Feminist Improvising Group
Encyclopedia
The Feminist Improvising Group (FIG) were a five- to eight-piece English free improvising
avant-garde jazz
and avant-rock ensemble formed in London in 1977. They were the first women-only group of improvisers
and challenged the hitherto male-dominated musical improvisation scene.
FIG performed live in London and toured Europe several times, where they played at music festivals in various venues, including Paris, Berlin
, Rome
, Copenhagen
, Stockholm
and Reykjavík
. In 1983 FIG evolved into the European Women's Improvising Group (EWIG).
from Centipede
, and English bassoon
ist/composer Lindsay Cooper
from Henry Cow
. The other members of the five-piece ensemble were cellist/bassist Georgie Born
, also from Henry Cow, vocalist/pianist Cathy Williams from the British duo Rag Doll, and trumpeter Corinne Liensol. They had originally intended calling themselves the "Women's Improvising Group", but at their first engagement they discovered that the organisers had billed them as the "Feminist Improvising Group". Nicols said that the "political statement of the band's name never even came from us! But we just thought, 'OK, they've called us feminist, we'll work with that' ".
FIG's debut performance was at a "Music for Socialism" festival at the Almost Free Theatre in London
. Their act was a combination of music and comedy, and focused on "women's experience" and "mundane daily things". Nicols described it as "quite anarchic. It had elements of theatre; we had props, we were chopping onions, I was rushing around with perfume, it was completely improvised."
FIG were the first women-only improvising group, and they challenged the established improvising community with performances that were theatrical, with politics and farce supplementing their music. They staged parodies around the role of women in society and incorporated domestic "found object
s" in their performances, "vacuum cleaners, brooms, dustpans, pots and pans, and egg slicers". Their performances often had some of the women cleaning the stage, while the others huddled in a group to "explore the sonic possibilities of household items." They also broke down the barriers that traditionally existed between the performer and the audience by engaging in "antiphon
al exchange[s]" with them, and promoting the notion that "anyone can do it". This antagonised the purists who valued "technical virtuosity" and "improvisational competence". FIG redefined free improvisation by introducing "social virtuosity", the ability to communicate with the other musicians and the audience.
FIG toured Europe several times, where they played at festivals in various venues, including Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Reykjavík. When Cooper and Born were performing with Henry Cow in Zurich
in January 1978, Cooper invited Swiss
pianist Irène Schweizer to join FIG. English filmmaker Sally Potter
, who played saxophone and sang, joined the group in April 1978. Dutch
trombonist Annemarie Roelofs
, English singer Frankie Armstrong
, Dutch woodwind player Angèle Veltmeijer, and French
saxophonist and guitarist Françoise Dupety, also played intermittently with the group. Some of FIG's performances consisted of up to eight women.
Nicols left FIG in 1980 to form another all-women group called Contradictions. In 1983, under the helm of Schweizer, FIG evolved into the European Women's Improvising Group (EWIG), bowing to pressure that their name was "too political". EWIG included Schweizer, Cooper, Roelofs, French double bassist Joëlle Léandre
, and French singer Annick Nozati.
music space was largely the domain of male heterosexuals
, and women were marginalized. Julie Dawn Smith wrote in her 2004 essay, "Playing Like a Girl: The Queer Laughter of the Feminist Improvising Group", that "The opportunity for freedom in relation to sexual difference, gender, and sexuality for women improvisers was strangely absent from the discourses and practices of free jazz and free improvisation". When FIG made their appearance in 1977, they challenged the established improvising community. Because part of their act was to parody
men, some male improvisers felt "threatened" and complained about "these women who can't play their instruments", and their "irreverent approach to technique and tradition".
FIG was a mixture of white
, black
, lesbian
, straight
, working
- and middle-class
women. Maggie Nicols wanted it to be open to all women of different backgrounds and different levels of musicianship, even those who had not improvised before. She saw these differing abilities, which gave rise to unexpected results, as a strength, and not a weakness. "The result was a music that had to be taken on its own terms, as music that decidedly and consciously included the politics of being women, musicians, improvisers, and members of a society."
While some of the members lacked conventional musical skills, they were "politically very right" and quickly adapted to improvising. Because of the nature of free improvisation, the women were able to perform together without concerns about competency. They used free jazz
's "extreme timbre
s" to enhance their live performances, which David G. Pier described as "in-your-face queer sexuality and feminist shock politics."
Critics of FIG were always either very positive, or very negative; there was never any middle-ground. They received little support from male improvisers, who criticised the technical ability of the group and referred to them as "women" and not musicians. Men generally felt threatened by the "spectacle of so many unsupervised and unpredictable women on the stage". Irène Schweizer recalled that FIG were invited to perform at the Total Music Meeting in Berlin in November 1979 because she had played at the festival before (in all-men groups). But after seeing FIG perform, the organiser asked Schweizer, "how come you brought such a group, they can't play, and they are not good enough." Avant-garde musician Alexander von Schlippenbach
also complained about FIG being there, saying that they "couldn't play [their] instruments" and that he could have found "loads of men that would have played a lot better".
Guitarist Eugene Chadbourne
said that "gendered style as well as sexual difference factored into the critical assessment of FIG's performances." Schweizer believed that many male improvisers felt threatened by FIG because of their use of humour, "We were not that serious, like men, [...] they take [improvising] so seriously". Georgie Born described FIG's humour as "very iconoclastic and very surreal, or very silly. There were no big boys there standing judging." On the issue of FIG being a women-only group, Nicols remarked, "It's amazing the number of men that were saying, 'Why are there no men?' And yet nobody had ever dreamed to think of asking why there were men only [groups]."
Some feminist audiences were also critical of FIG, saying that they were "too virtuosic and abstract". At a Women's Festival at the Drill Hall in London, many women in the audience were unfamiliar with "free music" and accused FIG of being "elitist" and "inaccessible". This was a bitter pill for the members of FIG to swallow who expected support from such quarters.
But FIG also received positive reactions from both men and women at concerts. Nicols recalled the "dykes
" in the audience who had come to see them at FIG's first performance: they were into disco
and soul
and sat patiently through the other improvisers, but when FIG came on, "They laughed their heads off." Improvisers Steve Beresford
and David Toop
were also in the audience and responded positively to FIG's performance. Lindsay Cooper recalled a comment made to her by a female artist working in film: "I don't know what on earth you're doing but I like it."
participating in their first concert. Contradictions went to become a women's workshop run by Nicols in which "anyone could participate". Schweizer was one of the organisers of the Canaille festivals that staged the first International Women's Jazz Festival for Improvised Music in 1986 in Frankfurt
. In the early 1990s, Nicols, Schweizer and Leandre formed the "highly theatrical and often satirical" improvising trio, Les Diaboliques, releasing three albums between 1994 and 1998.
Nicols said that FIG was "tremendously influential" on the second-generation improvisation scene that developed in its wake, including the improvisational group Alterations. FIG was also educational in that it exposed free improvisation to women unfamiliar with the genre
, and it introduced feminism to uninitiated men.
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...
and avant-rock ensemble formed in London in 1977. They were the first women-only group of improvisers
Musical improvisation
Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians...
and challenged the hitherto male-dominated musical improvisation scene.
FIG performed live in London and toured Europe several times, where they played at music festivals in various venues, including Paris, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
. In 1983 FIG evolved into the European Women's Improvising Group (EWIG).
History
The Feminist Improvising Group (FIG) was founded in 1977 in London by Scottish vocalist Maggie NicolsMaggie Nicols
Maggie Nicols , is a Scottish free-jazz and improvising vocalist, dancer, and performer.-Early life and career:...
from Centipede
Centipede (band)
Centipede were an English jazz/progressive rock/Canterbury sound big band with more than 50 members, organized and led by the British free jazz pianist Keith Tippett...
, and English bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
ist/composer Lindsay Cooper
Lindsay Cooper
Lindsay Cooper is an English bassoon and oboe player, composer and political activist. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians...
from Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
. The other members of the five-piece ensemble were cellist/bassist Georgie Born
Georgina Born
Georgina Born is a British academic, anthropologist and musician. As a musician she is known as Georgie Born, but in academic circles she does not use the diminutive form.-Background:...
, also from Henry Cow, vocalist/pianist Cathy Williams from the British duo Rag Doll, and trumpeter Corinne Liensol. They had originally intended calling themselves the "Women's Improvising Group", but at their first engagement they discovered that the organisers had billed them as the "Feminist Improvising Group". Nicols said that the "political statement of the band's name never even came from us! But we just thought, 'OK, they've called us feminist, we'll work with that' ".
FIG's debut performance was at a "Music for Socialism" festival at the Almost Free Theatre in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Their act was a combination of music and comedy, and focused on "women's experience" and "mundane daily things". Nicols described it as "quite anarchic. It had elements of theatre; we had props, we were chopping onions, I was rushing around with perfume, it was completely improvised."
FIG were the first women-only improvising group, and they challenged the established improvising community with performances that were theatrical, with politics and farce supplementing their music. They staged parodies around the role of women in society and incorporated domestic "found object
Found object
A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things which occur in nature...
s" in their performances, "vacuum cleaners, brooms, dustpans, pots and pans, and egg slicers". Their performances often had some of the women cleaning the stage, while the others huddled in a group to "explore the sonic possibilities of household items." They also broke down the barriers that traditionally existed between the performer and the audience by engaging in "antiphon
Antiphon
An antiphon in Christian music and ritual, is a "responsory" by a choir or congregation, usually in Gregorian chant, to a psalm or other text in a religious service or musical work....
al exchange[s]" with them, and promoting the notion that "anyone can do it". This antagonised the purists who valued "technical virtuosity" and "improvisational competence". FIG redefined free improvisation by introducing "social virtuosity", the ability to communicate with the other musicians and the audience.
FIG toured Europe several times, where they played at festivals in various venues, including Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Reykjavík. When Cooper and Born were performing with Henry Cow in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
in January 1978, Cooper invited Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
pianist Irène Schweizer to join FIG. English filmmaker Sally Potter
Sally Potter
Charlotte Sally Potter is an English film director and screenwriter.-Career:Having left school at sixteen to become a filmmaker, Potter joined the London Film-Makers' Co-op and started making experimental short films, including Jerk and Play...
, who played saxophone and sang, joined the group in April 1978. Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
trombonist Annemarie Roelofs
Annemarie Roelofs
Annemarie Roelofs , also spelt Anne-Marie Roelofs and Anne Marie Roelofs, is a Dutch trombone player and violinist, and is a professor at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. She is a member of several musical groups and has performed in Holland and England.-Biography:Roelofs...
, English singer Frankie Armstrong
Frankie Armstrong
Frankie Armstrong is a singer and voice teacher.She has worked as a singer in the folk scene and the women's movement and as a trainer in social and youth work...
, Dutch woodwind player Angèle Veltmeijer, and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
saxophonist and guitarist Françoise Dupety, also played intermittently with the group. Some of FIG's performances consisted of up to eight women.
Nicols left FIG in 1980 to form another all-women group called Contradictions. In 1983, under the helm of Schweizer, FIG evolved into the European Women's Improvising Group (EWIG), bowing to pressure that their name was "too political". EWIG included Schweizer, Cooper, Roelofs, French double bassist Joëlle Léandre
Joëlle Léandre
Joëlle Léandre is a double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation....
, and French singer Annick Nozati.
Reception and analysis
In the 1970s there was a view that the free improvisationFree improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
music space was largely the domain of male heterosexuals
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
, and women were marginalized. Julie Dawn Smith wrote in her 2004 essay, "Playing Like a Girl: The Queer Laughter of the Feminist Improvising Group", that "The opportunity for freedom in relation to sexual difference, gender, and sexuality for women improvisers was strangely absent from the discourses and practices of free jazz and free improvisation". When FIG made their appearance in 1977, they challenged the established improvising community. Because part of their act was to parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
men, some male improvisers felt "threatened" and complained about "these women who can't play their instruments", and their "irreverent approach to technique and tradition".
FIG was a mixture of white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
, lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, straight
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
, working
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
- and middle-class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
women. Maggie Nicols wanted it to be open to all women of different backgrounds and different levels of musicianship, even those who had not improvised before. She saw these differing abilities, which gave rise to unexpected results, as a strength, and not a weakness. "The result was a music that had to be taken on its own terms, as music that decidedly and consciously included the politics of being women, musicians, improvisers, and members of a society."
While some of the members lacked conventional musical skills, they were "politically very right" and quickly adapted to improvising. Because of the nature of free improvisation, the women were able to perform together without concerns about competency. They used free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
's "extreme timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
s" to enhance their live performances, which David G. Pier described as "in-your-face queer sexuality and feminist shock politics."
Critics of FIG were always either very positive, or very negative; there was never any middle-ground. They received little support from male improvisers, who criticised the technical ability of the group and referred to them as "women" and not musicians. Men generally felt threatened by the "spectacle of so many unsupervised and unpredictable women on the stage". Irène Schweizer recalled that FIG were invited to perform at the Total Music Meeting in Berlin in November 1979 because she had played at the festival before (in all-men groups). But after seeing FIG perform, the organiser asked Schweizer, "how come you brought such a group, they can't play, and they are not good enough." Avant-garde musician Alexander von Schlippenbach
Alexander von Schlippenbach
Alexander von Schlippenbach is a German jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:...
also complained about FIG being there, saying that they "couldn't play [their] instruments" and that he could have found "loads of men that would have played a lot better".
Guitarist Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne is an American improvisor, guitarist and banjoist. Highly eclectic and unconventional, Chadbourne's most formative influence is free jazz. He has also been a reviewer for Allmusic and a contributor to Maximum RocknRoll.Chadbourne started out playing rock and roll guitar, but...
said that "gendered style as well as sexual difference factored into the critical assessment of FIG's performances." Schweizer believed that many male improvisers felt threatened by FIG because of their use of humour, "We were not that serious, like men, [...] they take [improvising] so seriously". Georgie Born described FIG's humour as "very iconoclastic and very surreal, or very silly. There were no big boys there standing judging." On the issue of FIG being a women-only group, Nicols remarked, "It's amazing the number of men that were saying, 'Why are there no men?' And yet nobody had ever dreamed to think of asking why there were men only [groups]."
Some feminist audiences were also critical of FIG, saying that they were "too virtuosic and abstract". At a Women's Festival at the Drill Hall in London, many women in the audience were unfamiliar with "free music" and accused FIG of being "elitist" and "inaccessible". This was a bitter pill for the members of FIG to swallow who expected support from such quarters.
But FIG also received positive reactions from both men and women at concerts. Nicols recalled the "dykes
Dyke (slang)
Dyke is slang terminology referring to a lesbian or lesbianism. It originated as a derogatory label for a masculine woman, and this usage still exists. However, some attempt to use it in a manner they see as positive, or simply as a neutral synonym for lesbian...
" in the audience who had come to see them at FIG's first performance: they were into disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
and soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and sat patiently through the other improvisers, but when FIG came on, "They laughed their heads off." Improvisers Steve Beresford
Steve Beresford
Steve Beresford is a British musician who graduated from the University of York. He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, trumpet, euphonium, double-bass and a wide variety of toy instruments, such as the toy piano. He has also played a wide range of music...
and David Toop
David Toop
David Toop is an English musician and author, and as of 2001 was visiting Research Fellow in the Media School at London College of Communication. He was notably a member of The Flying Lizards. He was a prominent contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire,...
were also in the audience and responded positively to FIG's performance. Lindsay Cooper recalled a comment made to her by a female artist working in film: "I don't know what on earth you're doing but I like it."
Influence
FIG spawned a number of women-only improvising groups and events. In 1980 Contradictions was formed by Maggie Nicols, who modelled it in the same vein as FIG. The founding members included Nicols, Jackie Lansley and Sylvia Hallett, with Irène Schweizer and Joëlle LéandreJoëlle Léandre
Joëlle Léandre is a double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation....
participating in their first concert. Contradictions went to become a women's workshop run by Nicols in which "anyone could participate". Schweizer was one of the organisers of the Canaille festivals that staged the first International Women's Jazz Festival for Improvised Music in 1986 in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
. In the early 1990s, Nicols, Schweizer and Leandre formed the "highly theatrical and often satirical" improvising trio, Les Diaboliques, releasing three albums between 1994 and 1998.
Nicols said that FIG was "tremendously influential" on the second-generation improvisation scene that developed in its wake, including the improvisational group Alterations. FIG was also educational in that it exposed free improvisation to women unfamiliar with the genre
Music genre
A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music...
, and it introduced feminism to uninitiated men.
Recordings
- Feminist Improvising Group (1979) – a cassetteCompact CassetteThe Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
release of extracts from live performances in Copenhagen (29 April 1978), Stockholm (20 August 1978) and Reykjavík (18 November 1978).
Members
- Maggie NicolsMaggie NicolsMaggie Nicols , is a Scottish free-jazz and improvising vocalist, dancer, and performer.-Early life and career:...
– vocals - Lindsay CooperLindsay CooperLindsay Cooper is an English bassoon and oboe player, composer and political activist. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians...
– bassoon, oboe, sopranino sax, piano - Georgie BornGeorgina BornGeorgina Born is a British academic, anthropologist and musician. As a musician she is known as Georgie Born, but in academic circles she does not use the diminutive form.-Background:...
– cello, bass guitar - Corinne Liensol – trumpet
- Cathy Williams – keyboards, vocals
- Irène SchweizerIrène SchweizerIrène Schweizer is a notable Swiss jazz and free improvising pianist. She was born in Schaffhausen, in 1941.She has performed and recorded numerous solo piano performances as well as performing as part of the Feminist Improvising Group, whose members include Lindsay Cooper, Maggie Nichols, Georgie...
– piano, drums - Sally PotterSally PotterCharlotte Sally Potter is an English film director and screenwriter.-Career:Having left school at sixteen to become a filmmaker, Potter joined the London Film-Makers' Co-op and started making experimental short films, including Jerk and Play...
– vocals, alto saxophone - Annemarie RoelofsAnnemarie RoelofsAnnemarie Roelofs , also spelt Anne-Marie Roelofs and Anne Marie Roelofs, is a Dutch trombone player and violinist, and is a professor at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. She is a member of several musical groups and has performed in Holland and England.-Biography:Roelofs...
– trombone, violin - Frankie ArmstrongFrankie ArmstrongFrankie Armstrong is a singer and voice teacher.She has worked as a singer in the folk scene and the women's movement and as a trainer in social and youth work...
– vocals - Angèle Veltmeijer – flute, tenor sax, soprano saxophone
- Françoise Dupety – alto saxophone, guitar