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George Burt
George Burt started out as a folkie with the noted songwriters Andy Shanks and Jim Russell. He has played double bass and guitar in many folk and ceilidh bands. He has left the High Society Jazz Band in 2002 after playing with them for ten years, and has toured England and France. He has collaborated with Tom Bancroft and Bill Wells in the improvisation power-trio Bill, George and Tom's Suburban Adventure. His main group is the band he co-leads with Raymond MacDonald. Together, they have produced seven commercially available CDs, four of these with the great Lol Coxhill, and one with Keith Tippett. These CDs also included contributions from Future Pilot AKA, Daniel Padden and the utterly unique Aileen Campbell. He played in the Scottish premiere of Barry Guy's Witch Gong Game II/10 and, as a founder member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO), has worked with Walter Prati, Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Fred Frith and the wonderful Susan Alcorn.
Gear
Gibson "the Paul" 1978 Martin CF1 2008
Tags
If MacDonald is the organizer, the affable front-of-house man, and the group’s intellectual dynamo, Burt is GIO’s heart and sinew. The two began working together in a small group, anchored by the free drummer George Lyle and often including MacDonald’s sister Nicola on melodica and vocals. The group’s run of CDs, often with guest musicians like Lol Coxhill and on one memorable occasion a popcorn machine, are in a different vein to GIO music: post-bop, with elements of new composition, folk, song-form and other inputs. In retrospect, they seem like blueprints for the way GIO has evolved, not least as an ensemble that has comfortably embraced Celtic harp, strings, shakuhachi, and again melodica, within an otherwise familiar sounding “jazz” line-up: horns, piano, guitar, bass, percussion.
