CURATION
-
from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
-
Name:
John Harle
-
City/Place:
London
-
Country:
United Kingdom
-
Hometown:
Newcastle upon Tyne
Life & Work
-
Bio:
John Harle is an Ivor Novello award-winning composer, record producer, and saxophonist whose work spans across musical genres from classical to contemporary pop.
John is the composer of operas, musical theatre shows, around fifty concert works and over 100 film and TV scores including the theme to BBC1's Silent Witness and the epic score to Simon Schama’s A History of Britain. He is the recipient of an Ivor Novello award and two Royal Television Society awards for Best Music.
Starting at the National Theatre in the late 1970's, John was an actor/musician, composer, musical director and instrumentalist for many years, including acting parts in plays by Edward Bond and Isaak Babel, musical directorships for Harrison Birtwistle and playing in the celebrated Guys and Dolls band for director Richard Eyre. John's own shows, A Quick Deco and To Those Born Later were featured at the National Theatre Platforms, The King's Head Islington, Hampstead New End Theatre and The Arts Theatre with actors Caroline Quentin, Jim Carter and John Golder. John's show Berlin Nights ran at The London Symphony Orchestra Pops series at The Barbican, featuring actors Ute Lemper and Albert Finney.
He was artistic advisor and producer to Sir Paul McCartney for six years, and other major collaborations have included albums and tours with Elvis Costello and Marc Almond.
A prominent media figure, he is a regular contributor to Radio 4 Front Row, and was a castaway on Desert Island Discs. He also contributes written articles to major publications.
John’s tribute album to Duke Ellington, The Shadow of the Duke was followed with collaborations with jazz artists such as Herbie Hancock and Andy Sheppard.
John was solo and lead saxophonist with the Michael Nyman Band for fifteen years, and was Musical Director of the band on tours in the US, UK and Japan.
He has been musical director and producer for Moondog, Herbie Hancock, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Elmer Bernstein, Imelda Staunton, Ute Lemper, Lesley Garrett, Albert Finney, Kathryn Tickell, Michael Nyman, Sir John Dankworth, Dame Cleo Laine and Marc Almond. He is the founder and producer of Sospiro Records.
As a saxophonist, his early work gained public acclaim with his Saxophone Concertos album on EMI Classics which is widely seen as the definitive recording of the major classical works, and his playing has been the catalyst for an outpouring of new concertos by composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Marc Anthony Turnage, Sir John Tavener, Sally Beamish, Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars.
John’s performance of Birtwistle's saxophone concerto Panic at the Last Night of the BBC Proms in 1995 was cited by many critics as the most controversial premiere of a new musical work since Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in 1913.
He has performed with countless orchestras and conductors worldwide and has sold over half a million CDs in the classical field alone.
John was appointed the youngest ever Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, starting the saxophone department at the age of 26, and his teaching has produced many of the leading players of today. He is now Professor of Saxophone and Composition at The Guildhall School, where he leads his own Master of Music course, as well as teaching academic modules in Musical and Cultural History.
He is the author of The Saxophone (Faber Music), the definitive reference work on saxophone playing and performance.
John is currently songwriting with Marc Almond (Soft Cell) for an album of pop torch songs for Sony/BMG, and writing a musical theatre piece, Mr Punch, with writer/director Patrick Marber. He is also arranger/producer for the new saxophone star Jess Gillam in a five album collaboration with Decca Classics.
He is the father of writer and curator Dr. Matthew Harle and Columbia Records composer/producer Danny L Harle.
More
-
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“Harle gallops across his musical terrain with the attitude of Axl Rose. Terrifyingly extreme and magnificently audacious, Harle is a powerful force in British Jazz and Pop, and has the integrity, passion and vision to challenge listeners”
ESQUIRE USA
“John Harle's music is complex, darkly humorous and full of ear-catching quirkiness. You're bowled over by the variety, energy and sheer size of his music. It merits every ounce of the effort put into it”
THE WASHINGTON SUNDAY TIMES
“The music of John Harle is very fast moving, urgently collaborative, often witty, sinewy, ironic and urban”
THE GUARDIAN
“Three gorgeous songs by John Harle sung by a totally credible Elvis Costello are only the most conspicuous highlights of saxophonist Harle's genre scramble 'Terror and Magnificence'. Harle’s own commanding musicianship and audacious composing act as this record's solid cement”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY USA
“He's an omnivorous enthusiast, a truly unfashionable state of mind in a self-conscious age of irony, but something which links him with the late American master, Leonard Bernstein”
THE INDEPENDENT
“Terror and Magnificence is very probably one of the finest suites to have come from the pen of a British composer in recent years. Harle is a virtuosic saxophonist but his writing talent is clearly as significant. A triumph all round”
THE HERALD
“It was like sitting down for dinner in a reliable restaurant and being presented with an hors d'oeuvre of cold sick. Among others I would have been happy to have chained Harle and Birtwistle, whose work has been called 'sonic sewage', naked to the railings outside as punishment”
NIGEL DEMPSTER - DAILY MAIL
“We all know that Marc Almond can sing but it still comes as a shock to hear his thrillingly drawn-out climax to Harle's "The Arrival of Spring", emoting words adapted from William Blake with operatic oomph”
THE INDEPENDENT (on 'Art Music') ****
“Harle is a renaissance man that defies categorization; there are moments of unearthly beauty - eerie, magical and oddly timeless”
JAZZWISE - USA
“Harle's style has an integrity all of its own”
THE GUARDIAN
"The composer John Harle and his librettist David Pountney have made an opera of the proper sort, and one which almost breaks the rules of the genre by appearing to work as drama as well as music. Spells are cast, angels are summoned, and the characters exchange views on the music of the spheres and other recondite matters, but as singers and actors in a theatrical space they succeed in holding your attention. Angel Magick proved to be a resounding success."
THE INDEPENDENT
“Harle's compositions are testament to the extraordinary versatility of this brilliant saxophonist”
THE INDEPENDENT
“This masterful album - wonderfully scary stuff”
THE SUN***** (on 'The Tyburn Tree')
“Beautiful and dramatic music”
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (on 'The Tyburn Tree')
“A treat for the ears - epic, sweeping”
MUSIC OMH (on 'The Tyburn Tree')
“Lushly harmonised and ecstatically passionate”
THE TIMES
“Harle's rich, extravagant settings could have been written for the late 1960's Scott Walker”
THE ARTS DESK **** (on 'Art Music')
“John Harle's lurid The Little Death Machine, premiered in the late-night Prom, was full of spark as the saxophonist composer's solo soared, blasted and panted over ghoulish riffs, swooping samples and a manic orchestral dance groove. This now formidable creative figure often functions best in mixing genres”
THE INDEPENDENT
“This is a fascinating and beguiling album. Harle shows no sign soon of losing his magical powers of communication”
JAZZ VIEWS (on 'Art Music')
“Marvelously vigorous, ironic and atmospheric”
THE TIMES **** (on 'The Tyburn Tree')
“A stunning contemporary production”
PROG MAGAZINE **** (on 'The Tyburn Tree')
“Equally at home in all genres as composer and player, he is one of the most accomplished of that new generation of musicians that has successfully breached music's artificial and still too strictly observed boundaries”
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
"This summer's Proms presents its first operatic commission in the shape of an innovative piece by saxophonist and composer John Harle. To a libretto by David Pountney, and using a flamboyant cast of singers, an actor, dancer and 22-piece orchestra incorporating the viol consort Fretwork, Harle's Angel Magick, subtitled A Scientific Ritual in Seven Parts, explores the strange world of Elizabethan astrologer and alchemist John Dee.
Already premiered in a preview to considerable acclaim at the Salisbury Festival, Angel Magick seems to be just the right sort of forward-thinking new piece the Proms needs."
THE INDEPENDENT
“Harle is a saxophone legend”
BILD-ZEITUNG
“He must be the most sought-after saxophonist in the world now.”
THE AUSTRALIAN
"I could listen to John Harle play almost anything for hours"
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
“You MUST see the virtuosity and charisma of Harle as a musician - exciting, edgy performances from the hottest saxophonist around today. Seeing is believing”
Q MAGAZINE
“Hearing Harle, you can understand why composers are surprised and delighted by his artistry. His keenly imaginative playing directly echoes the inflections of the human voice, and his fine control of tone eliminates the sloppy wailing of some saxophonists that is such a pain”
THE GUARDIAN
“This is the most beautiful alto-playing since Johnny Hodges; and the most beautiful soprano-playing ever”
THE GRAMOPHONE
“British-born Harle is one of the most outstanding saxophonists today - a leading classical exponent of the saxophone in Europe and a formidable jazz composer and soloist - he gives the sax new credibility”
THE AUSTRALIAN
“It hit the audience between the eyes - it reached the soul of the saxophone”
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
“Mr Harle has become an eminent modern musician. He's a dazzling player, with an immense range of tones, and a magnetic musician”
THE NEW YORKER
"No-one else creates a sound quite like this: apparently floating weightlessly, yet robust”
THE OBSERVER
“A dazzling workout. Technical and emotional mastery - all of which were as child's play for John Harle”
THE NEW YORK TIMES (at Carnegie Hall)
“Thanks to Harle, the saxophone has grown in status in the twentieth century. It may yet emerge as the paragon of wind instruments - their finest singer”
THE OBSERVER
“John Harle adapts to any musical style that comes his way. He plays with originality, intelligence and fire”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
My Instruction
-
Lessons/Workshops:
John’s private tuition and mentoring programme has assisted many of the leading saxophonists of today to achieve their aims, and is for classical, jazz and multi-genre players. The programme exists to further the instrumental, musical and creative development of saxophonists.
-
Instruction:
http://www.johnharle.com/private-tuition-and-mentoring.htm
Clips (more may be added)
We use the mathematics of the small world phenomenon to transform the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all... (Wolfram explains how above)
This Integrated Global Creative Economy uncoils from a sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix...
Great culture is great power. From Brazil.
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
Our Matrix was conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found us (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.comAcross the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Wolfram MathWorld
Ex Terra Brasilis
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Roberto Mendes
Luciano Calazans
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
RÁDIO MATRIX