Ruth McGinley - Calais Refugee Benefit Concert

Ruth McGinley

Gabriella Swallow - cello
Ruth McGinley - piano
Victoria Hamilton - voice

Date - 12th July 2016
Venue - The Forge, Camden, UK
Current Release - Reconnection (Lyte Records)

Part 5 of Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family gig in aid of the Calais Jungle Crisis.

Gabriella Swallow

The evening at The Forge, Camden directly benefitted Phone Credit For Refugees which is an organisation that provides vital phone credit to refugees and displaced adults and children across Europe. They give the gift of communication to people who are separated from family and friends, miles away from home and in very uncertain circumstances. £20 buys a month's internet and calls providing a lifeline to keep recipients safe and connected. For many unaccompanied children their phone credit is the only safety net they have. To date they have helped over 2500 displaced adults and children make contact with loved ones, stay up to date with news from home and even summon emergency life saving assistance.

Victoria Hamilton

A crescent play, the rounded face, the tear, a bite, a tongue on lips. A tragedy laid out upon a table, mise-en-scene of a narrative, book open, an implement for cutting, the ripped remains of a correspondence. Just this feels so strange, to read a letter in this age, but whether the reader has written these words or are simply seeing them for the first time is unclear. This is music of disappearances and escapes, long walks and distant lives. It is an apt sentiment.

AL.

Iyatra Quartet - Calais Refugee Benefit Concert

Alice Barron

Iyatra Quartet
Rich Phillips - cello
George Sleightholme - clarinets
Will Roberts - percussion (no sketch)
Alice Barron - violin

Rich Phillips

Date - 12th July 2016
Venue - The Forge, Camden, UK
Current Release - This World Alone

Part 4 of Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family gig in aid of the Calais Jungle Crisis.

The evening at The Forge, Camden directly benefitted Phone Credit For Refugees which is an organisation that provides vital phone credit to refugees and displaced adults and children across Europe. they give the gift of communication to people who are separated from family and friends, miles away from home and in very uncertain circumstances. £20 buys a month's internet and calls providing a lifeline to keep recipients safe and connected. For many unaccompanied children their phone credit is the only safety net they have. To date they have helped over 2500 displaced adults and children make contact with loved ones, stay up to date with news from home and even summon emergency life saving assistance.

George Sleightholme

Willow dancers entwine, growth and spurt. The soft jostle of animals as they rub and move, maintaining pecking orders and friendships without the shackles of verbal confirmation.
Duck waddle and dart, fish sweep. The gallop and the rolling journeys that cut through fields. Lost in the brambles, stuck and still.
Stopping. Listening to the trees high above. Bark and holler, the rebound from the forest as we hear the screams of wildness that aren't our own. Iyatra and the themes of nature are caught/free together.

AL.

Graeme Flowers Quartet - Calais Refugee Benefit Concert

Graeme Flowers

Graeme Flowers Quartet
Graeme Flowers - trumpet
Louis Riccardi - guitar
Gareth Huw Davies - bass
Jarrod Pizzata - cajon

Jarrod Pizzata

Date - 12th July 2016
Venue - The Forge, Camden, UK
Current Release - The Samba Is Waiting / Nova Fronteira - Rhodes To Rio EP (Quantize Recordings 2016)

Part 3 of Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family gig in aid of the Calais Jungle Crisis.

The evening at The Forge, Camden directly benefitted Phone Credit For Refugees which is an organisation that provides vital phone credit to refugees and displaced adults and children across Europe. they give the gift of communication to people who are separated from family and friends, miles away from home and in very uncertain circumstances. £20 buys a month's internet and calls providing a lifeline to keep recipients safe and connected. For many unaccompanied children their phone credit is the only safety net they have. To date they have helped over 2500 displaced adults and children make contact with loved ones, stay up to date with news from home and even summon emergency life saving assistance.

Louis Riccardi

His music has sizzling omelette feet, greasy legs and a full wobbly belly. Giant men whose friction creates a perpetual machine of contact, reciprocation and repercussions.
A Circle that runs thick along its rim. Eels writhing in a bucket. Happiness is this burgeoning and full gift. The preciousness of being.
A Big Top flashes past in a vibrant blurred circus. Sweetshop washes with rich pastel and primary twists. An easiness that is a shorthand for being fulfilled and sated. Eyes open in delight, that delicious round white that maroons the iris as we lie on our individual contented islands.

AL.

(Apologies to Gareth Huw Davies, who I didn't have time to sketch)

Sally Silver - Calais Refugees Benefit Concert

Sally Silver

Sally Silver - soprano
Jeremy Silver - piano

Date - 12th July 2016
Venue - The Forge, Camden, UK
Current Release - SATANELLA (Released February 2016)

Part 2 of Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family gig in aid of the Calais Jungle Crisis.

Jeremy Silver

The evening at The Forge, Camden directly benefitted Phone Credit For Refugees which is an organisation that provides vital phone credit to refugees and displaced adults and children across Europe. they give the gift of communication to people who are separated from family and friends, miles away from home and in very uncertain circumstances. £20 buys a month's internet and calls providing a lifeline to keep recipients safe and connected. For many unaccompanied children their phone credit is the only safety net they have. To date they have helped over 2500 displaced adults and children make contact with loved ones, stay up to date with news from home and even summon emergency life saving assistance. 

Je'Taime 
Dreamtime. The space of flickering beauty that exists above the flames or the safety of a secret hollow, the nook of an arm or crook of the neck.

Le Yeux Clos
Small steps along the long wooden slats of a corridor, light pooling in those intersecting Vs where window spill their excesses. The wood is nicked in pale cuts as though a youth has marked the days he has loved or perhaps his conquests.

AL.

Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family - Calais Jungle Crisis (Part 1)

Gabriella Swallow

Note to reader - This was such a large sketching job that I have split the concert into 5 parts.
(Parts 2-5 will be published in due course)

Ian Shaw

Gabriella Swallow - cello
David Maric - piano
Rakhi Singh - violin
Bartoz Glowacki - accordion
Pedro Segundo - percussion
Sally Silver - soprano (Part 2)
Jeremy Silver - piano (Part 2)
Victoria Hamilton - voice (Part 5)
Zara Hudson-Kozdoj - cello
Graeme Flowers Quartet (Part 3)
Ian Shaw
Iyatra Quartet (Part 4)
Lore Lixenberg - mezzo soprano
Richard Thomas - piano
Ruth McGinley - piano (Part 5)
Judith Owen - voice (Part 5)
Mariam Ruestchi - viola

Judith Owen

I was unable to sketch the musicians below -
Will Roberts - percussion
Cerys Jones - violin
Liz Cooney - violin
Helena Smart - violin
Clifton Harrison - viola
Jonny Byers - cello
Rich Philips - cello

Date - 12th July 2016
Venue - The Forge, Camden, UK

David Maric

A diverse and eclectic cellist, Gabriella Swallow has emerged as one of the leading performers on the contemporary music and jazz scene. She is a member of singer/songwriter Judith Owen's band and in the Gwilym Simcock Quintet. On the 12th July she celebrated some of her most exciting musical collaborations in an evening of live music, covering all the genres she loves to play, with her very special 'urban family of musicians'. All of the proceeds of this event supported the Calais Jungle Crisis

The evening at The Forge, Camden directly benefitted the Phone Credit For Refugees And Displaced People charity. This group actively saves lives on a daily basis, by allowing individuals to request their top-up on their page, and they are able to have the all important life-line.... CONTACT with their families and each other.
   

Bartoz Glowacki

Donate by visiting https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/phonecreditforrefugees ...for UK tax payers click gift aid for 20% extra.  phone.credit.1@gmail.com for non UK tax payer.

A Message from Gabriella, "Please consider donating especially if you couldn't make the gig. This is essential to keep refugees in touch with their families and aid workers."

Rakhi Singh

Bulgarian Tunes (Maric/Singh/Glowacki/Segundo/Swallow)

Hay stack, back cracked as you are bridged over the straw. Head, blood rushing and toes to the sky. The festival beats around you as evening moves into night, the heat of the golden hay still warming from below. The burn of the earth vibrates in your body, a jumping bean. Revellers dance in flickering circles and you lie high above them in the dark. I am king of the world, king of the summer.

AL.

Richard Thomas

Lore Lixenberg

Mariam Ruestchi

Zara Hudson-Kozdoj

Pedro Segundo

Femi Temowo - Opitmistic Tendencies

Femi Temowo - Guitar and Vocals

Hot off a sparkling performance at the Whirlwind Festival in October with Nick Vayenas and Alex Garnett we experienced the solo work of Femi Temowo last month (25/10/2013) at the Forge, Camden. He brought his quartet to keep him company before a modest audience and they more than just made up the numbers.

Femi Temowo is a charming and unassuming frontman, with a winning smile and his soft gentle tunes it was a night of the lure rather the hook. Despite Temowo's obvious charisma it was the togetherness of the 4 that left the strongest impression. All bathed in the Forge's warm pink glow, they seemed to blur before our eyes as though knitted from the most lush Merino wool. Even compositions with the hardest of topics, like those inspired by the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960's or the harsh reality of segregation developed optimistic tendencies in the hands of Temowo. He was lyrical and generous with his gift especially on 'Asiko Aye' from his last album, Orin Meta.



Karl Rasheed Abel

Again and again the lanky and thoughtful figure of Karl Rasheed Abel stood proud, not just because of his stature but his playing too. In fact, on the dripping bouncy opener 'Orin Meta' there was huge void when Rasheed  stepped out of the groove. He gave us a jumping motif and a cool strut that more than once propelled us along throughout the evening.

Troy Miller - Drums

Troy Miller dominated the early exchanges between his drums and that of Joseph Oyelade's talking variety. His succinct fast pace on second tune 'Orin Ayo' caught our attention along with his handsome thin face and those sculpted strands of wisped hair that tumbled from a high forehead like a well groomed spider plant. This sex appeal that was only heightened on the fourth tune when forsaking his skins he rapped his drums sticks across his thigh as though slapping a bare arse.

Joseph Oyelade - Talking drum

Femi Temowo was a hard man to draw, always animated and I haven't achieved a good likeness of him yet. In contrast, talking drummer Joseph Oyelade came off the pen in a flash, his talking drums slipping off the shoulder as though he'd spent a day filling it with shopping from Oxford Street. A serial pouter with pursing lips in the early stages he took a stronger role as the night developed. Finishing with a fabulous bass and talking-drum combo on final tune 'Blackbird', a variation on the Beatles classic. A tune that talks of racial tensions and suppression but cast from the open hands of Temowo it was light and carefree.

AL.

Maciek Pysz - Insight into Intuition

Maciek Pysz - Guitar

I was at an advantage last Wednesday (22/05/2013, The Forge, Camden) at the album launch of Maciek Pysz's new album 'Insight'. This was music prepared for those of us who could open the gates of our conscious minds and let the music flood in. If that sounds pretentious then I don't mean it to. There are times in anyone's life when they are receptive to this kind of music, whether in moments of acute loneliness, tender euphoria or when simple exterior influences collide like alcohol (just enough) and the company of others that are intent on the same purpose.

As I drew, the concentration was so focussed on the minutiae, the furrowed brow of Yuri Goloubev (Bass) or the distinctive bottom lip of Asaf Sirkis (percussion), that you block out all other reasoning. It leaves the mind unguarded and without the usual gatekeepers of reality. It is similar to the key of Abstract Art, and it no surprise that Maciek Pysz cited Mark Rothko as an influence for one of his tunes, 'Maroon'. Of course there are many ways to experience Abstract work, and instrumental music has much in common with this genre. We can understand where Abstract work is placed in history, its sense of time, the story behind it or we can open ourselves up and just experience.
So because my concentration was so taken with the physical form of the 3 personalities on stage, this left the music unabated and it poked and prodded my exposed memories and feelings.

Yuri Goloubev - Bass

In the margins of my sketchbook I write notes that are streams of personal connections. For a change I'm going to reproduce them here in their entirety (virtually unedited) because it is only fitting for an album launch titled 'Insight'.

Those Days....Cascading rubble and dancing water droplets on the finest of Autumn branches. Galloping Sirkis, smacking brushes like the whip against a gypsy horse's rump.

Blue Water.....Rapid fire, a bullet volley, a kamikaze fighter flowing overhead over rolling waves, crash, it is finished, it stops.

Amici....Slow and warm conversation, snatches of phrases. This is one hell of a complicated friendship.

Lost in London...Dropping keys in a hollow hallway, accidentally kicking a chinking beer bottle as you walk alone in an underpass.

Insight....Running thoughts, a fartlek of ideas, starting, stopping, starting again. Pysz dancing then. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. Positive, then very intense. Impossible to keep up.

Asaf Sirkis - Drums

Huge sound of applause. Goloubev piercing eyes. A lightness from Pysz, a trick really, the web looks brittle but its still flexible and sticks. The mind plays games.

Moody Leaf....Beautiful and dark, cinematic. Almost a shame to have Sirkis join this party.

Recuerdos de la Alhambra....Photographers duelling in audience. Beauty fuelled by itself.

Tangella.....Sirkis rolls back cuffs and plays like enormous pair of chattering false teeth. He's slapping my bum.

Under the sky....Yuri Goloubev has a habit of slacking his jaw to one side. Playful now. Many of the tones are dictated by YG. Playing French cricket not a Bass, croquet perhaps. Joy of something, somewhere or someone. Yet there are thunderclouds over there and the feeling you have of being lost.

Dedication....Tone dictated by Pysz.
Yuri Goloubev is the breath you take and Maciek Pysz is the words, just like they sound..UPBEAT....the mechanics, a thousand different ways to speak a vowel or the permutation of letters. Asaf Sirkis, the memory, the scratching in your head that tells you which tap to turn on to feel the power flow through your body.


Now you know the stuff that's rolling around my head and I hope the notes aren't too disparate to be incoherent. But it seems an apt way to describe the way in which the the audience were asked to drop their guards and let the music roll in. If you want to find out if it works for you, or if you want to let Maciek Pysz tread his delicate feet through your mind then follow this link -
Maciek Pysz - Insight on iTunes.

AL.

Rainlore's online artist-in-residence

Rich Rainlore

I'm really chuffed to announce that I'll be working more closely with critic/observer Rich Rainlore over the coming year. I'll be his official artist-in-residence and 'live' sketcher at many of the gigs he'll be attending for his website Rainlore's World.

Rich is no stranger to the visual side of music after plying his trade for many years as a photographer, so he knows just how difficult it can be to produce the goods in challenging conditions. He is a sympathetic and knowledgeable collaborator who I know I'll enjoy working with over the next 12 months....and hopefully long into the future..

It is no surprise that since I've been working with Rich, I have gained confidence in my own writing.

I made this quick sketch of him at Joanna Strand's CD launch, The Forge, Camden in 2012. It was the first gig we worked on together and I haven't looked back since.

AL