Various

Horn Bill gathers seven unaccompanied reed solos played one after another at a single London concert in January 2005. Six improvisers take turns alone with their instrument, five saxophonists and a clarinettist, for between nine and nineteen minutes each. The line-up spans several generations. Lou Gare, a member of AMM until the 1970s, and Evan Parker play alongside John Butcher and the Berlin clarinettist Kai Fagaschinski. The two youngest are the London saxophonists Nathaniel Catchpole and Seymour Wright. Heard in sequence over two discs, the solos show how differently each player treats breath, key noise and tone, and how far reed playing in free improvisation had moved by the 2000s.

The concert took place on 9 January 2005 at 291 Gallery in Hackney, an ONGAKU: enjoy_sound production. The first disc holds Catchpole on tenor in Maurice Brinton, Wright on alto in All Wright and Gare on tenor in Saxophony. The second has Fagaschinski's two German-titled clarinet pieces, Butcher's tenor solo 291/5 and Parker on soprano in Solo for Hugh Davies. Reviewing the set for Jazzword in 2006, Ken Waxman heard Gare as the one player still tied to the jazz tradition. His solo has a mellow tone, a wide vibrato and boppish licks, and just before the end it turns to variations on Lover Man. Catchpole builds dense multiphonic drones out of tremolo and altissimo figures, while Wright works with tongue slaps, flattement and mouth percussion. Fagaschinski concentrates on wide, intense vibrations in the clarinet's low register. Butcher moves through key and mouth percussion and grainy staccato to a legato passage, and Parker sustains nineteen minutes of circular breathing without an audible pause. Waxman called the whole set "an extended sonic essay in 21st Century reed techniques", and warned that it is far from easy listening for the uninitiated.

Published by Matchless Recordings in 2005 as MRCD 63, a double CD.