Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.
Steve Beresford is a British musician who graduated from the University of York He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, such as the toy piano. He has also played a wide range of music. He is probably best known for free improvisation, but has also written music for film and television and has been involved with a number of pop music groups.
Robert Wyatt is a retired English musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming paraplegic following an accidental fall from a window in 1973, which led him to abandon band work, explore other instruments, and begin a 40-year solo career.
David Toop is an English musician, author, curator, and emeritus professor. From 2013 to 2021 he was professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a regular contributor to British music magazine The Wire and the British magazine The Face. He was a member of British new wave band The Flying Lizards.
Michael John David Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces. He is married to the vocalist, librettist and painter Kate Westbrook.
Musics was a music-related magazine that was published from 1975 to 1979.
Emanem Records is a record company and independent record label founded in London, England in 1974 by Martin Davidson and Madelaine Davidson to record free improvisation.
Peter Cusack is an English artist and musician who is a member of CRiSAP, and is a research staff member and founding member of the London College of Communication in the University of the Arts London. He was a founding member and director of the London Musicians' Collective.
Lionel Grigson was an English jazz pianist, cornettist, trumpeter, composer, writer and teacher, who in the 1980s started the jazz course at the Guildhall School of Music. As Simon Purcell wrote in The Independent, "Whether he inspired or inflamed, Grigson's energies often acted as a catalyst and his interest in, and support for, young jazz musicians contributed significantly to the growth and consolidation of jazz education in Britain....Within the context of a leading international conservatoire, the Guildhall School of Music, in London, Grigson did much to demonstrate and explain the underlying principles common to jazz, classical and indeed all music, and as a result produced a generation of jazz educators possessing a thorough grounding in an area where much educational work is left to chance." Among his published books are Practical Jazz (1988), Jazz from Scratch (1991) and A Jazz Chord Book, as well as studies on the music of Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk.
Philip Clemo is a British composer, musician, producer, sound artist, filmmaker and visual artist, described by Propermusic.com as one of contemporary music's most innovative artists.
Steve Gray was a British pianist, composer and arranger. He was an active session musician and arranger in the 1970s, and a performer and composer for the KPM 1000 Series of library music recordings. In the 1980s and into the 1990s Gray was a member of the instrumental rock band Sky, and later worked on ambitious arranging and composition projects for big bands in Holland and Germany.
Roger Turner is an English jazz percussionist. He plays the drumset, drums, and various percussion, and was brought up into the jazz and visual art cultures inhabited by his older brothers, playing drums from childhood in informal jazz contexts.
John Russell was an acoustic guitarist who worked in free improvisation beginning in the 1970s. He promoted concerts and appeared on more than 50 recordings.
Max Eastley is a British visual and sound artist. He is part of the Cape Farewell Climate Change project. He studied painting and graphic art at Newton Abbot Art School and then went on to gain a BA in Fine Art (1969–1972) at Middlesex University. He is a sculptor (kinetic), musician and composer. His primary instrument is a unique electro-acoustic monochord, developed from an aeolian sculpture. 'The Arc' consists of a single string stretched lengthwise across a long piece of wood which can be played with a bow, fingers or short glass rods. The end of the instrument has a microphone attached so the basic sound can be amplified, recorded and run through sound effect programs.
Yoshisaburo "Sabu" Toyozumi is one of the small group of musical pioneers who comprised the first generation playing free improvisation music in Japan. As an improvising drummer he played and recorded with many of the key figures in Japanese free music including the two principal figures in the first generation, Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe from the late 1960s onwards. He is one of a very few of this circle who are still alive and engaged in playing this music today.
Alexander Hawkins is a British jazz pianist and composer. Three of the main groups he has led or co-led are the Alexander Hawkins Ensemble; the Convergence Quartet ; and the Hammond organ-based Decoy.
Alterations is a four-piece musical group with members David Toop, Peter Cusack, Terry Day, and Steve Beresford. Initially active from 1977 to 1986, the group released three albums and performed widely across the UK and mainland Europe. The group play free improvised music with an emphasis on unusual combinations of different styles. "The group were notorious for genre-plundering humour."
Daniel Blumberg is an English artist, musician, songwriter and composer from London who works between drawing, improvisation, song form and film.
Angharad Davies is a Welsh violinist and composer, known for her work in the field of free improvisation, her use of prepared violin, her extensive discography and collaborative work with other musicians.
Mark Wastell is an English free improvisation musician who plays cello, double bass, electronics, tam tam and percussion. He performs solo and in various group and collaborative situations, notably IST and The Sealed Knot.
