About the group
Corey Mwamba, Dave Kane and Joshua Blackmore improvise collectively to create an open, living music.
They got together in Stratford-upon-Avon on a dark and stormy night in November 2008.
The music is a free-wheeling, spontaneous mixture of styles. This trio has developed a process entirely focussed on creating highly expressive music that's full of grooves and sounds composed, but is not; and playing compositions that don't sound composed at all, but are.
How it all works is not always clear; but the process is always fascinating to hear, and the results can be truly moving.
Individually...
Dave Kane plays bass.
He's released a critically-acclaimed album called Eye of the Duck on the Edition Records label; plays with pianist Matthew Bourne and Stephen Davis and has a fantastic duo with the trumpeter Alex Bonney which performed with Ken Vandermark in 2008. Dave is also founder of a creative musicians' collective in Leeds called LIMA. There's more info on Dave's web-site.
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Joshua Blackmore is on drums.
He's in the BBC Jazz Award-winning Curios trio with Tom Cawley and Sam Burgess, and has worked with Django Bates, Aloosh and the Floating Points Ensemble. Joshua has a hotly-tipped trio of his own called TROYKA with Kit Downes and Chris Montague. Find out more on Joshua's web-site.
Corey Mwamba plays the vibraphone.
As well as having made four electro-acoustic albums, Corey is on two albums made by Quantic, one by Arun Ghosh and one by Ty. He's worked with lots of people including The Heliocentrics, Orphy Robinson, Robert Mitchell, Andy Hamilton, Scanner and Tony Kofi. More information is on Corey's web-site.
Upcoming dates
Would YOU like to hear us?
Have you thought of hosting your own gig? Putting on a concert is easier than you might think, if you plan it correctly.
It doesn't need a big venue - it can even be done in your own home. If you and some like-minded people club together the trio can be quite affordable - please get in touch.
Performance requirements
We play acoustic music. In most places, that means without amplification which in turn means no sound-check.
This is our only requirement:
One plug socket for bass amp
In places where amplification is required, here's a rough set-up guide:
Vibes
- 2 narrow diaphragm condensers (but omnis will do)
Bass
- Bass amp
- Access to house PA for bass mic
- Monitor
Drums
- Standard kit microphone set-up
- Monitor
We can comfortably set up in 30-45 minutes. Car parking and loading should be at no cost to us. In any case, contact us with a description of the acoustics and resources (microphones, PA system, etc.) of your venue - these things are much easier to sort out with a conversation.
The nearer we are to each other and the audience, the better! But we need at least 18m2 (just under 22yd2) of floor space to play since we all have large instruments.
If you want to use special lighting, it should be subtle, but not so dark that no one can see. Soft colour washes are fine.
Want to capture the moment?
Please ask first if you want to document the performance through photographs, video, or audio recording. We normally say yes, so don't be afraid to come up to us beforehand! And let us have a copy. It's just polite.
Bit of food and water?
Yes please. Water, juice and hot drinks in plentiful (and free) supply would be good. Maybe a few free drinks at a bar. If you do arrange food we'd be very grateful. Dave's a vegetarian. Corey is allergic to eggs, but will eat cakes at his own risk.
Reviews
The music [...] resists easy categorisation. Though 100 per cent improvised, it manages to avoid sounding like either free jazz or improv. Jazzwise Magazine, June 2013
don't overthink it
This is the sound of three minds working together in a utopian zone way beyond the individual ego - and producing something quite beautiful in the process. (4 stars out of 5) Jazzwise Magazine, May 2013
There's a simple manifesto in its title and some complex improvised music on the album, but enjoying it is a simple matter. [...] the intuitive understanding shared by all three musicians is paramount in creating this very attractive musical world. [...] engaging and evocative music All About Jazz, March 2013
Embrace {bootleg}
Their music featured climaxes and crescendos intricately weaved, leading the audience through the show by blending the quiet and peaceful with the loud and chaotic, whilst still retaining a level of order and cohesion that can only come from a strong artistic vision. [...] this is definitely a band worth seeing. FD2D Magazine, April 2012
everybody's reading
The music was so varied that the collection of sources was clearly diverse. The music was like a film score going from loud and rich as if more than three people were performing to soft, like a nursery rhyme. This left the audience absorbed in the music[...] Amy Caroline, October 2011
Manchester Jazz Festival
The trio merged effortlessly from sparse and minimalist to chaotic but organised, making sure the audience never knew what direction they would go in next. Mancunian Matters, July 2011
Corey Mwamba is turning out to be something of a force of nature, a incredible vibes player with a thirst for experimentation that means we've no idea what to expect, except that it'll be well worth seeing. Dave Kane and Troyka's Josh Blackmore are about as a good a rhythm section as you could ask for working in contemporary jazz today. efpi records, July 2011
schmazz
Corey Mwamba is, apparently, a self-taught vibes player. Having witnessed his playing it is hard to believe that he could play as he did - that of a virtuoso. Mwamba was joined for this, his first performance on Tyneside, by bassist Dave Kane and drummer Joshua Blackmore - both well known to north-east audiences. Yes, Blackmore was on double-time having played the first set with Troyka. This set had an acoustic feel - on occasion Double Time Blackmore used brushes and hurried thing along with some double-time passages. Kane bowed (and scraped!), then slapped, then from time to time took a line for a walk. Mwamba played with two, then four, then six mallets - impressive stuff, lyrical and swinging. Russell Corbett for Bebop Spoken Here, June 2010
Corey Mwamba on, now let me get this right, vibraphone dulcimer electronics. How does he do it? When the head of his stick flies off over his head onto the stage doing a triple back twist and full bodied somersault you know either this guy is playing at full throttle or his sticks are genuinely having a ball and dancing on air at the thrill of it all. I've now seen such an instrument twice this year, which to me, I hope, signifies a new trend in this not oft seen stage art. A name to watch for. Bands take notice and have this artist in your band.
Dave Kane truly inspires us with his technique and emotive instrumental language. Quite beautiful to watch. Joyously communicating with Corey's sweet chimes with passion, and boyishly flirtatious at times, charm. He makes his bass speak ten kinds of languages in 20 different dialects and 100 kinds of emotions. That thing talks!
Joshua Blackmore intelligently listening as much as providing a rich backing just providing the right sense of rhythmic tension. A genuinely talented artist I've come to admire in various bands. Every beat to this young chap means something, and he won't hit a beat if it isn't saying something. There's a point to every stroke and lick on the skins (you know what I mean).
Come back again but do a longer set, please. Sarah Razvi for Bebop Spoken Here, June 2010
In the Vortex
On {In The Vortex}, two feet firmly in the jazz avant-garde sound, but not a quality that encompasses the trio in its totality.. the trio primarily focuses on group improvisation, the quality of the conversation, rather than the language it's spoken in. [...] expect ominous vibes, lurking bass, and the bone rattle of drums. Bird Is The Worm, May 2012
Free jazz remains the ultimate underground music. In The Vortex, a recording of a performance given by vibraphonist Corey Mwamba, bassist Dave Kane, and drummer Joshua Blackmore at The Vortex in January this year, is a valuable document. The two-CD set [...] is recommended for Mwamba's instinctive originality on vibes: he is an elemental driving force on an instrument that is often used for fey or novelty effect. Kane contributes orchestrally varied sounds on string bass, and Blackmore veers between delicate hues and full-blown ferocity. The spontaneity of group improvisation gives it a wonderful freshness - the excitement of discovery is palpable - and due attention is paid to dynamics (like the quiet delicacy at the beginning of Breathe In). Trumpeter Alex Bonney joins for three of the four pieces on the second disc, and adds his own special brand of desiccated eloquence. (4 stars out of 5)Manchester Evening News, September 2010
'Spontaneous, free-wheeling' was the programme description of the music on offer from vibes player Corey Mwamba, bassist Dave Kane and drummer Josh Blackmore, and it fitted their performance perfectly.
Their approach was basically to set up a rhythm, or even just a repeated motif, and see where it led them as a trio, reacting spontaneously to fresh ideas as they arose.
In inexperienced or unadventurous hands, this can lead either to blind alleys where players slowly become aware they have nowhere meaningful to go, or to hectic blizzards of sound without shape or purpose; such was the mutual sensitivity of this trio, however, that their pieces all had satisfying shapes, their exploratory beginnings coalescing into driving rhythms, or slowly building to exhilarating climaxes with all the apparent inevitability of a pre-composed piece.
Vibes are heard relatively seldom in free contexts, which is perhaps surprising given their textural and dynamic versatility; Mwamba, alive to every musical possibility thrown his way by his bandmates, was constantly selecting the precisely appropriate tone and timbre for the particular moment, either by changing gong-type (covered) mallets for xylophone-style (unwrapped) mallets, or by occasionally playing his instrument with his bare hands or a violin bow, drawing from its keys an astonishing variety of sounds, from mbira-like 'muffled' notes to ringing, sonorous, sustained tones or cascades of single notes, occasionally ending pieces with a subtle reverberating effect produced by a volume control.
Kane, as those familiar with his work alongside Matthew Bourne and Paul Dunmall, or leading his own trio, will already know, is one of the most inventive and vigorously propulsive bassists on the current UK scene, equally at home with freely improvised and more structured music; Blackmore, as is obvious when he is providing the engine power for Curios, is superb at producing emphatic but subtle rhythms that energise a band, and this he did all night, providing the vibrant but supple underpinning for the flights of Kane and Mwamba.
Joined from time to time by trumpeter Alex Bonney, who slotted his alternately strident and flaring sound perfectly into the rich mix, Mwamba/Kane/Blackmore provided nearly two hours of absorbing, intriguing and at times downright exhilarating music. Chris Parker, January 2010
Time Out preview
Combining high-wire spontaneity with deft composition, this is state-of-the-art improv from the new generation of UK jazz talent Time Out, January 2009
Vortex Jazz Club review
Creative Partnerships Derby is an initiative in which musicians aim to substantively alter school environments to create ever more effective places of learning. Vibraphonist, Corey Mwamba operates as a prominent practitioner of this programme. Perhaps this partially explains how this trio project with bassist Dave Kane and drummer, Joshua Blackmore managed to engender such an impact.
This group prioritises the practice of in-performance listening to create a tangible sense of synergy despite the absence of a preordained structure. The music was entirely improvised, born from the thoughts and feelings of the players at that precise moment in time. Mwamba excelled in developing phrases inspired as much by bebop as by West African folk, as enchanting as any nursery rhyme and often imbued with atmospheric tonal layering.
From within this complex web of melodic expression he isolated and developed the moments of tension inherent within the original phrase to thrilling effect. This introspective expressionism intensified under the strain of rhythmic reactions to Blackmore's fills and accents. These were expressed in a variety of idioms; from brisk bop struts through neurotic and hyperactive avant-garde atmospherics, to subtle, erudite hints towards drum and bass.
When bowed, Kane's double bass delivered the emotional penetration of classical romanticism. His a cappella solo was evocative of Arild Andersen, combining powerful melodic expression with a resounding tone and inventive percussive textures.
Trumpeter, Alex Bonney featured briefly. His distinctive regal tone soared above a dense layering of free-form rhythm and melody with sparse incisive phrases before descending into a haunting wail woven with resentment and loss.
There was an undeniable sense of the sublime in this creation and experience. Though the music has not been named and the group has no recording the sensations visited on the audience will be carried for much time to come.Joseph Kassman-Tod, January 2009
