Avantgarden – John Butcher

John Butcher was born in Brighton, England and has lived in London since the late 1970s. His music ranges through free improvisation, various structurings, his own compositions, multitracked saxophone pieces and work with live electronics, amplification and feedback.

He has toured and broadcast in Europe, Japan, Australia and North America, and was featured, playing solo, in the BBC TV programme Date with an Artist.
Compositions include pieces for Chris Burn’s Ensemble, the Austrian group Polwechsel, the Australian ensemble Elision, the American Rova Saxophone Quartet, and “somethingtobesaid” for the 8-piece John Butcher Group.

Butcher started playing the saxophone at Surrey University, where he was studying physics – although his first concerts were on keyboards in an ‘avant’ (for want of a better term) rock group. Hearing musicians like John Surman, Stan Tracey and Louis Moholo triggered an enthusiasm for jazz, and he started learning and playing in various small and large groups – often with pianist Chris Burn; and sometimes with his brother Phil Butcher, on double bass.

In 1977 he began work on a Ph.D in the Theoretical Physics department of Imperial College. It was published in 1982 as “Spin effects in the production and weak decay of heavy Quarks”.

During this period he continued to work in Burn’s large Jazz Ensemble (somehow winning the 1980 “BBC Big Band” competition), and toured with a variety of projects (London Contemporary Dance Theatre, New Arts Consort, Extemporary Dance).

At the same time, he was struggling to find the ways of playing that eventually led him to a commitment to ‘free’ improvisation – as it was called back then. Rehearsals and monthly concerts at the Workers’ Music Association in Notting Hill Gate were an important ingredient.

After getting his doctorate in 1982, Butcher left academia and went off with music; releasing the LP Fonetiks (1984) – a duo with Burn – and playing in trumpeter Jon Corbett’s Freelance (with Elton Dean).
Around this time he began working in a trio with guitarist John Russell and violinist Phil Durrant. They started the label ACTA to release their LP Conceits (1987) and were joined the following year by drummer Paul Lovens and trombonist Radu Malfatti to form News from the Shed .

Various concerts in the ‘80s included a soprano saxophone quartet in Rome (with Evan Parker, Trevor Watts and Lol Coxhill), a DDR tour with trombonist Alan Tomlinson and drummer Willi Kellers, tours with the quartet Embers, duos with Phil Minton, percussionist Will Evans and pianist Claudia Ulla Binder – and some performances with Derek Bailey.
Butcher later played in a number of Bailey’s Company Weeks; produced a CD with Bailey and the tuba player Oren Marshall; and released a live duo with him on Vortices and Angels (2000).