Elvin Brandhi + Khabat Abas + Ryoko Akama
96 Robert Street
NW1 3QP
9th October
7pm
Tickets
Bill Dixon 100
HQI, 195 Wood Lane W12 7FQ
5th October 2025, 3pm
On what would have been Dixon's 100th birthday, we will begin with an open rehearsal led by Sam Eastmond. The Bill Dixon Living Trust have sent us a Dixon composition called Index, which was until recently thought lost. Dixon considered it one of his most important, and yet it was never played live or recorded properly. Sam has selected a group of musicians, the Index Orchestra, to teach the score to, and attendees will be able to listen in to the orchestra learning Index.
This will be followed by a panel discussion reflecting on Dixon's life and legacy, moderated by Ethan Cohen, and featuring Eastmond, Evan Parker, Orphy Robinson, and Kevin Le Gendre. We will also discuss the political questions Dixon continued to ask throughout his life, most notably at the seminal October Jazz Revolution festival of 1964, such as how Black musicians could organise against a racist American music industry in such a way that they were treated fairly and paid properly.
A quartet, led by Sam, including Will Glaser, Alex Bonney, and Fergus Quill, and including Parker and Robinson as soloists, will then play several Dixon compositions. Finally, the orchestra to whom Sam taught Index will be invited back to the stage to perform an orchestral rendition of the piece.