SEB PIPE'S LIFE EXPERIENCE *NEW* CD OUT NOW!!

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To purchase the album via Ray's Jazz Shop:

Ray's Jazz,
Foyles Bookshop,
113-119 Charing Cross Road,
London WC2H 0EB
www.foyles.co.uk/rays.asp
rays@foyles.co.uk
020 7440 3205

"Featuring a diverse gamut of highly innovative, original and electrifying compositions inspired by life - blending high intensity grooves, idiosyncratic melodies and raw energy."

"Yet more evidence, were it needed, of the extraordinary strength in depth of the current UK jazz scene." - Chris Parker (Vortex Jazz Club)

"This busy and clearly ambitious young alto player leads a quartet that includes Larry Bartley on double bass. Some tunes are catchy tunes with a degree of Afrobeat, others lyrical and Latin-tinged over a sometimes dub beat, and some are bustling, hard-edged and smacking a little of the new language jazz of Steve Coleman, though a little less intimidating.

It's certainly a strong quartet with Arthur Lea putting in some pretty explosive piano solos and Chris Vatalaro driving behind the drums.

There is also lots of healthy four-way interaction and the feeling that they think on their feet.

A strong start. " - Peter Bacon (The Birmingham Post 04/02/08)

"This self-produced eponymous album by alto player Seb Pipe and his quartet was recorded at the 606 Club in February 2007 and was partly funded by the 'Musicians Benevolent Fund'. Pipe lists his musical interests as rooted in 'the African Diaspora, the Balkans and the Far East', and his saxophone teachers include Jean Toussaint, Steve Coleman and Julian Argüelles. The strongest of these influences on the music and playing on this lively, pleasingly varied album is possibly Coleman; the American M-Base pioneer's slippery, endlessly inventive, attractively nervy sound is apparent on many of Pipe's pieces. Other traces, however, are also discernible: the tricksy speediness of Balkan music and the odd Eastern timbre can occasionally be heard. Overall, though, this is distinctive, highly original quartet music, addressed with musicianly verve and commitment by the agile Pipe and his energetically responsive band – pianist Arthur Lea, bassist Larry Bartley and Brooklyn-born drummer Chris Vatalaro – and as well as showcasing the leader's strengths as both composer and soloist, the album is a great calling card for a fine, vigorously interactive unit." Chris Parker (Vortex Jazz Club, November 2007)

"I'm impressed..this is good stuff...it is deep" BBC Radio 3 Jazz Line-up [01/12/07] Claire Martin and Jack Massarik

SEB PIPE'S LIFE EXPERIENCE CD featured on BBC Radio 3 Jazz Line-up hosted by Claire Martin with Jack Massarick [01/12/07]. Click here to listen to the clip from the show. Seb Pipe, Seb Pipe's Life Experience

"The appropriately named young UK saxophonist Seb Pipe is a prizewinning former Trinity College student who includes influential New York M-Base saxist Steve Coleman and former Jazz Messenger Jean Toussaint among his mentors. You can hear in his playing the influence of Coleman's rigorous rhythm-pattern investigations, as well as some east European and Latin American allegiances. Pipe and his group recorded this set at London's 606 Club in February 2007 (with help from the Musicians' Development Fund), and the leader's serpentine melodic fluency, improv resourcefulness and controlled freedom with pitch all confirm that the early accolades he has received were well deserved.

The recording is a shade muted, which hardly enhances the vividness of an idiom already more concerned with patterns than dynamics, but there's enough to confirm that Pipe's group is right in his ballpark for expertise. Bassist Larry Bartley and Brooklyn-born drummer Chris Vatalaro are tucked tightly into the bump and clatter of the grooves, with excellent pianist Arthur Lea sometimes sounding like a preoccupied salsa player, sometimes like a 21st-century Thelonious Monk. On the liltingly lyrical Antarctic Twilight, Pipe and Lea both sound - untypically- as though they have heard a lot of conventional standards players. Jazz Face shows what they can do with more or less straightahead swing, and the three-part Balance and Contrast moves across contemporary styles, ending up on a slow, trancelike Latin jazz. It's a group we'll likely be hearing from in 2008."

John Fordham (The Guardian Newspaper), Friday January 4, 2008

Personnel:

Seb Pipe - Alto Sax

Arthur Lea - Piano

Larry Bartley - Double Bass

Chris Vatalaro - Drums

Recorded at the 606 Club, London

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Also:

Listen to music clips from gigs @ Ealing Jazz Festival 2008, Pangea Project and the London Jazz Festival: Spitz 2006