This recital will include performances of the compositions written during Spike's PhD candidature Oximetric - Random Points of Resolution in Multi-Pulsed Improvised and Composed Music.

The oximetric concept involves the execution of a largely unfamiliar performance practice within jazz ensemble music. Each musician within the ensemble plays melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic material, either composed or improvised, within their own uniquely fluid pulse.

The musicians, although playing at the same time, do not adhere to a common pulse, time signature, or groove. Each of the pulses are played with the goal to maintain a sense of the individual. There is no need for them to start or finish together. The pulses are not rhythmic subdivisions of each other or related mathematically. They are separate voices that create a synergy by being sounded together in the same sonic space, and sharing a common intent, or mood.

The oximetric concept incorporates composed rhythms that are expanded and compounded by each of the performers in the ensemble at their discretion. The rhythms are to be executed ‘phrasically’ - so that each melodic or rhythmic segment is not strict but flows and breathes as in our natural bodies. In this way, the composed forms that are the structural foundations of each of the compositions become fluid - arbitrary frameworks on which multiple unique performances can be built. The melodic and harmonic relationships that follow these forms echo what is already found in the music of the jazz canon, where interactions may be as consonant or dissonant as the individuals within the ensemble deems appropriate.

Spike Mason | Saxophone and Composer

Louise Denson | Piano

Sasha Gavlek | Double Bass

Tom Robb | Drums