Tom Barford on early beginnings & pushing boundaries
AuB perform live at The Yard on 7th February
Join us to enjoy a night of innovation with AuB: a London-based twin-tenor quartet led by two young, ambitious saxophonists - Royal Academy of Music alumni, Tom Barford and Alex Hitchcock - intent on doing things differently.
Their compositions are uniquely enthralling, the pair integrating, interweaving and overlapping the output of their respective instruments - this complex interplay offset by hospitably catchy hooks - though they never compete to be heard, instead consistently collaborative, committed to allowing one another the necessary space for the steady ebb and flow of improvisational exploration.
Their self-titled debut was released last year on Edition Records to unanimously positive reviews and they’re about to start work on their second with a new cast of collaborators. As such, for this particular performance, Alex and Tom will be joined by special guests Jasper Høiby on bass and Marc Michel on drums.
Q. Do you remember how you first got into jazz?
Jazz was around me from an early age as my Dad and my grandparents loved Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. I was lucky enough to have a piano teacher at the age of 9 who was kind enough to lend me some of his CD's (Brecker, Coltrane, all the best stuff). I was also learning classical sax at the time but I wanted to learn how to play jazz saxophone. I moved to having lessons with the amazing Will Osborne (who I believe is coming up to this gig!) who taught me how to improvise, transcribe and improve my overall jazz playing. I believe Alex Hitchcock was in a similar position at the time with a great teacher.
Q. Tell us more about your decision to have two sax players in the band.
Our decision to have to play together as a group with two saxes came about after mine and Alex's time spent studying at the Royal Academy of Music. We had mutual admiration for each others playing and found that we would push each other to find new sounds/areas of our improvising that were previously maybe neglected so it made sense to want to play with each other more.
Q. Your playing always feels collaborative as opposed to combative or competitive. Is that intentional?
Ah that's a nice compliment, thanks! I wouldn't say that it's intentional but probably more of a result of our mutual respect and love of each others music. I also however think that competitiveness has almost always been at determent to the music as a whole. Who want's to hear two sax players attempt to one up each other?
Q. Here at NQ Jazz, we’re passionate about introducing jazz to a wider audience. Do you think innovation is essential to keeping the genre fresh and relevant?
Tricky question! I'm definitely a fan of attempting to push the boundaries of improvised music and to keep up with the ever evolving sounds that people are creating under the jazz bracket. This is something I always felt the greats did amazingly well, prime example being Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk. I believe this keeps the music exciting and maybe a bit more accessible as a result as opposed to spending your life playing songs written 70 years ago (although I do find this fun on the odd occasion too!).
Q. You’re due to start recording your next album at the start of 2022. What can you tell us about it?
Yes, we're heading into the studio the day after this gig actually! The album will feature the amazing talents of Jasper Hoiby, Marc Michel and Morgan Guerin. Myself and Alex have written the brand new set of music between us and we're delighted to have Alex Killpartrick engineering the session and mixing the album.
Q. What can our audience expect from your performance at The Yard on 7th February?
If you're coming to the gig on the 7th you can expect some debut performances of some original compositions, a few tracks from our previous album and some music of Jasper Hoiby's. To get a feel for our sound you can listen to our album AuB which was released on Ediiton Records back in May 2020.