Iconic sax maestro Phillip Johnston comes to the Republic for the first time with an extraordinary quartet to celebrate the music of the great Steve Lacy among other wonderful things...

Phillip Johnston (soprano/alto saxophone)
Peter Farrar (alto saxophone)
Tim Clarkson (tenor saxophone)
James Loughnan (saxophone)

Phillip Johnston's SAXOPHONE SPECIAL

SUNDAY September 17th
at 7.30 p.m. [doors at 7]

In 2021, Saxophone Special performed two concerts to celebrate the release of of Steve Lacy (Unfinished), a 400-page tri-lingual book celebrating the life and music of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, for which Phillip Johnston arranged a program of saxophone quartet arrangements of music by Lacy, including excerpts from his 1975 LP of saxophone quartet music, Saxophone Special.

This evening at the People’s Republic this music will be performed for the first time since then, along with other arrangements of Lacy music and some of Johnston’s own new music for saxophone quartet composed and/or arranged during the COVID quarantine.

Phillip Johnston’s Saxophone Special (the saxophone quartet) asks the musical question, what happens if you take the front line of a repertory ensemble that plays arrangements and homages to the historical jazz of the 1920s and 30s, and make them play modernist repertoire, without the rhythm section?

Phillip Johnston has been performing Steve Lacy’s music since the late 1970s. He has obsessively arranged and re-arranged Lacy’s solo tune ‘Hemline’ for different ensembles for the last 40 years. It will, of course, be played at these concerts.

Phillip was born in 1955 in Chicago and during the 1970s in New York he began playing with musicians such as John Zorn, Joel Forrester, Eugene Chadbourne, Bill Horvitz, Wayne Horvitz, Dave Hofstra, Richard Dworkin, Shelley Hirsch and many others. In the early 1980s he was participating in countless musical projects and various ‘Downtown’ music scenes and began writing music for film, theatre and dance. He wrote for films including Doris Dörrie’s Geld (1989), Philip Haas’s The Music of Chance (1993), and Paul Mazursky’s Faithful (1996) and in 1993 created his first original score for silent film, for Tod Browning’s The Unknown (1926) which was premiered at the American Museum of the Moving Image. In 2001 he formed Fast ‘N’ Bulbous: the music of Captain Beefheart, with ex-Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas. In 2002 his score for F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926), commissioned by the Lincoln Center Film Society, premiered at the New York Film Festival. Throughout most of the early 2000s, he worked on Drawn To Death: A Three Panel Opera with Art Spiegelman. In 2005, he moved to Sydney with his wife, Australian playwright Hilary Bell, and their two children. In Australia, he writes music for theatre and film and has played with an A list of Australian jazz musicians including Lloyd Swanton, Alister Spence, Nic Cecire, Matt McMahon, Chris Abrahams, Peter Dasent, Jex Saarelaht, Phil Slater, James Greening, and Sandy Evans, among others.

Peter Farrar is known for his combination of dazzling technique and sublime tone and one of Australia’s most respected young saxophonists. Peter has performed with leading Australian and international artists including Mike Nock, Dale Gorfinkel, Jim Denley, Amanda Stewart, Wadada Leo Smith and Cor Fuhler...

Tim Clarkson has appeared with a diverse array of world-class performers in Australia, the USA and Canada, including George Benson, The Temptations, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, blues legends Russell Jackson, Chris Kleeman and Bob Stannard (B.B. King), and in Australia he composes for his own projects and performs with multi-ARIA award winning ‘MARA!’, Dan Barnett Big Band, and the Dave Panichi Big Band.

James Loughnan is a journeyman saxophonist in the Australian jazz scene, playing in big bands and small groups. He is co-leader of Felucca and The Acronym Orchestra, as well as working with The Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra, Cumbiamuffin, James Morrison and Dan Barnett. James is also busy as a session musician, with credits including Guy Sebastian, Aloe Blacc, TLC, Friendly Fires, and the Hilltop Hoods.

ALL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC EVENTS ARE FREE
WITH GENEROUS DONATIONS INVITED
AND ENCOURAGED

PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS A CASH-ONLY EVENT
SO PLEASE BRING ALONG PLENTY
OF THOSE QUAINT COLOURED RECTANGLES

PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL ADDRESS A.S.A.P. FOR FULL DETAILS AND TO CONFIRM YOUR ATTENDANCE

OUR EVENTS ARE B.Y.O.
please bring along any beverages you wish
but no food is allowed