John Edwards
John Edwards, born in 1964, is a double bassist from London and one of the most in-demand players in European improvised music. His staggering range of techniques, bowed and plucked, percussive and vocal, and his boundless imagination have redefined what the instrument can do and widened its role, whether he plays solo or in a group. He came up through the London scene of the late 1980s and 1990s, and his partnership with the drummer Mark Sanders, in trios with Evan Parker and many others, is one of the great rhythm sections of free music.
John Edwards, born in 1964, is a double bassist from London and one of the most in-demand players in European improvised music. His staggering range of techniques, bowed and plucked, percussive and vocal, and his boundless imagination have redefined what the instrument can do and widened its role, whether he plays solo or in a group. He came up through the London scene of the late 1980s and 1990s, and his partnership with the drummer Mark Sanders, in trios with Evan Parker and many others, is one of the great rhythm sections of free music.
Member of: SETT
In The Know
In 2022 drummer Tollef Østvang enlisted veteran English improvisers Trevor Watts and John Edwards, to form a new trio, as a commission from the Motvind festival.
From the get-go, the three unleashed a remarkably unified onslaught of blissful intensity. Luckily the band felt just as excited as the audience, and since their initial offering in the middle of the Norwegian woods, the group has since embarked on several European tours; further sharpening their razor-sharp interplay.
Their debut relea…
Felix
The great master, improvisational pianist, and musical polymath Steve Beresford; John Edwards, one of the most important double bassists on the global free improv scene; and Mandhira de Saram, an exquisite violinist and former member of the renowned Ligetti Quartet, come together. “Felix” is the recording debut of this trio, which, since its formation a few years ago, has become a regularly performing ensemble. Recorded at London’s Vortex club in January of last year, the album demonstrates how …
Because It Happens
„Not So Late / Because it Happens“ on CD and „Because it Happens“ on LP is the material recorded live on August 5th 2025 in London at legendary Cafe OTO. Three masters of improvisation: Mikołaj Trzaska on saxophone, John Edwards on double bass and Mark Sanders on drums. They don't use the term "improvisation," preferring instead to speak of "live composition" and the audience, who are an essential component of the concert ritual. The community created by the performers and the audience's attenti…
Sharp Illusion
The boundary-pushing trio known as Last Dream Of The Morning – featuring soprano saxophone titan John Butcher, double bass maestro John Edwards, and percussion innovator Mark Sanders – proudly announces the release of their electrifying new album, Sharp Illusion. This recording captures the group's unparalleled chemistry in a whirlwind of spontaneous sonic invention.
Emerging from a legacy of fearless improvisation, Sharp Illusion distills the trio's decades of collaborative fire into six tracks…
Choreography Of Fractures
Fundacja Słuchaj proudly announces the release of Choreography of Fractures, a searing new album from the powerhouse trio of bassist John Edwards, trumpeter Luis Vicente, and drummer Vasco Trilla. This recording captures the unbridled intensity of live improvisation, where fractures in sound become portals to profound musical discovery.
In Choreography of Fractures, Edwards, Vicente, and Trilla forge a sonic landscape that dances on the edge of chaos and control. Edwards' thunderous double bass …
Obliquity
2025 stock Obliquity is a free jazz record, if you'll forgive the use of such a hoary, old fashioned phrase. Its scorching, heads-down momentum, rhythm and drive places it in direct line of descent from the fierce originators of the genre: Ayler, Sanders, Graves, Frank Wright. It also swings. At times it dances.
Obliquity is a free jazz record through the prism of the improvisational movement in Europe, though. This is no attempt at polite revivalism or looking back/up to the 1960s. Wilkinson/Ed…
3 Of A Kind (Live At Iklectik)
2025 stock The trio of Wilkinson, Edwards and Noble continue to plot their course ever outward and ever upward. These new songs, recorded in South London at that wonderful performance space - at the heart of the improve scene here at this moment - Iklectik , are the very beating heart of improvised music. It’s not that they are good, or even representative – such relative terms fail to express the continuum of which these sounds are a key part. This is music that evades the strictures of scienti…
Monster
A sensational quartet that was created by Free Music Forum in Austria. Joe McPhee is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, conceptualist and theoretician. He is currently the member of Trio X, Survival Unit III and has collaborated with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Raymond Boni, The Thing, Trespass Trio, and Universal Indians among many others. With a career spanning nearly 50 years and over 100 recordings, he continues to tour internationally, forge new connections a…
Obliquity
2007 release ** "Obliquity is a free jazz record, if you'll forgive the use of such a hoary, old-fashioned phrase. Its scorching, heads-down momentum, rhythm and drive, places it in direct line of descent from the fierce originators of the genre: Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Milford Graves, and Frank Wright. It also swings. At times it dances. Obliquity is a free jazz record through the prism of the improvisational movement in Europe, though. This is no attempt at polite revivalism or looking …
This Is Not Speculation
Long-time collaborators and legends of the British improvised music scene, the great saxophone virtuoso John Butcher and the master of the double bass John Edwards, join forces in a duet journey through a fascinating land of sounds, sometimes undiscovered, sometimes impossible, and always breathtaking.
Colapesce
"Colapesce” is an album that delves into the dark and mysterious depths of the Sicilian legend, reinterpreting it through a contemporary and experimental lens. Colapesce, the legendary man-fish who sacrifices himself to support Sicily, becomes a symbol of resilience, metamorphosis, and sacrifice. The album blends elements of free jazz, musique concrète, electronic music, and radical improvisation to evoke an underwater journey into the unknown, amidst sound waves and unfathomable abysses.
This w…
SoundScapes Festival # 4 Berlin 2023
"Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström has been calling Berlin home for nearly 40 years, and for over 10 of them, he has been organizing concerts at venues around the city, featuring a who-is-who of the city's rich improvisation scene and beyond, under the title "SoundScapes." Starting in 2016, he extended the concept and held the first two SoundScapes Festivals in Helsinki, followed by one in Munich, and then, finally, in his adopted hometown. SoundScapes #4 was held over two mid-autumn nights in …
Mental Shake
*2025 stock* CD version. Cafe OTO's tenth Otoroku release sees a return to the group that kick-started the label -- the veteran German reedsman and free-jazz pioneer Peter Brötzmann with the long-running London bass/drums partnership of John Edwards and Steve Noble. After the release of The Worse The Better, that group went on to play a series of devastating shows in Europe and to emerge as one of Brötzmann\'s finest working groups. Over the same period, Peter was developing a deep rapport with …
Here today gone tomorrow
"In the quartet on this album, Paul Dunmall has returned to his first love: totally free improvisation based on interaction between the four players. Many aspects of Paul Dunmall’s playing are apparent on this album. His approach is to listen very carefully to what is happening around him and to react to it. If you see him play live, you will see how he concentrates on the flow of the music, often stepping back and allowing the music to develop before choosing the right moment to enter or re-ent…
The Quartet
Huge tip! It is a huge honour to announce the publication of Peter Brotzmann’s final concerts on Otoroku. When we invited Peter to do a residency at Cafe OTO back in February 2023 we had no idea these would be his last ever shows and he played with such power it would have been hard for anyone present to believe he would never play publicly again. Recorded over two nights this grouping of Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, John Edwards on bass and Steve Noble on drums feels especially resonant and …
Volume 1
*Limited Edition of 100. Pink Vinyl! 2024 stock* Super groups are not a riskless endeavor—but when they’re made up of longtime friends and master improvisers, they tend to work. On their collaboration, simply titled Volume 1, up-and-coming American saxophonist John Dikeman (When The Time Is Right, 577 Records, 2021) is accompanied by a group of UK-based music masters: pianist Pat Thomas, a 577 Records mainstay (Shifa Live at Cafe Oto 2019, BleySchool 2019, Shifa Live in Oslo 2020, Educated Guess…
Lower Marsh
The record can be considered a sort of farewell note to one of London’s most crucial venues for improvised music and sound art after its unexpected closure in late 2023 due to gentrification. John Butcher had previously collaborated with these three musicians in different contexts, but Unlockings documents a first-of-its-kind quartet line-up.
"I wanted a new combination, but made of players I’d worked with over the years" says Butcher. "Choosing is probably 75 % about the player and 25 % about t…
Three On A Match
Sophie Agnel plays the whole piano. Its body matters as much as its strings. The keyboard's lid is just as good closed as it is open - in fact it’s best slammed open and closed rapidly. Joined by bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble, Three on a Match explodes the piano trio - each player sparking off the other so quickly that it’s impossible to figure out who lit the flame.
Flight Mode (Live In Berlin 2023)
"Legendary saxophonist and improviser Harri Sjostrom knows how to build bands. This has certainly been the case since the Lifting The Bandstand album, but back then the great Cecil Taylor was the leader. This is certainly one of the many lessons Harri Sjostrom has learned from the brilliant pianist and leader. He has since given evidence of this an endless number of times. The latest band he has established is a quartet with Elisabeth Harnik, arguably one of the most important pianists in improv…
A Field Perpetually At The Edge Of Disorder
*2024 stock*I n his review of Exta, the critic Brian Olewnick commented that “there's a tendency on the part of [John Tilbury's] younger companions to defer a bit to him”, adding that, in his view, this was not “necessarily a bad strategy”. In this encounter, their first as a trio, John Edwards and Mark Sanders do not defer to Tilbury at all, and it proves to be perhaps the best strategy of all. This is a vigorous music of equals, the democratic clamour of three distinct personalities committed …