SFQ ••••(•)
compositions and arrangements for quintet/quartet by Simon H. Fell
press quotes
• "Outstanding. Simon Fell is at the forefront of developing musical structures which release - rather than constrain - his collaborators." Jez Nelson JAZZ ON 3, BBC RADIO 3
• Thirteen Rectangles by SFQ nominated for the 'new work' award; BBC Jazz Awards 2002
• "Captured in one breathtaking take, Thirteen Rectangles is an exceptional work. The music draws jazz, free improvisation and post-serial composition into the same gravitational field, where they hybridise and mutate. This complex, stimulating simultaneity sets up exhilarating juxtapositions and conjunctions that rise through the music's continually shifting layers. Fell strives to actualise the music he wants to hear but which doesn't yet exist. His creative vision and individual labour might prepare the ground, but it's the personality and abilities of the performers that bring his concept to fruition. He's fortunate to have such dedicated, ingenious collaborators, who each bring a distinctive slant to unlock the composition's abundant potential." THE WIRE
• "In the context of Sonic Youth's embrace of 'noise', where a mistaken - hazy and depoliticised - notion of '60s freedom has been mixed with dubious poses derived from the Velvet Underground and marketed as 'avant', bassist/composer Simon Fell's crystalline music is like a bucket of water so chill it's icy. The way quasi-traditional forms break into abstraction is seamless. Fell hears the pressures and tensions of modernists like Varèse and Feldman in jazz, so this is not some polystylistic experiment in collage and the music is mercifully free of the tongue-in-cheek smartness of the downtown crew. The last time anything as pure as Rectangle10 was recorded in England, it was by Joe Harriott. Today's scene badly needs this earnestness." HIFI NEWS
• "Unmissable." THE GUARDIAN
• "A witty, swinging and joyfully audacious synthesis of free improvisation, experimental jazz and modernist composition." LMC
• "Fell is one of the most interesting and consistently successful composers working with improvisers today." RESONANCE
• "For those unfamiliar with Fell, he is one of England's and perhaps the world's most creative bassists and composers. Simply put, Thirteen Rectangles is a major work and thus, is one of the most important releases of 2002. I found it to be a rewarding listen and frankly, have reached the conclusion that Fell has truly created his masterpiece." CADENCE
• "By any account, Simon Fell is one of the most important musicians working today. Recorded in one take, Thirteen Rectangles' mutable amalgam of improvisation and composition can swing like mad or move into thorny freedom with split-second shifts of direction as the focus moves around the ensemble. This is a startling and exhilarating work that easily shoots to the top of any list of the year's best releases." SIGNAL TO NOISE
• "With this two-disc set of quintets and quartets (Four Compositions), composer/bassist Simon Fell demonstrates that his brilliant eclecticism is as vibrant as ever. This may be "difficult" music, but it is also exuberant." Walter Horn BAGATELLEN
• "Bassist/composer Simon H. Fell is one of the leading lights of the British improv scene. Possessed with both striking ambition and a bounty of talent, Fell has been involved with a wealth of projects of all shapes and sizes, perhaps most significantly The London Improvisers Orchestra and the Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio. Four Compositions is another in a series of not-to-be-missed records from the courageous Fell. Utilizing his broad influences, Fell has crafted these statements into a singular vision that is both a challenge and delight for listener and performer alike. If you miss this one, you are missing out big time." Jay Collins ONE FINAL NOTE
• "With an ensemble so perfectly in tune with the composer's conception, one would be hard pressed to distinguish the improvised from the composed on these pieces. For those looking for the future of creative improvised music, Four Compositions is a must-have album." Troy Collins CADENCE
• "The quartet (Composition No. 70: Liverpool Quartet) pursues the close dialogue between compositional blocks and improvisation pioneered by Anthony Braxton, but is here realised with a finesse, commitment and undimmed personality which put Braxton's recent student bands to shame. Indeed, some of Ward's quick turns - wild humour and fierce speculation Chinese-puzzled into inextricable knots - will have you gawping. Not just important music but a mighty hinge for the future of jazz." Ben Watson HIFI NEWS
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SFQ – Simon Fell's composition-based small groups SFQ1 SFQ2 SFQ 3
excerpt from an interview with Simon Fell in JazzLive magazine no. 121 (Austria 1998):
"But the grouping I really want to get to grips with over the next few years is the 'classic' jazz quartet/quintet arrangement: wind instrument(s), piano, bass & drums. You'll have gathered from previous answers that the Coltrane Quartet, Braxton's Quartets and several others have been tremendously important to me. For years I've been tiptoeing around this format, doing almost anything but a 'quartet', but I think the time is right for me to try and address some of my compositional ideas to this most dear of formats. It's like a classical composer writing a string quartet, or a poet writing a sonnet; it's not something to be taken lightly, and you don't approach it until you feel you have something to contribute to the genre. Of course, I don't want to recreate what already exists, so it will be far from a 'jazz group', but it will certainly swing when needs be! Naturally, finding the right musicians could be difficult, but I do have a few ideas. Goodness knows when you'll start to see any results, but this is where my energy will be going for a while....."
The SFQ series addresses this aspiration; small-scale, regularly performing units which enable Fell to bring his compositional theories and discoveries to bear on an organic, flexible group, featuring some of the finest musicians available. The first Fell-led performing units since Persuasion in the mid- to late-eighties, SFQ sees Fell returning to his love of contemporary and experimental small-group jazz-derived composition.
SFQ1: Alex Ward, Gail Brand, Alex Maguire, Simon Fell & Simon Vincent, then Steve Noble (1999 - 2003)
SFQ2: Alex Ward, Guy Llewellyn, Simon Fell & Mark Sanders (2004 - 2010)
SFQ3: Alex Ward, Richard Comte, Simon Fell & Mark Sanders (2011 - present)
sound samples:
some press responses to other Fell composition projects:
"The debate about 2lst-century music starts right here." HIFI NEWS & RECORD REVIEW
" Music of a passion and originality unusual in Britain." THE GUINNESS ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC
"It's hard to think of anybody in the UK among the jazz-related musicians of his generation.....who is working on this scale and with such audacious inventiveness." THE WIRE
"The sharpest dialogue between composition and improvisation realised by any English composer." RESONANCE
"Composition No. 12.5 is a remarkable piece of work. In short, we have a potential classic here.....Brilliant." THE WIRE
"Some of the most vivid and creative improvisation/composition fusions in recent times." THE PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ ON CD, LP & CASSETTE
" Fell's serialist tenets are radically energised by the shades of Mingus and Dolphy, while the baggy excesses which can mar jazz or extended free improvisation have been pared away, leaving finely variegated and beautifully balanced compositions." THE WIRE
" Remarkable for its ambitious objective as well as the means employed, Composition No. 30 must be recognised as a significant event for British jazz." IMPROJAZZ
"Two hours of music, 42 musicians, one mad genius at its centre. I am starting to believe that Simon H. Fell is one of the most important composers alive, and releases like Composition No. 30 just make the case more cut-and-dried by the minute." RESONANCE
"The monumental Composition No. 30, is an important monument in the history of late 20th Century music. In this single piece one finds not only Ives, Webern, Cage, Ligeti, Partch, and Boulez, but also Ellington, Mingus, Sousa, Sun Ra, and even a little urban blues. It's as if all of Braxton's varied and copious output were microscoped into one audacious work for large ensemble. Fell seems to me to have created a piece of music on the level of Boulez' Pli Selon Pli and Ives' Holidays Symphony. Fell's Composition No.30 for Improvisers, Big Band and Chamber Ensemble is nothing less than a summing up and distillation of the experimental strains of Western music at the end of the millennium. It's a resounding success; a modern masterpiece. Composition No. 30 should not only be considered as one of the top ten recordings of the year, but (move over all you Cardews, Birtwistles and Ferneyhoughs!) as one of the most important musical works to come out of Britain since the Sixties." CADENCE
"Listening to this music, I feel as if it is an inexhaustible document - that there is more substance, more happening than I could ever take in. Composition No. 30 is truly a land-mark recording in contemporary music." SIGNAL TO NOISE
"Composition No. 30 is the lifetime masterpiece by a major contemporary musician - except, of course, Fell is hopefully going to be delivering much more music to us yet." THE PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ ON CD