Michael Fischer, John Edwards & Mark Sanders @ King’s Hall. Nov 10

Michael Fischer (tenor saxophone), John Edwards (double bass) & Mark Sanders (drums)

(Review by Russell)

Armstrong Building has largely been off limits over the last year or so. A refurbishment programme in advance of next year’s commemorative events marking Dr Martin Luther King’s 1967 visit to Newcastle University to receive an honorary doctorate made access to King’s Hall an impossibility. The popular lunchtime concert series relocated to a city centre site for the duration of the works, and now, at the start of the new academic year, musicians, and audiences, have returned to the historic building on Queen Victoria Road.

Today’s lunchtime treat featured improvising tenor saxophonist Michael Fischer, making his first visit to Newcastle, working in the company of two familiar names – John Edwards, double bass, and Mark Sanders, drums – in a performance spanning 45 minutes.

Concert programme notes stated the trio would be sharing the polylogical moment within the creational process. Would the King’s Hall audience share the experience? A premiere performance awaited, titled:

What, if we would have known, that…?

What, if we would have been interested in…?

For tenor saxophone, double bass and drum set (premier 2016)

That’s ‘premiere’ without the ‘e’…possibly lost somewhere in the polylogical.

Edwards and Sanders have played many gigs on Tyneside. Their sound is known to northeast audiences. What of Fischer? A ‘wired for sound’ tenor saxophone produced distorted vox humana through the reed, and when not blowing, key depressions were clearly heard (at times suspiciously rhythmic!). A bout of sub-Brötzmann tenor, a bout of listening, and that was Michael Fischer.  

Russell.