Described as “An innovator" and “A gamechanger" by
The Guardian, British guitarist Ant lives in London and leads his quintet,
dubbed “An exciting band to hear live" by John Fordham. Their debut
'Entanglement' was released in 2013 to great acclaim, followed by 'Zero Sum
World' in 2015. They have toured extensively and their third album 'Life I
Know' for Edition Records was released on the 9th of November 2018. The release
was very warmly received by the press. It received 5 star reviews, made
numerous “best of 2018" lists, received airplay in the UK, Europe,
Australia, and hundreds of thousands of plays (and counting) on Spotify. It is
being described as “career-defining".
Ant has played in Tim Garland's band with Jason Rebello
& Asaf Sirkis, featuring on 'Songs To The North Sky', 'Return To The Fire'
and 'ONE' which was shortlisted for a Grammy and won the Jazzwise Best Album
award. He is a member of Trio HLK who record/tour with Dame Evelyn Glennie. He
has also worked with Cory Henry, Thomas Gould and is frequently featured in
“Total Guitar" and “Guitar Techniques" magazines, in which he was
recently listed as an “Astounding Virtuoso". Ant has an interest in
Physics, which he read as a scholar at Edinburgh University.
2016 saw the emergence of the Art Of Rhythm Trio featuring
Matt Ridley (bass) and Asaf Sirkis (drums and konnakol). In April/May they
played a 20-date tour all over the UK, supported by the Arts Council. They had
played together in a different ensembles but the tour allowed them to
consolidate their musical relationships and develop the trio dynamic. Most
notable perhaps is the inclusion of Indian classical elements (check out the
youtube videos) such as konnakol, the South-Indian spoken percussion, amidst
all the jazz. This group is touring on an ongoing basis and they hope to see
you at a gig soon!
Ant was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he lived until
the age of 16. From a young age he was exposed to early blues and rock 'n'
roll, as well as Arabic music. He began playing piano and guitar around the age
of 8. Throughout his teens he gravitated towards the guitar. A history teacher
gave him a video of Stevie Ray Vaughan playing live at the El Mocambo, which
was a huge influence, along with videos of Guns 'n' Roses, Queen, and later on
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.
Other than the classical piano training, Law's only formal
schooling in music was one semester on scholarship at Berklee College Of Music,
Boston. This he says was crucial because he heard gospel music and gospel
drummers for the first time, and lots of Latin American music. The semester was
completed in the middle of a Physics degree he was reading at Edinburgh
University, also as a scholar. It was whilst studying the degree that he became
obsessed with jazz and played his first jazz gigs. By this point he had
discovered and started to use Perfect 4ths tuning for the guitar. In a case of
convergent evolution however, other players (like Stanley Jordan and Tom
Quayle) had also discovered and were using this same tuning. Allan Holdsworth
has said that if he could start again, he would tune this way. Ant wrote a book
introducing the tuning entitled “3rd Millenium Guitar" which is published
by Mel Bay.
After completing the degree he concentrated on make a living
playing guitar, eventually moving to London and immersing himself in the scene
there. He also lived in NYC for a season to study with his heroes Ari Hoenig,
Ben Monder, Adam Rogers, Lage Lund, Gilad Hekselman, Johannes Weidenmueller,
Tim Miller and others.
Website: http://www.antlaw.co.uk/
No comments:
Post a Comment