Julian Argüelles

Julian Argüelles Clarke first saw the light of day on 28 January 1966 in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. While still a teenager the saxophonist and composer performed regularly with several big bands operating in and around Birmingham. He also appeared in both the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and the European Community Big Band. Relocating to London in 1984, he enrolled at Trinity College of Music and shortly afterwards became a member of Loose Tubes, whose European itinerary he shared for several seasons. Additional work came his way with Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath, whose American guests included Archie Shepp, and alongside his brother Steve Argüelles. He simultaneously assembled his own compact ensembles—chiefly trios and quartets—for club and concert dates across the United Kingdom. Early in the following decade he toured with Kenny Wheeler’s big band, the Mike Gibbs orchestra, John Scofield, Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, Tommy Smith, Henry Lowther, John Taylor and numerous others. Throughout those years he documented sessions with most of the same musicians and issued his debut recording under his own name, Phaedrus. Later projects extended the musical concerns first voiced on that album, reaching a notable summit with Escapade, the initial release he placed on Colin Towns’ Provocateur imprint. Equally at home on several members of the saxophone family, Argüelles possesses a personal voice that registers contemporary jazz currents while demonstrating intimate knowledge of the idiom’s lineage; those same attributes surface in his writing.