ICP Orchestra
| Instant Composers Pool | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1967 |
| Founder | Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink |
| Distributor(s) | Subterranean Distribution |
| Genre | Free jazz, improvised music |
| Country of origin | Netherlands |
| Location | Amsterdam |
| Official website | www |
| ICP Orchestra | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Netherlands |
| Genres | free jazz, improvised music |
| Years active | 1967–present |
| Associated acts | Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor, Derek Bailey, Steve Lacy, George Russell, Evan Parker, Dudu Pukwana, Sonic Youth, The Ex, Getatchew Mekuria |
| Website | [1] |
| Members |
Misha Mengelberg Han Bennink Ab Baars Tobias Delius Ernst Glerum Thomas Heberer Tristan Honsinger Michael Moore Mary Oliver Wolter Wierbos |
| Past members |
Willem Breuker John Tchicai Peter Brötzmann |
Instant Composers Pool (ICP) is an independent Dutch jazz and improvised music label and orchestra. Founded in 1967, the label takes its name from the notion that improvisation is "instant composition". The ICP label has published more than 50 releases to date, with most of its releases featuring the ICP Orchestra and its members.
In 1967 saxophonist Willem Breuker, pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink founded the ICP label in Amsterdam. Mengelberg and Bennink had been playing together since 1961 and found success as members of Eric Dolphy's quartet in 1964, as documented on his live album Last Date. Mengelberg had also been involved in the Fluxus art movement and was developing a composition style that involved musical games. As European free jazz musicians, they were butting up against disinterest in their music from contemporary jazz labels, so they formed a cooperative as a means to release their own recordings. Mengelberg coined the label's name as a testament to improvisation being composition at the instant that the music is played. ICP's first records documented Breuker and Bennink's New Acoustic Swing Duo, and a trio of Mengelberg and Bennink with John Tchicai, whose album was titled Instant Composers Pool.
Breuker left ICP in 1974 to concentrate on his group, the Willem Breuker Collective, and went on to found his own record label, BVHaast. Mengelberg and Bennink intensified their collaboration and, widening their own musical project as the Instant Composers Pool Tentet with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and cellist Tristan Honsinger. Throughout the 1970s, the ICP label continued to release records, many as co-productions with other European independent labels, including albums by Jeanne Lee, Derek Bailey, Dudu Pukwana, Steve Lacy, Paul Rutherford, Evan Parker, Maarten Altena and Peter Brötzmann. Most of these releases were of limited (and sometimes even numbered) edition and featured a distinctive idiosyncratic graphic design by Bennink.
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