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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZITCHY FINGERSUK saxophone quartet: Mike Mower (b 9 June '58, Bath), composer, tenor sax and flute; Howard Turner (b 9 Nov. '57, Amersham), baritone sax and bass clarinet; Martin Speake (b 3 April '58, Barnet), alto sax; John Graham (b 6 March '61, Birmingham) on soprano, alto, tenor, clarinet. Mower's compositions have been commissioned by the BBC Big Band, BBC Radio Orchestra and the Arts Council and he also played with Tina Turner, Style Council etc; asked to take a 12-piece group Hiatus to Zurich '85, financial constraints meant taking only reeds, and success was immediate: at the first British Jazz Festival Joe Zawinul described them as "world class in every respect.' Graham and Turner had failed music college; Speake worked at Ray's Jazz Shop in London, played with Style Council. Album Quark '87 on Virgin co-prod. by Mower and Richard Cottle (keyboardist on David Bowie world tour '87) had lots of beautiful sound despite Cottle's ubiquitous synth and a loud rock rhythm section (bassist Lawrence Cottle, drummer Jeremy Stacey), Danny McCintosh on guitar, Stanley Unwin on reads (he read droll comedy, as he did on Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake '68); also McCoy Tyner and eight brass on "It's Lovely Once You're In'. It was disingenuous of Virgin to compare them to the World Saxophone Quartet, who didn't need all this production; but then you could tell on the stripped down "Hiatus' and lovely "Dakhut' that Itchy Fingers didn't need it either. It was too bad they didn't aim higher; their work might still be in print. |