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Paul Edis
keyboards
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Mark
Williams
guitar
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Graeme Wilson
tenor &
baritone sax
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Andy Champion
double
bass
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Adrian Tilbrook
drums
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The new album - Busk is now available on CD and to download from the Babel Label website here.
"On Busk, you’ll hear hints of Canterbury-style Prog rock, weightless free Improv, deep modal swing, and sensitive balladry, delivered by a group at the height of its powers. With all but one of the tunes written by Champion, it signals the next step in the emergence of not just a tough and maneuverable group-mind, but also a serious and focused compositional talent.
With pristine production by Chris Sharkey (genre-busting guitarist with trioVD and Acoustic Ladyland), Busk is the sound of a group coming of age, spreading its wings and preparing to soar. Now not even the sky is the limit." - Babel Label
"...showing a terrific variety of approaches that joins the dots between
current developments, Maiden Voyage-era Herbie Hancock and even prog rock." - Jazz UK
"...a fusion of ferocity, free expression but most of all a great feeling
for experimental music...One moment you can be listening to a tender embrace and then be transported into a
flurrying frenzy culminating in a musical mastermind and this can happen just within one
track." - Leeds Guide
"...a distinctive group sound and identity...ACV are looking for
something altogether darker and more organic and they succeed brilliantly." - Ian Mann
(thejazzman.com)
"...there's much to enjoy in the nicely varied approaches that the band employs collectively, from What's For Breakfast's cunning balance of hectic improvisation and strict discipline to Dust Red's relaxed, implied Latin feel to Fail In Wood's determinedly tough tunefulness, and in their individual skills." - Herald Scotland
"...Champion exemplifies his breadth of bass playing techniques, nevertheless allowing freedom amongst all of the musicians, yet always ensuring a tight ensemble. It is evident that the members of ACV are top-class musicians and despite varying in musical backgrounds they come together as one...Altogether Completely Virtuosic." - Plush Magazine
Bassist Andy Champion launched his quintet ACV in 2009, to play compositions reflecting his wide musical interests, drawing on influences as diverse as prog rock and free improvisation, but with jazz always at the heart. The result is a distinctive band sound and identity, where tight arrangements are peppered with insistent, rhythmic unison passages and ferocity, but also with more introspective moments, always melodic and direct.
To realize his expansive musical vision it was essential that Andy recruit players with the willingness to explore new directions, and with the skills to navigate the twists and turns of his compositions. Having worked with each of his hand picked collaborators in other contexts, he recognized that each of them could bring different interests to the mix, with ACV as the melting pot in which these could be forged into something new and distinctive.
ACV perform extensively across the UK and have appeared at prestigious festivals and venues such as Sage Gateshead International Jazz Festival, Manchester Jazz Festival, Swanage Jazz Festival, Stockton International Riverside
Festival and the Vortex Jazz Club. They have also been featured on BBC Radio's Jazz On 3, UK Jazz Radio and Sine
FM.
In March 2010, ACV released their debut album, "Fail In Wood", on the
Jazzaction label.
2013 will see the release of their second album, produced by Chris Sharkey (Trio VD/Acoustic Ladyland) on the Babel Label. Stay tuned for news on its release.
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Andy Champion graduated from Newcastle College in 1998, initially working throughout the UK and Europe as a electric bassist and drummer in various styles of music. But after taking up double bass in 2003 he became more heavily involved in the North East jazz and improvised music scene, rapidly building a reputation that has led to recording and performing with top names such as Bob Mintzer, Tim Garland, Jason Yarde and Andy Sheppard. As an improviser he has played alongside major international figures including Marc Ducret, Marilyn Crispell, Matt Maneri and Eugene Chadbourne, and was invited to perform at the 2008 and 2009 editions of the ‘On The Outside’ Festival. In addition to touring extensively across the UK with ACV, he also performs with jazz vocalist Zoë Gilby, and has become a respected name on the national scene. |
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Saxophonist Graeme Wilson, based in Tyneside since moving from his native Scotland in 2005, shares Andy’s enthusiasm for the whole spectrum of jazz from the straightahead to the freely improvised, appearing on the one hand with John Warren's Splinter Group, vocalist Ruth Lambert, and the Paul Edis Sextet, and on the other with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, of which he is a founder member, and with whom he has recorded and collaborated with Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Barry Guy and George Lewis amongst others. He is also an enthusiast for the saxophone quartet, performing regularly with Tyneside group Saxophonics, releasing two albums with the international improvising quartet Rich In Knuckles, and composing extensively for the format (including the suite Harbour Associations commissioned by An Tobar Arts Centre on the Isle of Mull). |
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Guitarist Mark Williams also shares enthusiasms with Andy, but in his case it’s a continuing love of the Metal bands with whom they both grew up, Andy in Gateshead and Mark in Belfast. Mark moved to North East England in 2000 to study at Newcastle College, and has remained on Tyneside ever since, becoming one of the most in demand guitarists on the regional jazz scene. While he has proved to be a restrained and extremely sympathetic accompanist for vocalists such as Zoë Gilby and Ruth Lambert, he needs little encouragement to launch into more frenetic flights with ACV and with his own trio. |
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Keyboards player Paul Edis, a familiar figure on the North East Jazz scene, is perhaps the most 'straightahead' member of Andy’s quintet, with a comprehensive knowledge and love of the jazz piano tradition much in evidence in his own sextet. But his willingness to build imaginatively on those foundations has made him an ideal partner for top players like Tim Garland, Julian Siegel and Tony Kofi, and it’s this quality of rooted adventurousness that makes him a key member of ACV, keeping the jazz flag flying through all the music’s multi-directional excursions. |
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Finally drummer Adrian Tilbrook is the man who underpins the music’s drive and fractured swing. Adrian’s career goes back to the 1970s, when he toured Europe with blues giant Alexis Korner and replaced Tony Hicks in the seminal jazz-rock trio Back Door. In 1984 he formed Full Circle with trombonist Rick Taylor, but two years later he was appointed as jazz development officer for the North East, under the banner of JazzAction. This severely curtailed his leadership and touring activities, although he remained drummer of choice for a host of visiting musicians including such iconic figures as Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, Al Grey, Jimmy Witherspoon and Art Farmer. But his JazzAction work has involved his mentoring a succession of regional jazz players, including Andy Champion, with whom he forged such a close musical rapport that he was the automatic choice for the drum chair when Andy was putting together his dream team for ACV. |
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