Anton Hunter
Article XI

THE REVIEW

Anton Hunter is a British jazz composer and guitarist. He was born and lives in Manchester, where he is considered one of the most important musicians in the genre for the entire county and the North West of England. His main project is the Anton Hunter Trio, completed by James Adolpho and his brother (drummer) Johnny Hunter, but he is currently involved in at least a dozen other projects and collaborations. Improvisation forms the heart of his way of making music, and since 2007 he has founded a genuine experimental center of free-improvisation called The Noise Upstairs and (together with saxophonists Ben Cottrell and Sam Andreae) has founded a small record label: Efpi Records.

It is precisely on Efpi Records that this album titled "Article XI" was released, which picks up live recordings dating back to 2014. Article XI is an ensemble formed by Anton Hunter commissioned by the Manchester Jazz Festival in 2014. The seven compositions proposed here (all conceived by Anton) constituted a suite of an hour presented at the festival at Manchester’s Central Library on July 24, 2014, and at the Vortex in London on July 27 following during the UK tour that followed the event. The experimental cut given to the compositions is certainly unusual for a big band that Anton wanted without a piano, composed of a seven-piece wind section. Instead of carving out a leading role for himself (apart from "Innards of Atoms"), Hunter skillfully serves the ensemble in long dramatic big band sessions such as "Retaken," the more conventional jazz "Peaceful Assembly," the minimalism of "C# Makes the World a Better Place," and the Lounge Lizards experimentalism of "I Dreamed I Spat Out A Bee," up to the unleashed free-jazz of "Not the Kind of Jazz You Like."

In practice, the disc and the project constitute a true homage to Article Eleven of the European Convention on Human Rights ("Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests"), a strong symbolic meaning that brought the ensemble closer to the Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra and an important musician like Albert Ayler. Generally less interested in big bands and more conventional jazz, I think that this album, due to its particular beauty (perhaps also for its conceptual content that is skillfully developed and implemented here), can satisfy any kind of audience and listener.