Photo by Guy Le Querrec
"I very much look forward to playing with George Cartwright, whose duo with Didier Petit last year I loved. And, having played with Adam and JT and heard them in various contexts, I am excited about repeating the experience."
~Tony Hymas
On Thursday, October 20, Tony Hymas will be introducing his new quartet, playing for the first time with George Cartwright and one of the major modern rhythm sections: Adam Linz and JT Bates.
As a teenage student at the Royal Academy of Music, Tony Hymas had already written orchestral pieces, but trumpet player Henry Lowther introduced him to jazz by inviting him to join the group of the South African bass player Harry Miller. He became an accompanist for singers, including Frank Sinatra, although as a studio musician, he quickly drew attention for being undisciplined. Soon after joining the prestigious contemporary ensemble Matrix under the direction of Alan Hacker, he met soprano singer Jane Manning and became her official pianist.
Change of setting: he joins Jack Bruce's band. This led to the meeting with Jeff Beck, initiating a long collaboration between the two artists, despite interruptions. With Beck, he also played with Stanley Clarke and Tony Williams. With singer Jim Diamond, Hymas created the pop group PHD, with whom he recorded the number one international hit, “I Won’t Let You Down," in 1982. He was a founding member of The Lonely Bears, has played and recorded with Jacques Thollot, Evan Parker, John McLaughlin, John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Eric Gravatt, Michel Doneda and many others…
In 2004, Hymas participated in the Michel Portal project, Minneapolis, with Sonny Thompson, Michael Bland and Vernon Reid.
George Cartwright:
"Music has always been a part of my life. Singing in church and learning songs at my grandfather's knee are some of my earliest memories. As a child, I took piano lessons, and later learned to play the guitar by ear. I started composing on the guitar, writing songs with words and creating instrumental pieces a la Mississippi John Hurt and John Fahey. In high school, I was a big fan of the British bands that played blues and was thrilled to discover that they had found the blues literally in my own hometown in the Mississippi Delta.
“I bought my first sax on my 21st birthday with 65 dollars, a present from my grandmother. I studied jazz saxophone, being irreversibly drawn to its beauty and passion. In college, after hearing Ornette Coleman's "Dancing in Your Head," I started finding melodies and ideas for songs and began seriously composing pieces. After a year and a half at the Creative Music studio in Woodstock, New York, I moved to New York City, where I made a conscious decision to eschew journeyman positions in music, learning a trade to pay the bills, passionate that I wanted to compose and perform my music free of traditional restraints.
“Clarity had always been important to me. I love counterpoint, things pulling in different directions while respecting the others’ right and need to exist - or, as Coleman describes his harmolodic philosophy, ‘communicating the equal access of information for multiple expressions.’”
Completing the quartet will be JT Bates and Adam Linz, a rhythm section with the same togetherness, energy and solidity as some of the most glorious in jazz history, such as Ron Carter/Tony Williams, Pierre Michelot/Kenny Clarke, Charlie Haden Paul Motian, JF Jenny Clark/Jacques Thollot or Dave Holland/Jack Dejohnette .
