Tom Challenger & Evan Parker + special guest Caius Williams

A number of years ago, Evan and Tom came to The Hot Tin to try out new things together with their tenor saxophones.

Years later after informal practice sessions, an album emerged after two live performances, the duo recorded a session at Arco Barco in Ramsgate.

Evan: “Duo is the simplest form of group playing. And so it’s the simplest, the purest in a certain sense, and the most challenging. There’s nowhere to hide, really. It’s about the exchange.

With two tenor saxophones, they have a shared language as instruments and I think we both have a relationship with the saxophone which is about: what does this thing do, what can it do? And then I’ve learned things from Tom that he has discovered: you can do this and can I approximate that? Can I incorporate that into my language or my relationship with the output of the instrument?”

Tom: “I mean, as much as there is just two of us and you can tell there’s two of us, there are moments where there’s no one [laughs], and then there’s moments where there are four or five. This duo has challenged the way that I listen, or the way I don’t listen sometimes. But there are these weird moments where there might be three perceivable, four perceivable things going on, you know, in terms of what you might call a voice.”

Tom Challenger is a London-based saxophonist, composer, and educator known for his work in the British jazz and improvised music scenes. He leads several ensembles and has collaborated with a wide range of notable musicians and artists. www.tomchallenger.co.uk

“The duet with Challenger is a tour de force, in which each adroitly anticipates and responds to the other’s gestures and even notes.” — Sequenza 21 review of Kit Downes: Obsidian (ECM)

Evan Parker improvises on the tenor and soprano saxophone, and has performed live and recorded extensively across the UK and internationally. He has pioneered or substantially expanded an array of extended techniques for the saxophone. www.evanparker.com

“ ... he’s one of the most original and compelling musicians of my lifetime. He’s also one of the most prolific, always up to something, usually something new.” — Richard Williams, The Blue Moment

Joining the duo will be special guest Caius Williams on bass.

Caius Williams is a musician from London who plays the double bass, guitar, and bass guitar. He works in collaboration with others, alongside an ongoing solo project, and often works with improvisation.

Some projects include ‘Crosspiece’ (with Theodora Laird), a duo with guitarist Tara Cunningham, alongside recent performances or collaborations with

Lifetones (Charles Bullen of This Heat), Steve Noble, feeo, Daniel O’Sullivan, Mark Sanders, Sachiko M, Tom Challenger, Maggie Nicols, Mark Wastell, amongst others.

Caius has been running the GRAIN series at Avalon Cafe in Bermondsey for the last 3 years, which is focussed on programming new and adventurous music and nurturing a growing community with cross-scene and cross-generational collaboration.

caiuswilliams.bandcamp.com

Musician from London working within experimental and improvised music bio: https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/caius-williams/ grainresidency.bandcamp.com

https://www.instagram.com/caiuswilliams_

www.youtube.com

GRAIN is a concert series, small label, and archive for experimental and improvised music, operating mainly out of Avalon Cafe, South Bermondsey.