1) several years of collaborative work with Benjamin Hervé, mainly in the rock band Camp Blackfoot (represented on the 1999 album “Critical Seed vs. The Spartan Society”);
2) a period of songwriting, represented by the 2005 album “Hapless Days” and subsequent
work with the band Alex Ward & The Dead Ends - which, while in some
ways constituting a diversion from the technical/aesthetic considerations involved in
writing instrumental music, clarified for me how I perceive material and could incorporate
psychological/ emotional resonances in a compositional context; and
3) the writing of through-composed instrumental structures for a duo line-up of guitar
and drums, which became the basis for the repertoire of the band Dead Days
Beyond Help (formed late 2006). These pieces were collected on the album “Access
Denied!” (released 2009).
Dead Days Beyond Help marks the point where I felt I’d reached a level of clarity
and sureness in my approach to composition, and in its initial stage also represented
a summary of everything I’d been working on up to that point, incorporating as it
does in its live performances songs, free improvisation and the aforementioned
through-composed instrumental pieces. In mid-2009 however, DDBH underwent a
transformation, shifting towards a fully collaborative method of composition, and
now the material for the band is written jointly by myself and drummer Jem Doulton.
At that point, I started to feel it was time to establish some new compositional outlets,
firstly to provide a vehicle for the solo composing I was no longer doing for
DDBH, secondly to test whether my new-found confidence in writing music could
extend to other formats and instrumentations, and thirdly to confront at last the issue
of combining composition with improvisation (DDBH deals in both, but very seldom
together in any given piece). Predicate is the first band to be formed with these aims> in mind.
In putting together Predicate and assessing how composition and improvisation
might interact in the band’s music, I was guided initially by a conception of my own
performance role. Having found myself playing more and more guitar over the preceding
few years, both with DDBH and in the improvising trio N.E.W. (with Steve
Noble and John Edwards), I felt that some aspects of how I approach the instrument
might be interestingly applied in a more linear and less stylistically volatile context
than either of those bands tend towards. This idea informed both the compositions
I would write for the group and my choice of instrumentation – one which offers a
clear delineation of rhythm section (double bass and drums) and lead instrument
(saxophone), allowing the guitar to sit in between. This certain traditionalism of format,
combined with a willingness for the music to gravitate towards a high level of
propulsive energy and intensity, has led me on occasion to refer to Predicate as my
“free-jazz” group – but this is really no more than a fairly abstract aesthetic touchstone,
and while there may be less moment-to-moment dislocation than in much of
the music I’ve been involved in previously, the group’s improvisations have tended
to be equally stylistically unbounded, to my great satisfaction.
Which brings me to the members of the group… After everything I might say about
my ideas and aims, the character and quality of the music ultimately depends on the
players, and in that regard I could not have been more fortunate. I thought long and
hard about which musicians would be right for this band – and yet once I’d arrived
at the final decision of who to ask, it seemed so perfect that there could have been
no other choices, and I’m enormously grateful that they all agreed to be involved. If
one composes to have one’s intentions realised, one works with improvisers to find
oneself in areas that go beyond anything one could have intended – and Tim, Mark
and Dominic are the type of musicians who can fulfill both of those wishes at once.
I’ve known Tim Hill for close to twenty years, and owe an enormous amount of my
understanding of how to combine composition and improvisation to my experiences
in various of his own groups. As a saxophonist, he has the rare ability to play simultaneously
with emotion and momentum - that distinctive combination of attack and
poignancy that characterises my very favourite jazz soloists. Besides his power and
inventiveness as a bassist, Dominic Lash embodies for me the best qualities of a
new generation of improvising musicians – an informed understanding of a huge
range of technical and instrumental possibilities, a sense of one’s connectedness to
tradition(s) being potentially strengthening rather than deadening, and an ability to
cater to the musical demands of any given situation without suppressing his own
personality or instincts in the process. And Mark Sanders is a man whose résumé
speaks for the astonishing scope of his musical conception and ability: from any
species of metrical groove, through the multi-directional all-time/no-time of freejazz,
to pure textural exploration of the kit’s sonic potential, he has not only mastered
all the above but made them his own – and also possesses a readiness to
engage with notated music unusual in someone with such a breadth of improvisational
resource. It has been a joy and an inspiration playing with these musicians
and experiencing the ways they have been able to transform the material I brought
to the group, and my heartfelt thanks go to all of them.
It is my hope to write many more pieces for this quartet, and to work with it for much
time to come. We hope you enjoy this first instalment of our music.
Alex Ward, April 2011.
http://www.fmr-records.com
