"Paul Rogers - Double Bass

Born : April 27th, 1956 - Chester (Wales)Past Bands : Keith Tippett Sextet (1978, 1983-84), Elton Dean Quintet (1979, 1995), John Stevens Away (1980), Skidmore/Rogers/Levin (1984-87), Dunmall/Rogers/Levin (1984-87), Mujician (1988-), Pip Pyle's Equip'Out (1990-95), Sophia Domancich Trio (1990-99)Current Projects : Mujician + various jazz groups

A Short Bio:

For Paul Rogers, music began in earnest at age 12, when he first picked up an acoustic guitar. In a way this was the shape of things to come, since that particular guitar only had four strings left. Two years later, he took up bass guitar, and then, with the money earned from various jobs, finally acquired his own double bass in 1973.

Moving to London in 1974, Rogers started gigging in pubs, until he met saxophone player Mike Osborne, and through him was introduced to the free jazz scene, soon sharing the stage with such luminaries as Elton Dean, Keith Tippett, John Stevens, Howard Riley, Stan Tracey, Ken Hyder, Alan Skidmore, Evan Parker, Tony Marsh, Kenny Wheeler and John Etheridge. During this period, he was rarely in the same group for too long, preferring to accumulate experience through associations with as many musicians as possible.

After 1984, however, he started working on a regular basis with drummer Tony Levin, in trios with either Alan Skidmore or Paul Dunmall. In 1988, the Dunmall/Rogers/Levin trio with absorbed into the acclaimed improvising quartet Mujician, which associated them with pianist Keith Tippett. The group has existed ever since, playing totally spontaneous music, and released several albums for the US label Cuneiform.

In 1987, Rogers moved to the USA, living in New York City (and more precisely Bronx) for a year and a half, and playing with the likes of Gerry Hemingway, Don Byron, Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Tom Cora and Tim Berne. Soon after returning to Europe, he was recruited by Pip Pyle for the new line-up of his jazz quartet Equip'Out. Elton Dean and Sophia Domancich completed the group, which only lasted for a handful of gigs and an album recording, "Up!". Although Equip'Out didn't record after Domancich left in 1991, the band continued until 1995, with Francis Lockwood taking over on piano, followed by Patrice Meyer who introduced guitar into a previously piano-based line-up.

Having established both a musical and personal relationship with Sophia Domancich during their Equip'Out days, Rogers joined her trio, with Bruno Tocanne on drums, soon replaced by Tony Levin, a line-up which remained in place until 1999 and recorded several acclaimed albums. Now settled in France, Rogers has also worked with such improvisers as Michel Doneda and Daunik Lazro, but remains active on an international basis, having worked in recent years with Andrew Cyrille, John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, Barry Guy, Joachim Kuhn, Alex von Schlippenbach.

Rogers is also a composer, and has been involved with different bands playing his tunes, among which the most notable was 7 R.P.M. and the Paul Rogers Sextet (which did a 10-date UK tour in November 1990 performing his 'Anglo-American Sketches' suite). He received three commisions from the Arts Council of Great Britain to compose music for his own band. Under his own name, he released a quartet album with frequent associates Paul Dunmall, Sophia Domancich and Tony Levin, as well as an entirely solo set.

Among Rogers' tours, four of the most outstanding were the Harry Beckett Trio middle east tour in 1984, Evan Parker Trio tour of Rumania, Yugaslavia and Greece in 1985, First House tour of South America in 1986, and the Dennis Gonzales Band tour of the USA, featuring Carlos Ward and Tim Green in 1990."

"Olaf Rupp (*1963) plays Improvised Music on the acoustic and electric guitar. The organic flow of his music is controlled neither by chance nor by dominant, wilful decisions. In his music he explores how more or less dense murmurations of notes (motion-clusters) can be perceived as one agglomerated sound in motion. This means that every note is a dot in a higher matrix and its colour is more important than the position of that note in any hierarchic classification system. So a sequence of notes creates a moving sound, not a melody. And the intrinsic colour of every note is more important than the melodic or harmonic burden which the listener may or may not put on it.

Besides many cooperations five solo albums are published so far on the labels FMP, GROB and GLIGG. Olaf Rupp has been touring in many countries and performed with extraordinary musicians such as Paul Lovens, Tristan Honsinger, Peter Brötzmann, Butch Morris, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn und Michael Wertmüller. Important groups are among others XENOFOX, his duo with Rudi Fischerlehner, a Duo with cello player Ulrike Brand, DIE DICKEN FINGER with Oli Steidle and Jan Roder (also a quartet with Peter Brötzmann) and WEIRD WEAPONS with Tony Buck and Joe Williamson."

"Frank Paul Schubert is a saxophone player in the realms of Improvised Music and Contemporary Jazz.

Born in Neuss/Germany in 1965, he began to play the saxophone self-taught in 1982, took lessons with Lajos Dudas from 1988 to 1992, studied at Musikhochschule Aachen (classical saxophone repertoire as well as jazz) with Prof. Hugo Read from 1992 to 1996, and, after a short interlude in Aschaffenburg/Bavaria, moved to Berlin in 1999.

Schubert works regularly with Willi Kellers, Andreas Willers, Johannes Bauer, Matthias Müller, John Edwards, Mark Sanders, Uwe Oberg, Paul Dunmall, Alexander von Schlippenbach and many more (more detailed list see below). Besides his main project GRID MESH (see "projects"), he also collaborated with drummer Günter Baby Sommer from 2006 on.

Also in 2006 he started to work with trombonist Matthias Müller in several small group settings and finally in the duo FOILS, which since 2012 is expanded to the FOILS QUARTET with John Edwards and Mark Sanders.With Antonis Anissegos he has been playing since 2002. They released their duo CD "Phoobsering" in 2005.

Frank Paul Schubert is member of the Willi Kellers Trio (with Clayton Thomas) as well as the Willi Kellers Quartet feat. Paul Dunmall.Since 2009 he has been playing a series of duo concerts with pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach (in Amsterdam, Leipzig, Münster, Berlin) as well as frequent local small group gigs featuring Mr. von Schlippenbach.

Festival appearances include Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen, Ulrichsberg Kaleidophon, Sibiu Jazz&More, Madrid Hurta Cordel, Lisbon Jazz im Goethe Garten, Wiesbaden Just Music, Hamburg ElbJazz, JAZZDOR (Jazz d'Or) Offenburg, Greiz JazzWerk#9, Nordhäuser Jazzfest, Stuttgart Saxophonfestival and some more.Tours led him to Poland, Romania, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, UK, USA and Canada.He released several recordings on labels including Leo Records, NoBusiness Records, Red Toucan Records, FMR, Creative Sources, gligg, JazzHausMusik, KONNEX, farai-NRW.

Frank Paul had the pleasure to collaborate with many fine musicians including the following (in alphabetical order):Liz Allbee, Antonis Anissegos, Johannes Bauer, Simon Camatta, Anat Cohavi, Yorgos Dimitriadis, Paul Dunmall, John Edwards, Jörg Fischer, Rudi Fischerlehner, Gerhard Gschlössl, Paul Hubweber, Peter van Huffel, John Hughes, Klaus Janek, Hilary Jeffery, Kalle Kalima, Achim Kaufmann, Willi Kellers, Jan Klare, Meinrad Kneer, Andreas Krennerich, Burkard Kunkel, Klaus Kürvers, Lömsch Lehmann, Björn Lücker, Mike Majkowski, Christian Marien, Matthias Müller, Uwe Oberg, Olaf Rupp, Mark Sanders, Julie Sassoon, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Harri Sjöström, Günter Baby Sommer, Ricardo Tejero, Christof Thewes, Clayton Thomas, Andreas Willers."