LATEST RELEASE
Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia (ears&eyes Records) – 31.10.2025 [listen/buy]
Bassists, I have noticed, seem obsessed with the idea of having a ‘sound’, like it’s a little, powerful daemon that follows each of them about. I think this might translate to an idea of Tone. James has a great ‘sound’. Full, rich, strong; Bit like the coffee he makes every time we invite ourselves round to his for brunch…
Rachel Sermanni
James Banner (1991) was born in Dudley, England and is now based in Berlin, working as an improvising musician and composer of mainly electro-acoustic music that exists on the borders of improvisation, noise, rock, jazz and contemporary music. Current projects include: Borage with Megan Jowett; the collaborative trio Nebbia/Banner/Andrzejewski: Presencia; Practically Married concert series at Sowieso with Declan Forde; class-work; commissioning, workshopping/recording/performing new solo pieces for double bass and presenting his solo programme. James also works in post-production sound for films, with 3 releases to date: Funeral For a Wizard (Mariska Koruba), Sexy Time Soup (Gabrielle Pfeiffer) and Please Don’t Smoke (Alexandra Swarens).
In 2025 James will release the debut album by Presencia on ears&eyes Records, perform in Max Andrzejewski’s new multimedia music theatre concert installation SATISFACTIONACTION, premiering at Deutsche Oper and Beethovenfest Bonn, as well as a leading the bass section in a string orchestra led by Avi Caspi with a residency at Berghain.
As a performer and collaborator he has worked on projects with artists, organisations and festivals including: Podium Esslingen (with Quadrature for #bebeethoven), MaerzMusik (performance of Miya Masaoka’s Cubistics) Max Andrzejewski: HÜTTE, Berliner Ensemble (Mythos/Nibelungen), Maxim Gorki Theatre (Salome), Happy End, Renatured with Chor Zur Welt, Akademie Theater Regensburg/Kammermusikfestival Regensburg (An den Rändern der Risse … in der Lücke das Grün), Outernational (Songs of Wounding with Mariana Sadovska + EXT INC / Remember Me with Aida Shirazi/Emre Dündar), Tempus Konnex Ensemble (IMPULS 2021), Leipziger Jazztage (Fish and Chips with Anna-Lena Schnabel, Floria Weber, James Maddren, The Floor Is Lava! by Nick Dunston, commission of class-work in 2022), Beethovenfest Bonn, Jazz&TheCity Salzburg, Jazz Festival Saalfelden, Musikcentrum Öst Stockholm (Jazz Alloy with Lina Nyberg, Laura Jurd, Daniel Karlsson), Making Music/Sound and Music/PRSF/BBC (Adopt A Composer), soundfestival Aberdeen, Centrala Birmingham (Art and Brexit Talk), Jazzforum Darmstadt (panel on class origins and access to music) Vanguard Manchester/The Arc Project (composition collaborations), Rachel Sermanni (So It Turns), Vilde&Inga (Berlin Tour w/John Hollenbeck, Toby Delius, Declan Forde), NDR Bigband and London Chamber Orchestra (premiere of anti-dirge for orchestra, improvising soloist and electronics). He also performs on double bass with Birgitta Flick (Quartet/Septet), Jörg Hochapfel (Bruchgold und Koralle), Tilo Weber (Four Fauns and Five Fauns), Fritz Moshammer’s VIER, Decateto Robalo + Porta-Jazz with Hans Koller and with the Outernational projects EXT INC / Remember Me and Songs of Wounding.
As a soloist, he has worked with Paula Doepfner on for the trees to drop, a performance/installation/destruction at St Matthäus, Berlin, with speaker at James Turrell’s light-installation at the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof, at Ideas of Noise Festival 2020 (commission and premiere of The things my parents said about childhood), at Jazz&TheCity Festival, Salzburg, and Caracol in Paris, as well as solo livestreams with Around The Houses Festival, 5pm Series and Deep Tones For Peace. His current Call For Pieces project has created a community of 25+ composers from around the world, providing free online composition/double bass workshops, commissioning and producing and high quality recordings for portfolios to help professional development, and engaging in workshops in higher education institutions. He released his debut solo album digitally and on limited edition cassette and CD in March 2022, which was featured in a profile on SWR2 Radio, and in 2023 he commissioned three new pieces by Jamie Elless, Yaz Lancaster and Nick Dunston.
As a first generation state educated student and artist/musician from a working class background, James is committed to using his current platform and privilege to widen representation in his own artistic projects, call for equity (especially in artistic development opportunities and higher education) and increase access to adventurous and original improvised music for young people. He is also active as an educator teaching a private bass and electro/acoustic composition studio, and from 2018-2023 he was a workshop facilitator with Make The Paint Dance and visiting lecturer in double and electric bass for actor musicians at Leeds Conservatoire, as well as leading modules on collaborative composition and free improvisation. From 2023, James is also co-host of B:jazz, the podcast of the IG Jazz Berlin, interviewing local musicians about their work and the social, musical, political situation of the Berlin jazz + improvised music scene. You will also find James as a concert manager and bartender usually once per week at Berlin’s well-known club for improvised music, Sowieso.
“…Banner’s bass alone sounds immensely colorful when played solo and lets tones and their sequences emerge in seemingly infinite numbers of smaller tone fragments. Everything sounds sonorous, warm and with so many unbelievably fine, tonal gradations. Banner shows again and again, without putting himself in the foreground when the band plays together, what enormous variety of sound and richness of color he can express with his instrument…”
Claus Volke
CALENDAR
202
2025
9.10. – Fabiana Striffler, Declan Forde, James Banner: Orchestrated Ellington – Orania, Berlin
11.10. – Camila Nebbia/James Banner/Devin Gray – Sowieso, Berlin
18.10. 19:00 – PREMIERE SCREENING of Sexy Time Soup – Berlin Kiez Film Festival
30.10. – Fabiana Striffler, Declan Forde, James Banner play Ellington – Orania, Berlin
TBC.11. – SCREENING of Sexy Time Soup – Ha Ha Harvest Comedy and Film Festival – New Jersey
4.11. – performing with Zaho de Sagazan – Berliner Philharmonie
5.11. – Declan Forde/James Banner/Julian Erdem – Silent Jazz Bar, Berlin
7.11. – Nebbia/Banner/Andrzejewski: Presencia – ALBUM RELEASE (ears&eyes Records)
10.11. – Nebbia/Banner/Baumgärtner: Presencia – Open Music, Graz
20.11. – Roland Satterwhite, Declan Forde, James Banner: Orchestrated Ellington – Orania, Berlin
14.11. – Bruchgold und Koralle – Jazzstudio, Nürnberg
21.11. – Nebbia/Banner/Baumgärtner: Presencia @ Jazztopad – Mleczarnia Club and Café, Wrocław
22.11. – House Concert info tbc – Wrocław
23.11. – House Concert info tbc – Wrocław
27.11. – Practically Married #50 with Sofía Salvo – Sowieso, Berlin
2026
21.1. – Orchestral Sessions [Music for 8 basses] – Berghain, Berlin
29. + 30.1. – SATISFACTIONACTION – Deutsche Oper, Berlin
31.3. – Nebbia/Banner/Andrzejewski: Presencia – PRiMi, Copehagen
RELEASES
UPCOMING RELEASES
Please Don’t Smoke (short film by Alexandra Swarens) sound design, edit, mix – 2026
TEXTS (with guests Nick Dunston, Liz Kosack, Anna Webber, Michaël Attias) – 2026 [listen / preorder]
solo vol 2 – 2026
DISCOGRAPHY / FILM / TV / RADIO / INSTALLATIONS / BOOKS
Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia (ears&eyes Records) – 31.10.2025 [listen/buy]
Sexy Time Soup (Comedy short-film by Gabrielle Pfeiffer) sound design, edit, score, mix, vfx – 2025 (independant) – winner Best Comedy Short Film, Berlin Kiez Film Festival 2025 // nominated No / Low Budget SHORT to the Point Film Festival // winner Best Comedy Short, Bangkok Movie Awards // Official Selection Short and Sweet Yorkshire Film Festival // Official Selection Ha Ha Harvest Comedy and Film Festival New Jersey
Funeral For A Wizard (short-film by Mariska Koruba) sound design, edit, score, mix – 2025
FASSADEN (Docufilm by Alina Cyranek / Music by Freya Arde) double bass – 2025
Practically Married with Tobias Delius and Han Bennink: Live in Berlin – 2025 [listen/buy]
Borage (Megan Jowett / James Banner) – DRESSAGE – 2024 (Robalo Music) [listen/buy]
Tilo Weber – Five Fauns – 2024 (Malletmuse) [listen/buy]
Songs of Wounding (with Mariana Sadovska, KURBASY, music by Max Andrzejewski) – 2024 (Pantopia Music) [listen]
Destination Unknown – Die Zukunft des Jazz (The Future of Jazz) – 2024 (Wolke Press) [more info/buy]
Practically Married – Practically Married – 2023 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Bruchgold und Koralle – Bruchgold und Koralle – 2023 (KLAENG Records) [listen/buy]
Rachel Sermanni – Dreamer Awake – 2023 (Navigator Records) [listen/buy]
Borage – transitory – 2023 (self-release) [listen/buy]
Il Sogno della Farfalla, L’Oceano del Qi – immersive installation by Lola Danon at Schneiberg Museum, Turin (composer: Nina Danon) – 2022
James Banner: USINE – how it will be after – 2022 (KLAENG Records) [listen / buy]
Practically Married + João Lopes Pereira – ao Vivo no Café Dias – 2022 (Robalo Music) [listen/buy]
James Banner – solo – 2022 (self-release) [listen/buy]
Max Andrzejewski – Mythos – 2022 (Backlash Music) [listen/buy]
Birgitta Flick Quartet – Miniatures and Fragments – 2022 (Doublemoon/Challenge) [listen/buy]
Meschiya Lake & The New Movement – Looking The World Over – 2022 (Sungroove Records) [listen/buy]
alien space sound propellant – 2022 (self-release, commissioned by Arts Council England) [listen]
James Banner: USINE – 2020 (RBB Kulturradio, live broadcast)
Tilo Weber Quartet: Four Fauns – Faun Renaissance – 2021 (Malletmuse) [listen / buy]
BBC Radio 3 in Concert: Concertino for Concert Band – 2020 [listen]
Alex Roth’s MultiTraction Orchestra – Emerge Entangled – 2020 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Stephanie Lamprea – Unaccompanied: Tiny-Works For Quarantine – Vol 1 – 2020 (self-release) [listen/buy]
Practically Married with Will Howard and Jordan Dinsdale – Short Step – 2020 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Practically Married – Inventions In Time Vol. 1 – 2020 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Practically Married – Inventions In Time Vol. 2 – 2020 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Cansu Tanrıkulu – 2019 (RBB Kulturradio, live broadcast)
Mark Pringle – Book Of Haikus – 2019 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Rachel Sermanni – So It Turns – 2019 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Ancient Infinity Orchestra – Cosmosaic – 2019 (Polyscope) [listen]
Indra Rios-Moore – 2018 (Deutschlandfunk Kultur, live broadcast)
James Banner’s USINE – 2018 (JazzHausMusik) [listen / buy]
Practically Married featuring João Lopes Pereira – Circus – 2018 (self-release) [listen / buy]
Stemeseder/Banner/Alunni – WOOD / GUTS – 2018 (self-release) [listen / buy – all proceeds to BLM UK]
Birgitta Flick Quartet – Color Studies – 2018 (Doublemoon/Challenge) [listen / buy]
Liebesfilm – Directed by Emma Rosa Simon und Robert Bohrer [soundtrack] – 2018 [watch preview]
Salome – Directed by Ersan Mondtag [soundtrack] – 2018 [watch preview]
Grand Loup et Petit Loup – 2016 (audiobook, Trois Petits Points) [listen]
Mark Pringle – A Moveable Feast – 2014 (Stoney Lane) [listen / buy]
BBC Introducing: Antelope – 2014
The Yamaha New Jazz Sessions – 2013 (Yamaha/Jazzwise) [listen]
PRESS
Portrait by Deutschlandfunk Kultur [DE]
Portrait in Der Tagesspiegel [DE]
Review of The Whitewashed Wall in Cleveland Classical
“James Banner’s USINE is 45 minutes of unobvious and unpredictable music” – Robert Ratajczak [LongPlay]
”idiosyncratic, „oblique“, intense and humorous” – Nicky Pawlow [Tagesspiegel Berlin]
“not everyone wants to pick a side… James Banner… revels in both the avant-garde and the swing… a musical balancing act” – Martin Böttcher [Deutschlandfunk Kultur]
“If you can throw past preferences overboard, USINE rewards you with a unique sound experience” – Christian Kautz [LikeHiFi Magazine]
“English composer James Banner brings a playful setting of three Thomas Hardy poems. These tunes are light, manic, virtuosic, and full of twists and turns” – John Paul Mayse
“intense and dramatic… gentle and beautiful… characteristic of today’s contemporary jazz with the mixture of structure and freedom, full of drama and strong soloing…” – Tony Dudley-Evans
“By dividing The Whitewashed Wall into three distinct movements, James Banner gives the singer multiple opportunities to show off elements of her virtuosity. “Why does she turn…?” offers leaping contours and a climactic high note, while “Well, once…” imposes a strict, swift tempo onto the melody. “My brush goes one with a rush…”, frenetic and clearly meant to push the singer to the very upper limit of her range, comes off as a controlled detonation” – Cleveland Classical
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James Banner 