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 was born in Dudley, England and is now based in Berlin and the UK, working as an improvising musician and composer. Current projects include workshopping and recording unperformed solo pieces for double bass, researching and developing a digital publication on improvisational solo studies for bassists, a limited edition recycled tape and digital solo release, as well as TEXTS, commissioning 6 international authors to create new works for the duo of Stephanie Lamprea + James Banner plus guests from Berlin + NYC including Anna Webber, Liz Kosack, Nick Dunston and Michaël Attias. Ensemble projects as a leader include James Banner’s USINE, featured in portraits and broadcasts by Deutschlandfunk Kultur and RBB Kultur, and co-curating the monthly improvised music residency Practically Married with pianist Declan Forde at Berlin’s Donau115.
As a performer and collaborator he has worked on projects with artists and organisations such as Podium Esslingen/Quadrature (#bebeethoven), Max Andrzejewski: HÜTTE, Berliner Ensemble (Nibelungen) + Maxim Gorki Theatre (Salome), Leipziger Jazztage (Fish and Chips with Anna-Lena Schnabel, Floria Weber, James Maddren), Musikcentrum Öst Stockholm (Jazz Alloy with Lina Nyberg, Laura Jurd, Daniel Karlsson), Making Music/Sound and Music/PRSF/BBC (Adopt A Composer), Centrala Birmingham (Art and Brexit Talk), Vanguard Manchester/The Arc Project (composition collaborations), Rachel Sermanni (So It Turns), Vilde&Inga (Berlin Tour w/John Hollenbeck, Toby Delius, Declan Forde), Stephanie Lamprea (Tiny-works) and Cansu Tanrıkulu (duo and RBB broadcast). He performs as a sideman with Birgitta Flick (Quartet/Septet), Jörg Hochapfel (Bruchgold und Koralle) and Tilo Weber (Four Fauns).
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), as well as solo livestreams with Around The Houses Festival, 5pm Series and Deep Tones For Peace. In 2021 he is also a guest with Tempus Konnex Ensemble (Leipzig) and will perform in Outernational’s Songs of Wounding with Mariana Sadovska and Max Andrzejewski. 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.
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.
“…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
24.7. – Practically Married + Liron Yariv – Donau115, Berlin
12.8. – Practically Married #30th Anniversary featuring Nick Dunston + Sofia Borges – Donau115, Berlin
16.-20.8. – Recording new chamber music with Jörg Hochapfel – Berlin
16.8. – Birgitta Flick Quartet – A Trane, Berlin
5.9. – Birgitta Flick Quartet – Steglitz, Berlin
10.9. – Birgitta Flick Quartet – Jazztreff Karlshorst, Berlin
22.9. – Practically Married + guests TBC – Donau115, Berlin
September/October – Composition commission with NCN (UYMP) – Leeds
7.10. – Mark Pringle/Ugo Alunni/James Banner – Donau115, Berlin
8.10. – Bruchgold und Koralle – Donau115, Berlin
13.10. – Impulsfestival 2021 (guest with Tempus Konnex Ensemble, performing Max Andrzejewski’s Mythos plus premiere of CAMPUS) – Steintor-Varieté, Halle
24.10. – Stephanie Lamprea/James Banner Duo at Soundfestival [PREMIERE] – Aberdeen, Scotland
2.11. – Songs of Wounding [PREVIEW] – TONLAGEN Festival – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Hellerau, Dresden
4.11. – BACH Leuchtet! Solo concert + duo improvisation with organ + light installation – Ev. Lukas Kirche, Berlin
2.12. – Songs of Wounding [PREMIERE] – commissioned by Outernational – w/Max Andrzejewski, Mariana Sadovska, baroque trio + electronics – Radialsystem, Berlin
11.12. – Premiere of An August Midnight for solo harp/soprano – TBC, UK
16.12. – Bruchgold und Koralle – Musikinstrumenten Museum, Berlin
12.2. – Max Andrzejewski’s HÜTTE – Dieselstraße, Esslingen
22.5. – w/Max Andrzejewski, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie Laienchor + 8 musicians [PREMIERE] – Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
UPCOMING PREMIERES
New works for solo double bass/bass ensemble online throughout 2021/22
all pieces will be premiered on my social media channels and linked below
Zygmund de Somogyi – Four Studies on the Subject of OMORI
Jamie Elless – Hospice (for six double basses)
Rachel Beckles Willson – piece for double bass + mixed media
RELEASES
UPCOMING
TEXTS (with Stephanie Lamprea) – Autumn/Winter 2021 [listen / preorder]
Voices of Berlin – Live recording, Autumn/Winter 2021
Bruchgold und Koralle
PREVIOUS
James Banner’s USINE – 2018 [listen / buy]
Tilo Weber Quartet: Four Fauns – Faun Renaissance – 2021 [listen / buy]
Alex Roth’s MultiTraction Orchestra – Emerge Entangled – 2020 [listen / buy]
Stephanie Lamprea – Unaccompanied: Tiny-Works For Quarantine – Vol 1 – 2020 [listen/buy]
Practically Married with Will Howard and Jordan Dinsdale – Short Step – 2020 [listen / buy]
Practically Married – Inventions In Time Vol. 1 – 2020 [listen / buy]
Practically Married – Inventions In Time Vol. 2 – 2020 [listen / buy]
Mark Pringle – Book Of Haikus – 2019 [listen / buy]
Rachel Sermanni – So It Turns – 2019 [listen / buy]
Ancient Infinity Orchestra – Cosmosaic – 2019 [listen / buy]
Practically Married featuring João Lopes Pereira – Circus – 2018 [listen / buy]
Stemeseder/Banner/Alunni – WOOD / GUTS – 2018 [listen / buy – all proceeds to BLM UK]
Birgitta Flick Quartet – Color Studies – 2018 [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 [listen / buy]
PRESS
Portrait by Deutschlandfunk Kultur [DE]
Portrait in Der Tagesspiegel [DE]
Review of The Whitewashed Wall in Cleveland Classical
”a unique and surprising voice on his instrument… a gifted young composer…” – Greg Cohen
“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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