During a 50+ year career across the spectrum of music saxophonist Larry Stabbins has worked with most of the important figures at the cutting edge of European Jazz and Improvisation from Mike Westbrook to Keith Tippett and Tony Oxley and Germany’s Peter Brotzmann, as well as with Robert Wyatt and Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA. Alongside this he played in the seminal pop group Weekend and formed Working Week with guitarist Simon Booth, a project that took a melange of latin, soul and jazz into the world of pop and dance music.
Since then, different projects of his own across the range of his interests have varied from totally improvised small groups and solo performances to “Jazz Rap” ( QRZ?) in the early 1990s, “FreeJazz TechnoFunk” (Game Theory) early 2000s, “Psychedelic Hip Hop” ( Stonephace) and freeish “Spiritual Jazz” (Stonephace Stabbins with Zoe Rahman) around 2010. And currently, a quartet, "137"with Adrian Utley and Jim Barr of the cult band "Portishead" and Percussionist Sebastien Rochford and also a new trio "Sarost" with Mark Sanders and bassist Paul Rogers.
Mark Sanders is a drummer/percussionist who has played with countless renowned improvising musicians in concerts and festivals all over the world, including Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Derek Bailey, Roswell Rudd and Evan Parker, with Larry in a quartet with Howard Riley and as a trio with pianist Pat Thomas "Game Theory" and also played on over 200 vinyl and CD releases. He is Visiting Lecturer at The Royal Academy of Music and was a Lecturer at Leeds Conservatoire teaching his own improvisation module for seven years He has also been a guest tutor running Masterclasses at Guildhall School of Music and Theatre , Trinity Laban and Dartington Music and Summer School.
My first record under my own name was a duo with percussionist Roy Ashbury " Fire without Bricks" on the co-operative Bead label in 1976, complete with reproductions of megalithic carvings on the sleeve- maybe there's something decidedly primal about the music here as well. I've always enjoyed playing with drummer/percussion players for the melodic freedom and rhythmic stimulation it brings and I've been very fortunate to have had long associations with some great ones notably Louis Moholo, Tony Oxley and Eddie Prevost and it's great to return to the duo format with such an equally wonderful player as Mark who creates entire unclassifiable polyrhythmic soundscapes and textures uniquely his own.
As for myself, when I returned to music after a ten year absence I was keen to avoid trying to recreate the past - "No person can step in the same river twice" so I switched to alto saxophone took up the bass clarinet and worked to develop my flute and alto flute playing, giving myself a whole new palette of sound and whole new areas of music to explore . I've since also returned to the tenor and soprano saxes but they're for other situations.
This CD was recorded pretty much in the order you hear it on the record, with no editing, in one day by Jim Barr at his JandJ Studios in Bristol and I think the sound Jim has captured is stunningly clear and vibrant. He's done a great job! - Larry Stabbins
