Description
Mark Charig has been one of the major exponents of the cornet on the British and European jazz scene. Additional to his jazz credentials, Charig s greatest public recognition was afforded through his participation with King Crimson on their Lizard and Islands albums, and then on their fi nal studio album Red . Charig was self-taught and started his musical career playing in various blues and soul outfi ts. One of his fi rst major gigs was a tour backing Stevie Wonder in 1966. Then at the 1968 Barry Summer school he met Keith Tippett, and fellow students Elton Dean and Nick Evans. The four musicians formed the core of the Keith Tippett Sextet, and were to be reunited in many of Tippett and Dean s groups and ensembles over the years. The Sextet gigged regularly until the autumn of 1970, when it was absorbed into the larger-scale Centipede, recording two acclaimed albums - You Are Here... I Am There and Dedicated To You, But You Weren t Listening , both released in 1970. Tippett, Dean, Charig and Evans all took part in the expanded Just Us, which evolved into Elton Dean s Ninesense, and Keith Tippett s Ark. Charig was also involved in the experimental septet line-up of Soft Machine in late 1969, and guested on the Fourth album. He was a mainstay of Chris McGregor s Brotherhood Of Breath from 1970-77, and has also played in the London Jazz Composers Orchestra since its inception. By the late Seventies, his work base had moved to the Continent, in particular Germany, where he collaborated with Fred Van Hove in MLA (with Radu Malfatti and Paul Rutherford) and ML DD 4 (with Gunter Sommer and Phil Wachsmann), and Alexander von Schlippenbach s Globe Unity Orchestra. In 1983, he also took part in French bass player Didier Levallet s Scoop ensemble.