Clear Frame on BBC Jazz on Three 2005

Here's one of Lol Coxhill's later collaborations, Clear Frame, a quartet given to free improvisation and broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Jazz on Three. Thanks to JD for taping this concert and providing the info below.

CLEAR FRAME in session

Recorded by the BBC and broadcast on March 4, 2005

LOL COXHILL - soprano sax
HUGH HOPPER - bass
CHARLES HEYWARD - drums
ORPHY ROBINSON - percussion, vibes, steel pans, thumb piano, talking drum, shakers & bells, electronics

1. Alligator Clip
2. The Way We Weren't
3. Improv
4. Improv

Jazz on 3 presents an exclusively recorded session by British quartet Clear Frame. The group, made up of ex-Soft-Machine bassist, Hugh Hopper, Charles Hayward on drums, Orphy Robinson on percussion and steel drums, and saxophonist, Lol Coxhill, held their first major performance at the London Jazz Festival in November 2004).

 As the name suggests, Clear Frame begin each session with a blank canvas, using their considerable collective experience to work off each other and build a truly organic piece. As Orphy Robinson puts it, "expect the unexpected."

Hopper and Hayward add a fusionist element, Robinson adds colour and Coxhill adds himself. Somewhat of  a latter-day Soft Machine feel to this. Robert Wyatt was supposed to partake, playing cornet, but I can't hear any evidence of that on these pieces.