Tongues of Fire

Information

Tongues of Fire are a riot of reeds, brass and percussion drawing on the sounds of church and chapel, of village, street, circus and gypsy bands, the jazz marches of Albert Ayler and the cosmic carnival of Sun Ra.

Tongues of Fire can play on concert, festival and club stages, in the street, at outdoor events and in the landscape. We create new music with strong grooves, striking themes, rich arrangements and inspired soloing, as well as playing a wide variety of arrangements. We mine English traditions like the west gallery, village bands, seasonal celebrations, fairgrounds and ‘rough musics’ , and play music by Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Nino Rota and street band sounds from Jamaica, the Southern US and the Balkans.

There are three basic lineups:

• - 7/8 piece street band driven by the powerful drum section of Dan Fox and Steve Noble.
• - 9 piece band stage band featuring trumpet, four saxophones, french horn, trombone, double bass and drums
• - 5 piece 'folk' band line up for small venues playing new arrangements of a wide range of traditional sounds; medieval and village dance tunes, folk songs and funeral hymns plus spicing of global street band sounds.

All members of Tongues of Fire are dedicated improvisers, we especially like improvising in the street, sweeping people along with unpredictable but accessible playing. We are fascinated by the context and function of music, by the idea of making a strong sound, a 'joyful noise' for dreaming, dancing, celebration and protest and work with a pool of artists and performers to create procession, masques and celebrations.

The band was founded by saxophonist and composer Tim Hill in 2004 and features musicians drawn from the worlds of free jazz, brass bands, contemporary classical, theatre and samba.

To hear Tongues of Fire go to downloads
CD's of the various music we play and photos are available.

Tongues of Fire received funding to develop street band music, performance and ideas from ACE South West in 2005

Musicians

trumpet - Stuart Henderson
reeds and flutes - Geoff Hawkins, Pete McPhail,Simon Prince and Tim Hill
French Horn - Julian Faultless
Trombone - Harry Dawes
Bass - Dominic Lash
Drums - Steve Noble and Dan Fox

Associated performers and artists include:

Arno Bakker - tuba
Charles Spicer - early woodwinds and performance
Martin West - maker and pryotechnician
Andy Glass - pryotechnician
Dave Young - sculptor and maker
Pete Winters - circus performance

The bands collective credits include:

Welfare State International, The London Jazz Composers Orchestra, IOU Theatre, Ensemble Modern, Hienz Holliger Ensemble, Theatre de Complicite, Salt, Trevor Watts Moiré Music, Motionhouse Dance Company, Lee and Dawes Theatre, Dogtroup, Pandaemonium, the Britten Sinfonia, The Bow Gamelan Ensemble and Stephen Mottram's Animata.