SLAMCD224 Four Bop Drop – Four Bop Drop

Quirky improvising quartet made up of trumpeter Rob Gale, saxophonist Richard Powell, guitarist Nick Hamlyn and bassist Tony Bowring.

“More than any other kind, improvised music is about people. With no rules, no structure and no preconceived ideas, all that is left is personality…we each used an instrument that through many years of familiarity, had ceased to be something other, but had become a real extension of our own voices.” – Nick Hamlyn

Rob Gale: trumpet, flugelhorn
Richard Powell: alto saxophone
Nick Hamlyn: electric guitar
Tony Bowring: fretless bass

“Four Bop Drop’s lyrical abstractions and switched on improvisations are consistently rewarding and purposeful. There is a great sense of uninhibited enthusiasm and adventure about this recording, and while the combination of alto, trumpet, electric guitar and fretless bass, usually playing at once, gives their music a harmolodic spirit, they avoid the clutter of Prime Time, finding instead a coherence which allows them to move easily from the caterpulted notes of ‘Delighted Angels’ to the Giuffre-like delicacy of ‘Dusk Over Kingsthorpe’…their busy, alert playing is constantly striving to be both arresting and distinct. A feat they manage very well.” – Declan O’Driscoll, Rubberneck

Recorded at Far Heath Studios, Northampton, 5th December 1997 and Studio Big L, The Roadmenders, Northampton 22nd January 1997.

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