ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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Improvisational greatness from a free spirit of the guitar
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John Russell and Roger Turner
Birthdays
(Emanem)
John Russell
Analekta
(Emanem)
John Russell
Hyste
(psi)
FREE improvising guitarist John Russell taught himself the instrument at the age of 11 while listening to the blues and rock of John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Muddy Waters and King Crimson and the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra led by Barry Guy was also an influence.
He was a regular at John Stevens's Little Theatre Club where he met epochal saxophonist Evan Parker and free guitarist Derek Bailey, with whom he studied for a year, and all these experiences helped to form his music, forged too at free sessions at the Unity Theatre and the Red Rose club. There in the mid-’80s he formed the Mopomoso Club, a co-operative venture that brought committed free musicians together and enabled them to tour across Britain and Europe.
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