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 somewhere on the borders improvisation/noise/rock/contemporary music. Current projects include: USINE; commissioning, workshopping/recording/performing new solo pieces for double bass and presenting his solo programme; Borage with Megan Jowett; the collaborative trio Nebbia/Banner/Andrzejewski; Practically Married with Declan Forde; a percussion/bass duo with Sofia Borges and class-work. 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.
In 2024, James will create the book and digital release of TEXTS with Nick Dunston, Michaël Attias, Anna Webber and Liz Kosack, develop a concert-length multichannel sound installation with chamber ensemble, and will also release his electroacoustic piece for chamber orchestra and improvising musician, written for the London Chamber Orchestra. He will also release his second solo album and the second album by Borage, accompanied by tours in the EU.
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) and London Chamber Orchestra (premiere of anti-dirge for orchestra and improvising soloist). 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 and with the Outernational projects EXT INC / Remember Me and Songs of Wounding. From 2018-2023, alongside pianist Declan Forde, James also co-curated the series Practically Married at Berlin’s Donau115, which featured over 50 concerts with more than 100 guests from the US, EU and Berlin jazz + improvised music scenes.
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, 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.
“…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
2024
23.3. – Performance of Cubistics with Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu, as part of Miya Masaoka’s solo exhibition Refuge in The Vegetal World (as part of Topographies of Hearing, MaerzMusik 2024) – SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin
6.4. – Bruchgold und Koralle – Guten Morgen Eberswalde, Eberswalde
6.4. – Fritz Moshammer VIER: w Rieko Okuda, James Banner, Fabian Rösch + Bill McHenry – Donau115, Berlin
7.4. – Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia – Saxstall, Pohrsdorf
9.4. – Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia – Jazz+, Munich
10.4. – Inside Series: James Banner (presenting class-work + Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia) – Kunstfabrik Schlot, Berlin
11.4. – Nils Ostendorf, Toma Gouband, Megan Jowett, James Banner – Kühlspot, Berlin
12.4. – Max Andrzejewski’s HÜTTE ‘Reduce’ – Jazzahead, Bremen
13.4. – Max Andrzejewski’s HÜTTE ‘Reduce’ – Kalchreuth
17.4. – Amirtha Kidambi, Andrea Parkins, James Banner – KM28, Berlin
21.4. – Borage w Birgitta Flick – Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, Berlin
26.4. – w NDR Bigband + Charlie Bates ,,People, Places and Things” – Stadthalle, Neumünster
27.4. – w NDR Bigband + Charlie Bates ,,People, Places and Things” – Sendesaal, Bremen
10.5. – Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia – Jazz in E. No. 29, Eberswalde
15.5. – Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia – Panda Jazz, Berlin
24.5. – Han Bennink / Toby Delius / Declan Forde / James Banner – Kunstfabrik Schlot, Berlin
29.5. – Bruchgold und Koralle – FatJazz @ Brückenstern, Hamburg
30.5. – Bruchgold und Koralle – Waldzimmer, Lübeck
6.6. – Borage – Jazz No Picadeiro, Lisbon
8.6. – solo – Cossoul, Lisbon
7.-9.6. – Boragapangã (James Banner, Megan Jowett, Mariana Dionísio, João Lopes Pereira) – BOTA, Lisbon
29.6. – Decateto Robalo + Porta-Jazz with Hans Koller – Lisbon
30.6. – John O’Gallagher / Hans Koller / James Banner / João Lopes Pereira – TBA, Lisbon
5.7. – Tilo Weber & Five Fauns (album release show) – Donau115, Berlin
24.7. – Aida Shirazi / Niloufar Shiri / James Banner – Hošek Contemporary, Berlin
11.8. – Lina Nyberg / Birgitta Flick / James Banner – Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, Berlin
3.-5.9. – Berlin Solo Impro – Acker Stadt Palast, Berlin
11.9. – Tilo Weber & Five Fauns – Kunstfabrik Schlot, Berlin
18.9. – Max Andrzejewski’s HÜTTE ‘Reduce’ – Wuppertal
21.9. – Birgitta Flick Trio – Die Holzbläser, Berlin
12.10. – Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski: Presencia – Die Holzbläser, Berlin
RELEASES
UPCOMING
TEXTS (with guests Nick Dunston, Liz Kosack, Anna Webber, Michaël Attias) – 2024 [listen / preorder]
Tilo Weber and Five Fauns – 2024 (Malletmuse)
solo vol 2 – 2024
Borage (Megan Jowett / James Banner) – transitory – 2024 (WismART)
DISCOGRAPHY
Songs of Wounding (with Mariana Sadovska, KURBASY, music by Max Andrzejewski) – 2024 (Pantopia Music) [listen] – available to buy from Feb 2024
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]
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]
Tilo Weber Quartet: Four Fauns – Faun Renaissance – 2021 (Malletmuse) [listen / buy]
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]
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]
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]
Mark Pringle – A Moveable Feast – 2014 (Stoney Lane) [listen / buy]
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 