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Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra
Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra: GIO Sevens
by Duncan Heining
Back in the 60s, there was a pop show on British TV called Thank Your Lucky Stars. It featured a “spin-a-disc" segment, where a DJ and three teenagers scored a clutch of 45s on a scale of one to five. One of these was a girl from the West Midlands called Janice Nicholls, who delighted audiences with her enthusiastic endorsements delivered in a Black Country accent--"Oi'll give it foive!." What the hell has this got to do with GIO Sevens ...
read moreA Madman’s Approach To Music And Why Can't Music Be Like A Tree?
by Duncan Heining
"Art alone makes life possible." --Joseph Beuys. The Glasgow Improvisers' Orchestra is unique. It's an over-used word, I know, but in this case fully justified. GIO are unique in so many ways--in the way they formed, the way they make decisions, in their make-up, how they work and most importantly how they sound. They are many things but one thing they most definitely are not is a free jazz ensemble. No tenor sax spits ire and fire and ...
read moreGlasgow Improvisers Orchestra: Artificial Life
by Duncan Heining
The importance of ensembles such as the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra cannot be underestimated. Their work since their formation defines a distinctive approach to large-scale, free improvisation rooted in a well-defined philosophy of collective music-making. As George Lewis, trombonist and 'composer' of Artificial Life, remarks in the record's sleevenotes: “As with all improvisation, including our everyday-life human efforts, all aspects of the performance are achieved through negotiation and consensus, and the success of the performance is less a question ...
read moreLondon and Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra: Separately and together
by John Eyles
Recorded at the 2007 Freedom of the City Festival, the album features the London Improvisers Orchestra and its Glasgow counterpart. (Guest performers are a fine tradition at FOTC.) The LIO did a set, then the GIO and then they played together. Given the number of musicians involved, and the absence of rehearsal, listeners will be surprised at the coherence and delicacy of much of the music here. As so often, the pieces mainly consist of “conductions" wherein one ...
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Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra
