Ah yes, alas it has been a little while since we were nominated for any major music prizes but the BBC Jazz Awards have saved us! Hooray! We are nominated in the Innovation category.  Seeing as we all went out and bought lots of new clothes for the Mercury we really do want to get our full use of them at another awards ceremony if possible so we urge you to go and vote for us at:

www.bbc.co.uk/music/jazzawards2008

Thank you very much, kind people.

 

Hello,

We're on tour and I'm posting photos/videos/stories from our gigs and travels here:

http://www.royalartistclub.com/basquiatstrings

Or click on the little box below our biog and slideshow.

Just so you know.

GO AND LOOK AT THEM AND CHUCKLE TO YOURSELVES AT HOW AMUSING AND INTERESTING WE ALL ARE.

Thank you.

...Is Basquiat Strings! Hooray for us!

Here's what it says:

1 BASQUIAT STRINGS Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford (Fire) Mercury-prize jazz nominations usually have a whiff of tokenism about them, but not this time. The string ensemble led by the cellist Ben Davis, and powered by the unobtrusive drumming of Seb Rochford, create a genuine jazz-classical fusion. Clever originals jostle with the likes of Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman.

 

Nice. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article2961411.ece

Yay! We have made it into the Guardian's '1000 albums to hear before you die', the first part of which came out yesterday. There we are, under 'B', naturally, and it reads:

"Ben Davis's string quintet use jazz compositional methods to make something special.  Their arrangements and originals use stringed instruments as individual improvising voices, but they retain the massed gorgeousness of a string ensemble.  Rochford's drums add a quiet edge and groove, demonstrating that power has nothing to do with volume."

Couldn't have put it better myself.  Especially like the bit about 'massed gorgeousness' although I suspect they're referring to the sound rather than our striking good looks.

Other albums on the list so far include John Coltrane 'A Love Supreme', Bjork's debut album and Buena Vista Social Club, but we're pretty sure they've sold plenty already so you're probably best just to buy ours...

 

In case you missed our Electric Prom, here's a handy minute by minute account that somone has posted up on the BBC website. Strange to imagine that a man was sitting in the audience somewhere feverishly recording our every scrape via text, but apparently this is what people do these days... What he doesn't mention is that Ben introduced our special guests Simon Fell and Ellery Eskelin as "very naughty boys". Ben gets away with saying things like that because he is...sort of... 'Special'.

There's also some nice pics here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms/2007/artists/basquiatstrings/


Minute by minute report, via text message, by the BBC's Pete Marsh

21.43 - The Basquiats take the stage. They have 20 strings between them and Seb Rochford on the drums.

21.50 - If Bartok had heard Bossa Nova he may have come up with something like this.

22.00 - Cellist Ben Davis takes an extraordinary solo on new piece 'Jack and Jill' which starts off sounding like Janacek and ends up like King Crimson. Sort of.

22.10 - Saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and bassist Simon H. Fell join the fray, weaving dense, knotty bursts of free jazz in and out of the lush strings.

22.14 - The two double basses are locking horns. It's getting heavy. Eskelin's tenor blasts are threatening to take the paint off the walls.

22.20 - Ben promises a wild second set...

22.24 - Eskeiln kicks off the second set with a solo that sounds like Lester Young being attacked by ducks.

22.30 - They're moving seamlessly from written passages to skronky improv...

22.36 - Mr Fell is attacking his bass with a small cymbal. Don't try this at home...

22.42 - You might think that mixing baroque strings with free jazz is a silly idea. So did I until about 7 minutes ago.

22.48 - Now they're deconstructing Mahler. And it's gorgeous. Really.

22.56 - ...and then we're back to the hard stuff...

23.05 - And they finish with a beautifully bizarre mash-up that hoovers up about 27 different genres and spits them out in a joyous, tender blast. Fab!

TIME OUT, OCTOBER 2007:

"Where a lot of string players can sound like sonic tourists wandering around lost with only a bad guide book (a dodgy score) to lead them, the BS swing, groove and improvise with the best of them."

SUNDAY TIMES, FEBRUARY 25, 2007

BASQUIAT STRINGS
Four stars
Basquiat Strings
Fire FIRE CD 18

The most interesting disc to emerge so far from the London-based Fire turns out to be an extension of that most traditional of forms, the string quartet. Augmented by Richard Pryce's double bass and the exceptionally subtle drumming of the cult figure Seb Rochford, Ben Davis's group proves that it really is possible for string players to coexist with the spirit of improvisation. Lonely Woman undergoes a rapt and all-too-brief metamorphosis, but it is Davis's original compositions that make the strongest impression. Basquiat Strings could just turn out to be one of the most unlikely successes of the year. CD


THE GUARDIAN, FRIDAY FEBRUARY 23, 2007

Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford, Basquiat Strings
Four stars
(F-IRE)

John L Walters
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian

With the Arke String Quartet, Gogmagogs, Tin Hat, John Metcalf and others, we're in a golden age for string bands. Cellist Ben Davis and his quintet Basquiat Strings have taken their time before releasing their first album, but it's worth the wait. Because these classically trained string players have grown up alongside non-classical musicians, their use of jazz compositional methods, rhythms and improvisation is not at all forced: they rock.

Davis's fine tunes include the spiky Double Dares and the intense Junk. These are augmented by standards: Infant Eyes (Shorter), In A Silent Way (Zawinul) and a brilliant interpretation of Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman.Drummer Seb Rochford adds effective, self-effacing drum parts, and the quintet lineup means that Rochford and bassist Richard Pryce can work as a rhythm team behind the others when needed. Basquiat feels like a real, gigging band, with great solos from all players, and Davis is a star.

Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford live

GUARDIAN Live review published 3 Sept 2007.

Jazz

Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford

Pigalle, London, Friday 31 August 2007

**** (four stars)

For the Mercury-nominated Basquiat Strings this is the best of times. Since the nomination announcement, the live bookings and album sales have been rolling in. The Mercury (results announced on Tuesday 4 Sept) is a win-win proposition, since they have scored a considerable victory for their string-driven creative music. But here at the Pigalle (playing opposite the feelgood Congo Faith Healers), it's a no-win situation. Parked just a few metres from the stage are several tables of revellers, noisily ignoring the band - who might have well been turntables. Those who are here for the music have to sit further away.

Yet the Basquiats are amazingly stoic, playing their complex, moving numbers with great finesse. They open with the driving Junk and segue confidently into Bobette, both from the album Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford (F-IRE). How Do Birds Hear Music, with its Psycho-like stabs from violinist Emma Smith, is another composition by laid-back leader and cellist Ben Davis.

Davis's arrangement of Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman is intense and dense, while his re-invention of Infant Eyes finds additional emotion in the gorgeous chords of Wayne Shorter's 1960s tune (though the quiet, improvised solo cello introduction slips under the noise floor).

The Basquiats play two new titles including Ten Pin Bowling, a showy number with "big band" sections reminiscent of Harry Lookofsky's experiments. It's on pieces like this, and Forceful Beast, that they're closest to a regular jazz group; Davis and violinist Vicky Fifield solo very effectively over the swinging bass and drums.

They finish the gig with Double Dares, starting with a nicely dirty cello riff before digging hard into its gritty ensemble theme. This tune makes the most of Rochford's range of sounds and drum feels, and the band play with great confidence, communicating to anyone prepared to listen.

John L. Walters

DROWNED IN SOUND album review
by Ben Yates

There's a definite charm in the debut album from Ben Davis' Basquiat Strings group. The band brings together a somewhat idiosyncratic mix of jazz and classical, propelled by a string quintet and the rhythmic drive of jazz drummer Seb Rochford (Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland). It's a project which, if left in the wrong hands, could sound horribly average. These players are prodigious talents though, and their unlikely take on modern jazz is much more than just a gimmicky ploy for attention.
The F-IRE collective is a jazz community based in the UK which promotes and aids musicians to spread their talent. Basquiat Strings and its members are a part of this collective, so it's no surprise to hear consistent quality in their art. Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford is a result of years of well-honed musicianship, the close listening of modern jazz, and a desire to take their music forward. The album is the result of logical experimentalism; the work of a string quintet who think freely, a group of individuals who are able to not only adapt, but to transform themselves into a group comfortable in uncharted territory.
The band's astute playing is best heard on the album's opener. 'Double Dares' is a tightly woven song full of frenetic energy, styled by continually changing layers of violin, cello and double bass, and set to the forward march of Rochford's rhythmic appendage. It's an exciting track, not least because of its urgency to set out its clearly defined aims for the record. The group's collective love for modern jazz is re-affirmed in their covers of Wayne Shorter's 'Infant Eyes' and Ornette Coleman's 'Lonely Woman'. Aside from this, their self-styled take on jazz sounds akin to a Mingus record in the way the songs have been constructed.
Having someone as prolific as Rochford on the album may well have garnered the project more attention from the press. However, the drummer isn't the star of the show here. It is, in fact, the players of the string section who come across as the most noteworthy. They take the heart of jazz and carry it to new places. Forward thinking has rarely been this engaging.
Basquiat Strings 8 / 10

Whilst browsing many strange and varied blogs about the Mercury Prize, I came across this amusing and most sarcastic description of Basquiat Strings:

"Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford: Basquiat Strings (After their worldwide, three year sell-out tour of the world's biggest music venues, performing to millions of screaming hysterical fans and staying at number one in every music chart in the world for six calender months, selling more records than The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley put together, the debauched megastars of the Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford will be looking forward to spending time with the little people of the Mercury Prize)"

I don't know who the person is that wrote it but I like it.

e.x

P.S. - oh, the other amusing thing that someone recently wrote about us is that we sound like we are playing the theme tune to Faulty Towers. Permanently.

Well, it seems our album has been nominated for the Mercury Prize.

HOOORRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice.

Now all of you go out and buy it. Go on.

(please)

x