Ed Gauden Jazz Quartet

Ed Gauden is a drummer who studied at the Birmingham Conservatoire and has recorded with the likes of Mark Hanslip, Barry Edwards, Colin Somervelle, Steve Tromans. He has toured the UK extensively  with folk musician Jake Flowers. His current interests lie in free improvisation and co runs a trio with Trevor Lines and Bruce Coates.  

Bruce Coates is a saxophonist who has performed and recorded with some of the world’s top improvisers including Paul Dunmall, John Edwards, Lol Coxhill and Mark Sanders. He regularly collaborates with Walt Shaw in a variety of settings. He is also a member of SLIE (the South Leicestershire Improvisers Ensemble) with Lee Allatson, Virginia Anderson, Christopher Hobbs, Trevor Lines, Rick Nance and Peter Wyeth. Bruce and Trevor have been working together in a variety of settings for the past 30 years.

Trevor Lines is currently marking 50 years of involvement in improvised/experimental music, jazz and traditional folk music, during which time he has worked with leading UK and international figures in all these fields.  He is currently Visiting Lecturer in improvisation and folk music at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.  The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD says this about him:  ‘Lines is far too seasoned and experienced a musician ever to simply go for the obvious’

Steve Saunders is a composer, improviser and guitarist working in the fields of contemporary music, improvised music, and the space in-between. He has worked on commissions from the UK and US, including the recent premiere of his solo piano piece, Assimilation (or a failure in the art thereof), written for ‘Contemporary Arts Jazz Ensemble’, as well as the premiere of his work TIMEBEING (for two improvisers), which was commissioned by Birmingham-based art gallery ‘Centrala’ and aims to explore and manipulate the listener’s perception of time. He recently led a performance of his six- movement, large ensemble work Abstract Visions of a Foreign Land on the prestigious Birmingham Symphony Hall Stage, a work which merges the techniques of contemporary composers, most notably ‘spectral’ composers Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey, with the language of modern jazz circles.