted Doyle to perform at a NYMPH show in Doyle’s hometown of Birmingham; the show climaxed in a joyous collaboration of all three entities, and their personal and performative connection has grown, organically and forward-moving, since. Peterson will be augmenting Doyle’s vocals and saxophone with ambient, mesmeric loops chopped from real-time source-recordings made amid the performance. Edifying Doyle’s inflammatory, improvisational alto sax and trademark “voice-o-phone” with a polyrhythmic and textural support-system, NYMPH will warp its unique cavalcade of exuberant shred-rock into a tonally more subdued and sensitive approach akin to their exploratory, loving performances of pieces by Don Cherry, Sonny Sharrock and Pharoah Sanders. As has become characteristic since the band’s recent expansion to an eight-piece, NYMPH will be enriching it’s guitar-centric attack with baritone sax, clarinet, trumpet, tape-delayed drones and a shuddering jungle of hand percussion sounds. What will transpire is a true genre-bending set of risk-taking improv and ebullient sonic agglomeration.
Arthur Doyle: saxophone, vocals, guru-guru
Robert Peterson: vocals, live loops
Matty McDermott: Guitar, Clarinet, Percussion
Jason Robira: Drumset, Percussion
Jim McHugh: Guitar, Tape-Delay-Drones, Organic Synthesizer, Percussion
Eri Shoji: Percussion, Vocals
Dylan Angell: Trumpet
Nickle Emmit: Bass
Jessica Stathos: congas, percussion
Jeff Tobias: saxophones
Best known as a composer and improviser, Loren Connors has issued over 50 guitar records on his own imprints (Daggett, St. Joan, Black Label) since the late 1970s and over two dozen on other labels across the globe. He has recorded under the names Guitar Roberts, Loren Mattei, Loren MazzaCane Connors and other variations. Connors’ singular adaptation of the blues is a distinct personal vision combining the Delta bottleneck sound and the ancestral blues voice (appearing as distortion, baying hounds or multi-tracked guitar), with hauntingly unexpected sounds. Outside of Connors’ three decades of solo work, he has collaborated with Suzanne Langille, Jim O’Rourke, Darin Gray, Alan Licht, Christina Carter, Keiji Haino, San Agustin, Jandek and many others, as well as leading the group Haunted House, whose LP Blue Ghost Blues is due out in September on Northern-Spy Records.
Using double bass as her main instrument, Margarida Garcia developed a close collaboration with guitarist Manuel Mota in 1997. The two have worked as a duo as well as in the group, Curia, which includes Afonso Simões and David Maranha (organeye, osso exótico). Garcia has also worked with Sei Miguel from 1999 to 2002. Other close collabs include Marcia Bassett, Barry Weisblat and Mattin. She has played in live/recording settings with Nöel Akchoté, Otomo Yoshihide, Ferran Fages, Alfredo C. Monteiro, Ruth Barberán, John Tilbury, Eddie Prevost, Rhodri Davies, Matt Valentine, Erica Elder, David Keenan and Alex Neilson (tight meat duo). Margarida's collaborations with Loren Connors can be heard on the Clandestine Cassette Series # One (Northern-Spy Records) and Red Mars (Family Vineyard)
En is Maxwell August Croy (co-runner of Root Strata) and James Devane. Both multi-instrumentalists, their sound is a rich blend of acoustic sources (notably koto and guitar) fed through complex systems to create a resplendent, textured palette of sun-drenched sound. Their first album, 'The Absent Coast,' was released on Root Strata in 2010 and their second album is scheduled for release on Students of Decay this coming autumn.