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Michel Mast

Belgian saxophonist Michel Mast can frequently be heard using tenor in avant-garde jazz and rock albums, and he continues to be featured about baritone and soprano saxophones aswell. Mast began showing up on recordings in the first ’80s, as an associate of Luc Houtkamp’s saxophone quartet Hommage within the group’s 1981 eponymous recording and in addition that same yr within the FMP launch Sib Langis from the Berlin Jazz Workshop Orchestra. In 1984 Mast made an appearance within the 12″ vinyl fabric launch Wir Sind Wieder Da! from the Simpletones, an instrumental avant rock and roll group that also included reedman Peter Vermeersch in the lineup. Since it flipped out, a lot of Mast’s following performing and documenting career will be spent in the orbit of composer/bandleader Vermeersch, you start with the limited and enthusiastic X-Legged Sally, with Mast producing significant contributions towards the group’s punched-up sax-heavy riffage. Mast made an appearance on all of the XLS albums, you start with 1991’s Slow-Up and finishing with 1997’s Bereft of the Blissful Union, the last mentioned a joint task of XLS as well as the Smith Quartet constructed as accompaniment (like many other XLS compositions penned by Vermeersch) for the Wim Vandekeybus dance creation. Following the dissolution of XLS, Vermeersch produced the experimental big music group Flat Earth Culture, and Mast was one of the XLS associates tapped by Vermeersch for the brand new ensemble. Mast provides since been a FES mainstay, contained in the lineup for every one of the band’s produces from 2000’s Live on the Beursschouwburg EP through 2013’s 13. Mast can be a member from the Ghent-based Wofo, a smaller sized outfit ranging in proportions from quintet to sextet, led by bassist/composer Xavier Verhelst. As the just saxophonist within this frequently amiable but nonetheless exclusively avant group, Mast’s efforts as both ensemble member and sturdy but not excessively flashy or histrionic soloist stick out very well, and Wofo is certainly a fine display for his playing (although Vermeersch provides him with many occasions in the limelight as an associate from the substantial FES; actually, Mast was the last guy position in the 2011 FES creation entitled R.We.P., where the group steadily shrank in proportions simply because the bandmembers sequentially “passed away” and remaining the stage). Furthermore, Mast is an associate from the Jimmy Giuffre-inspired drummerless trio Laughing Bastards, also offering guitarist Jan-Sebastiaan DeGeyter and bassist Nils Vermeulen. He offers previously performed and/or documented with the past due Steve Lacy and John Tchicai, Dutch saxophonist Dies Le Duc, and Belgian globe fusion percussionist Chris Joris.

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