Music Spoken Here presents: Chris Bowden ‘The Hypnos Files’ ft. Neil Bullock & Louise Warren

Emerging from the 90s Acid Jazz and Nu Jazz scenes in London, saxophonist Chris Bowden’s music has been described as “true future jazz”. Association with Gilles Peterson saw Chris in the “That’s How It Is”club night house band at Bar Rumba, as well as working with K-Creative and 4 Hero, both projects releasing albums on Gilles’ Talkin’ Loud label.

As a gifted arranger on Jessica Lauren’s “Siren Song” album, he encountered Soul Jazz Records and went on to release his first album “Time Capsule” on the label in 1996.  His work with The Herbaliser, one of the best known bands on the Ninja Tune label (run by Matt Black and Jonathan Moore – aka Coldcut), led to the release of his second album “Slightly Askew” on Ninja Tune in 2002. Featuring a 17-piece band including strings, Colin Buttimer (BBC) described the album as“ambitious, thinking music not afraid of expressing feeling. Chris Bowden is one of the UK’s great altoists and composers; Slightly Askew underlines this”.

Drug and alcohol addiction led Chris to return to his home town, Birmingham, but it wasn’t until 2010 that he resigned to making his first real attempt to get clean. Following a lengthy recovery program he describes as a desperate time with an uncertain future, with the support of friends and family he got back on his feet and has been clean and sober for the last 10 years.

In this time, he has established himself as an in-demand saxophonist and educator. His Quartet play all over the UK and he appears frequently as a guest artist with a variety of groups. He has recorded two further albums, “Unlikely Being” on UK Vibe in 2018 and “The Hypnos Files”, described as “Brecker meets Beyonce”, on Rehab Records in 2022.

This special performance features Chris with a truly world class band – Louise Warren (vocals), Jim Watson (piano), Simon ‘Palmskin’ Richmond (keys), Chris Dodd (bass) and Neil Bullock (drums) – performing work from across his career.