Great post. I never heard anything from FIG prior to this. And that brief December ‘24 Nout live performance at l’Antipode in Rennes in France is off-the-rails good.
Good to see Lindsay Cooper getting some accolades. I've been a fan since the mid '70s, and I knew about F.I.G. but never came across the cassette. I finally found a digital copy of it some years back along, with two German performances from '80 and '81. One was recorded by Radio Hamburg and the other is from Kaserne. There were various offshoots of F.I.G. as well, Cooper, Nichols and the French double bassist, Joelle Leandre, recorded Live at the Bastille. Cooper, Nichols and Born performed as The Marx Brothers, though I know of no recordings. Later Cooper, Nichols and Schweizer recorded three albums as Les Diaboliques.
I attended the tribute to Cooper at Mills, which was organized by Frith and Zeena Parkins, with Jack O' the Clock as the core group, plus Larry Ochs and various others, performing many of Cooper's compositions from Henry Cow, News From Babel, Rags, The Golddiggers,etc. The program notes mentioned that on the same evening in Tokyo, Chris Cutler and Yumi Hara were leading a band of Japanese musicians also paying tribute to Cooper, and in a similar spirit of wabi sabi.
I see F.I.G.'s legacy in the Norwegian women who bonded at conservatory over a shared love of Astrid Lindgren's stories and founded the improvising quartet, Spunk, named for Pippi Longstockings favorite word. They released several albums on the Rune Grammofon Label with their titles taken from lines in Lindgren's books. Their widescreen use of electronic treatments of their instruments, mainly voice, cello, French horn, and trumpet, also points back to Peacock's work with Paul Bley in the early '70s. I've never seen Spunk, but I've seen their vocalist, Maja Ratjke, use her voice, a laptop, little bells and some toys to conjure a masterful, immersive four channel performance out of thin air.
Thanks for all the great details here, Lenny. Admittedly, this is an area I have much more to learn about - a back channel on the Big River called Jazz that I have not ventured on as much as I would have liked. Time to paddle down some of the channels you mention...
Thanks for the heads up on Nout, as I hadn't heard of them previously. Interesting that the Basque singer, Benat Achiary, guests on the live one. He's fantastic. I am somewhat familiar with Rinaudo through her duo with bassist, Fanny Lasfargues, Five38. There are a few clips on Youtube, and some tracks available on Bandcamp, but they don't seem to have ever made a proper album. Here's a clip.
Great post. As usual, you have given me lots of musical homework. But there's nothing better than running down a new music rabbit hole. I have three women musicians to recommend. Jeff Beck's Performing This Week: Live at Ronnie Scott's is my all time favorite live album. The bass player is Tal Wilkenfeld. OMFG! When Geddy & Alex decided to take Rush back on the road, they needed a drummer. Say hello to Anika Nilles. Last but not least, Ava Mendoza is a wicked guitar player. Check out her playing on Mama Killa. If we are lucky, the all female trio that made that record will continue to bless us with more music. 🤘😎🤘
Mendoza studied with Frith at Mills. She was in the groups put together to perform his Gravity album live. He gave her most of the stinging lead work he'd played on the album. She's a force of nature.
Thanks for this! I'm not sure of the significance, but FIG were calling themselves Women's Improvising Group. They were renamed FIG by the men organizing the Battersea show.
Thank you very much, Tyler King, for drawing my attention to your post and especially for the kind mention of the ECM record “This Earth!”, which is still waiting to be digitized.
In my view, the term “free music” refers to communication between improvisers free of domination (see my group Just Music from 1969 on ECM 1002), and their gender is completely irrelevant. Based on my stage experience with the Belgian free jazz pianist Nicole van den Plas from 1969 to the present day — most recently we released the CD “Malcha” in 2016 on the German label Moloko Plus, and we are currently preparing for an art exhibition in August of this year — I would even go further and claim that groups with women explore all parameters more sensitively, more openly, more balancedly, and ultimately more musically fruitfully. This was also shown by the collaboration with Dagmar Krause and the duo Goebbels/Harth in the early 1980s, as well as with Annemarie Roelofs, whom I knew through FIG and invited in 1980 to take part in my LP “Es herrscht Uhu im Land” (JAPO/ECM). Maggie enchanted us on “This Earth!”, and soon after, from 1987 onward, I was allowed to be a member of Lindsay Cooper’s group “Oh Moscow” until 1993, together with Sally Potter, Elvira Plenar, and others. In 2014 I was a member of the Lindsay Cooper memorial group tour at the Barbican in London, the Huddersfield Festival, and in Forlì, Italy. Some time ago I noted down which female colleagues I have already worked with: https://www.flickr.com/photos/a23h/8235822121
Great post. I never heard anything from FIG prior to this. And that brief December ‘24 Nout live performance at l’Antipode in Rennes in France is off-the-rails good.
Thanks for coming along, Mangrove.
Good to see Lindsay Cooper getting some accolades. I've been a fan since the mid '70s, and I knew about F.I.G. but never came across the cassette. I finally found a digital copy of it some years back along, with two German performances from '80 and '81. One was recorded by Radio Hamburg and the other is from Kaserne. There were various offshoots of F.I.G. as well, Cooper, Nichols and the French double bassist, Joelle Leandre, recorded Live at the Bastille. Cooper, Nichols and Born performed as The Marx Brothers, though I know of no recordings. Later Cooper, Nichols and Schweizer recorded three albums as Les Diaboliques.
I attended the tribute to Cooper at Mills, which was organized by Frith and Zeena Parkins, with Jack O' the Clock as the core group, plus Larry Ochs and various others, performing many of Cooper's compositions from Henry Cow, News From Babel, Rags, The Golddiggers,etc. The program notes mentioned that on the same evening in Tokyo, Chris Cutler and Yumi Hara were leading a band of Japanese musicians also paying tribute to Cooper, and in a similar spirit of wabi sabi.
I see F.I.G.'s legacy in the Norwegian women who bonded at conservatory over a shared love of Astrid Lindgren's stories and founded the improvising quartet, Spunk, named for Pippi Longstockings favorite word. They released several albums on the Rune Grammofon Label with their titles taken from lines in Lindgren's books. Their widescreen use of electronic treatments of their instruments, mainly voice, cello, French horn, and trumpet, also points back to Peacock's work with Paul Bley in the early '70s. I've never seen Spunk, but I've seen their vocalist, Maja Ratjke, use her voice, a laptop, little bells and some toys to conjure a masterful, immersive four channel performance out of thin air.
Thanks for all the great details here, Lenny. Admittedly, this is an area I have much more to learn about - a back channel on the Big River called Jazz that I have not ventured on as much as I would have liked. Time to paddle down some of the channels you mention...
Another Five38 clip that shows their use of extended techniques, live looping and such.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vurhkRE0OOo
Thanks for the heads up on Nout, as I hadn't heard of them previously. Interesting that the Basque singer, Benat Achiary, guests on the live one. He's fantastic. I am somewhat familiar with Rinaudo through her duo with bassist, Fanny Lasfargues, Five38. There are a few clips on Youtube, and some tracks available on Bandcamp, but they don't seem to have ever made a proper album. Here's a clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vld4msIu6Lg
Great post. As usual, you have given me lots of musical homework. But there's nothing better than running down a new music rabbit hole. I have three women musicians to recommend. Jeff Beck's Performing This Week: Live at Ronnie Scott's is my all time favorite live album. The bass player is Tal Wilkenfeld. OMFG! When Geddy & Alex decided to take Rush back on the road, they needed a drummer. Say hello to Anika Nilles. Last but not least, Ava Mendoza is a wicked guitar player. Check out her playing on Mama Killa. If we are lucky, the all female trio that made that record will continue to bless us with more music. 🤘😎🤘
Mendoza studied with Frith at Mills. She was in the groups put together to perform his Gravity album live. He gave her most of the stinging lead work he'd played on the album. She's a force of nature.
Thanks for the recommendations, Karloff. I will look into them - listening to Mama Killa right now as I type. Righteous!
Thanks for this! I'm not sure of the significance, but FIG were calling themselves Women's Improvising Group. They were renamed FIG by the men organizing the Battersea show.
Thank you very much, Tyler King, for drawing my attention to your post and especially for the kind mention of the ECM record “This Earth!”, which is still waiting to be digitized.
In my view, the term “free music” refers to communication between improvisers free of domination (see my group Just Music from 1969 on ECM 1002), and their gender is completely irrelevant. Based on my stage experience with the Belgian free jazz pianist Nicole van den Plas from 1969 to the present day — most recently we released the CD “Malcha” in 2016 on the German label Moloko Plus, and we are currently preparing for an art exhibition in August of this year — I would even go further and claim that groups with women explore all parameters more sensitively, more openly, more balancedly, and ultimately more musically fruitfully. This was also shown by the collaboration with Dagmar Krause and the duo Goebbels/Harth in the early 1980s, as well as with Annemarie Roelofs, whom I knew through FIG and invited in 1980 to take part in my LP “Es herrscht Uhu im Land” (JAPO/ECM). Maggie enchanted us on “This Earth!”, and soon after, from 1987 onward, I was allowed to be a member of Lindsay Cooper’s group “Oh Moscow” until 1993, together with Sally Potter, Elvira Plenar, and others. In 2014 I was a member of the Lindsay Cooper memorial group tour at the Barbican in London, the Huddersfield Festival, and in Forlì, Italy. Some time ago I noted down which female colleagues I have already worked with: https://www.flickr.com/photos/a23h/8235822121
Thanks for recommending so much awesome music, much of which I might not have otherwise discovered. Beautiful jazz flute.