I've been told today of, sadly, the death of the trombonist Paul Rutherford in the last few days. We don't get to talking much about free improvisation on this board - we don't even have a section for it - but Paul was (in my view) one of the finest this country has produced and a quite staggering trombonist. He'll be much missed.

That's a really great shame - as well as his fantastic work as an improvisers, I remember him doing a fabulous performance of Xenakis's Keren.

There was a story about PR's play of Berio's Sequenza for trombone, where a member of the audience told him afterwards that he gave the best perf of this work that he.she ever heard, when it turned out that he only played the first five notes of it. Not sure if it's true or not.

Paul's work was a beautiful and humbling example of what a creative and committed musician can achieve, without compromise or bullshit. He was given little recognition or thanks for this. At least there are sufficient recordings to bear witness to it.

Yes indeed, autoharp, and here's some more info for those who are interested which came to me today from Martin Davidson of the Emanem CD label, which has released a number of Paul's recordings over the years (and I'm sure there are more to come):

Paul Rutherford was found dead in his flat in S.E. London on August 5.  The cause of death was sclerosis of the liver and a ruptured aorta.
 
Paul was one of the pioneers of free improvisation, and many consider him to have been the finest trombonist and one of the finest improvisers in the area.  He was certainly a very distinctive musician – many players had been influenced by him to some degree (not only trombonists), but no one sounded anything like him.  Among his most important performances were his unaccompanied solos, and those in his trio Iskra 1903 that contained Barry Guy and either Derek Bailey or Philipp Wachsmann.  He was a gentle, kind man with an outrageous sense of humour, and will be sorely missed.  However, he also suffered from bouts of depression, and was frustrated that he was not recognised more widely.
 
For those who are able to attend, the funeral will be on Thursday August 16 at 10:30 am at Lewisham Crematorium in Hither Green Cemetery on Verdant Lane, London SE6 1JX.  [The nearest station is Grove Park (trains from Charing Cross, Waterloo East & London Bridge). From there, it is about a 20 minute walk, or buses 124 or 284 can be boarded from the bus stop in Downham Way.]

And I know I've said this here and at TOP several times since I first heard it last year, but the triple CD Chapter Two by Iskra 1903 (Rutherford/Wachsmann/Guy) is in my opinion one of the great improvised-music recordings, one of the things I trot out to disprove the notion that this music is structurally simplistic, directionless and reliant on routine in comparison with notated music. It's also one of the most successful recordings I've heard of instrumental improvisation with live electronic "signal processing", despite the fact that the recordings are from the early 1980s and therefore presumably involve analogue gear rather than computers.

Must get 'Chapter Two' sometime. 'Chapter One' is def in the one of the few very great improv music recordings for me.

We'd better get that straightened out!

The correction came from the same source as the original time, which is why I thought it was authoritative enough to post it.