What, no Tony Oxley thread?

Just been listening to Ichnos; wow, what an album still, after all these years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjovwpHI7Zs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foDXuVpY1dQ

(a) somebody please bang some heads together and reissue this on CD (and the self-titled set that was formally Incus 8;
(b) he's Sheffield's percussion boss - the only drummer to play with both Bill Evans and Cecil Taylor?

The implications of his work are enormous and have only been barely followed up by others.

Agreed on all points. He's one of my all-time favorites, up there with Milford Graves, Keith Moon, and Elvin Jones.

His duo records with Bill Dixon are fucking epochal.

Ichnos has a great cover

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N8T2-xRq0e4/Spm2QNevWFI/AAAAAAAABZY/TN2Jk-bHv9U/s1600-h/Ichnos_front.jpg

Both cover and contets are for EAI fans, clearly.

the two classic oxley albs that have been reissued on CD - The Baptised Traveller and 4 Compositions for Sextet - are amongst my v v fave Brit free/improv recs. was sorry to once read him dismiss mclaughlin's Extrapolation as a 'pop album' cos that's a great rec too, in a slightly diff idiom.

was lucky enough to see him playing in a trio w/ cecil taylor and bill dixon a few years ago. i went with a deceased and much-missed ilxor who, i'll never forget, said that oxley looked like jimmy saville!

lol I was at that gig too i think.

Yes I think he dismissed the work w/Mclaughin as paying the bills only.

Looking at the discog I see he was in two Vangelis albs!

That Dixon/Oxley/Taylor record on Victo is brilliant; very few recorded examples of Taylor playing that way. The critics didn't seem to dig it, though.

think the London gig that xyzzzz and I went to was a little bit after the Victo set. At the time I wasn't sure that dixon's beautifully vaporous minimalism was that well-suited to the onslaught from taylor and oxley, who were both playing in full-on maximalist mode that evening, but I wld like to hear a recording of it now (they were supported by anthony braxton and his group (inc mary halvoresn on gtr) who were amazing, and almost stole the show)

As I recall Dixon's approach was highly textural, he couldn't integrate himself with Taylor/Oxley's percussive onslaught. A shame.

Braxton's group were really great that day. I see this has been issued on CD!

To me, that's (part of) the beauty of Dixon's approach: playing against the grain. His FMP record Berlin Abbozzi -- with Oxley, Klaus Koch, and Matthias Bauer -- is a good example of his spacious, drawn-out approach set against busy density.

Not saying it wouldn't work in any situation, can certainly see both Dixon and Oxley working well in a duo and others but I think the rapport Taylor strikes with percussionists can be problematic for others trying to join in. Which is a problem for Cecil too at times.

From the discog page I see Braxton hasn't played in London since then :-(

Looking at the discog I see he was in two Vangelis albs!

I think I bought one of these from the dollar bin out of curiosity, because of Oxley.

and how was it?

I think it is still in the huge pile of dollar bin records I haven't listened to yet :/

xpost re: Braxton in London

XYZZZZ - not true! there was this gig, which i was v sorry to have missed (i'd moved to glasgow by then):

http://soundsandtexts.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/royal-festival-hall-8th-july-2007-cecil.html

sarahell you must use this thread as an opportunity to report back on this :)

lol yes I was at that concert too...I cannot recall Polar Bear at all.

Don't think a rec has been released but yes the perc from Oxley then the way Taylor arrived - real SHOW, wasn't feeling it as much as that description which is why I forgot.

Still, twice in nearly 10 years...should move to Wesleyan town.

definitely one of the greats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmjaeOpAQOk

^Love that. I was at that show, and it was fucking tremendous.

Surprised no-one's mentioned Joseph Holbrooke, Oxley's trio with Bailey and Gavin Bryars. They released two albums in the 90s, one on Incus and the other on Tzadik, both of which are excellent.

RIP

He'd been really ill for a long time. When he appeared at Cecil Taylor's Whitney Museum shows in 2016, he couldn't play the drums, so he contributed electronics, including some samples of his own playing that he would kind of drop into the middle of the music. I interviewed him earlier this year for my book on Cecil and wound up not getting anything usable out of it, because he could barely speak. It was really quite sad.