British saxophonist John Butcher was born in Brighton, and currently resides in London. He is most famous for his free improvisations, especially his solo performances, which involve the use of extended techniques such as multiphonics. He has also written pieces for Chris Burn's Ensemble, Polwechsel, and the Rova Saxophone Quartet.
He began playing saxophone while studying physics at Surrey University, gaining an enthusiasm for jazz through hearing music such as John Surman, Stan Tracey and Louis Moholo, and working in jazz groups of his own. A Ph.D, "Spin effects in the production and weak decay of heavy Quarks", was published in 1982, and after this, Butcher, who had continued to work in groups including Chris Burn's Jazz Ensemble, pursued a career in music.
He performed with artists such as Phil Durrant, John Russell, Evan Parker, Alan Tomlinson, and Derek Bailey. In the early 1990s, he joined the final version of John Steven's Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and performed duos with vocalists Phil Minton and Vanessa Mackness. From 1993 - 1997 Butcher was a director of the London Musicians' Collective. Later on, he began to work with electronics, with Phil Durrant, Japanese no-input mixer specialist Toshimaru Nakamura, and Austrian laptop artist Christof Kurzmann, among others.
Solo concerts and recordings have been a particular focus, the most recent being 'The Geometry of Sentiment', on Emanem Records. Recently he has also worked in fORCH, the expanded version of Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer's electronics duo fURT.
As well as regular groups, he has participated in many one-off encounters, from large groups such as Fred van Hove’s t’nonet, Radu Malfatti’s Orkestra, Butch Morris’ London Skyscraper, the EX Orkestra, Richard Barrett's SWR NEWJazz Meeting project; to duo concerts with Fred Frith, Akio Suzuki, Carlos Zingaro, Otomo Yoshihide, Kaffe Matthews, Joe Morris, Jin Hi Kim, and Paul Lovens.
He has also given many workshops/lectures on improvisation and the saxophone, in venues as diverse as Barcelona Conservatory snd Swindon Arts Centre.
