STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
Latest editorial
Elliott Sharp, Cafe Oto London
Avant-garde excellence from the Elliott Sharp trio
True to form: Elliott Sharp
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
CLEVELAND guitarist Elliott Sharp has been a central figure in US avant-garde and experimental music since the 1970s and as if to stress the point he begins his Cafe Oto gig by reading from his autobiography irRational Music.
It tells of of his early years in music and his contemporaries’ deep suspicion of free improvisation, “as if the music I was playing was cheating.”
His trio, with bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders seething in the cauldron of improvisation, has Sharp playing guitar with Hendrix-like screeches and agonies. Yet, in an instant, sudden moments of tenderness and quietude radiate, with notes like droplets of rain.
Similar stories
CHRIS SEARLE wallows in an evening of high class improvised jazz, and recommends upcoming highlights in May
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to drummer Steve Noble
CHRIS SEARLE picks his favourites
CHRIS SEARLE translates the fusion of four jazz maestros into a mental image of Hackney Carnival