Rare gigs featuring drummer Tony Buck (left), best known for his work with cult improvising trio The Necks, are coming on to the horizon at the end of the month when Buck teams up on a Jazz Services-supported tour with the spirited free jazz-inclined saxophonist Tony Bevan, himself a member of free jazz legend Sunny Murray’s European trio.

Bevan plays tenor and the rarely performed bass saxophone and distinguished himself on the no-holds-barred albums The Gearbox Explodes and the earlier Home Cooking In The UK. Buck and Bevan are joined by Dominic Lash of The Convergence Quartet and Boston-based guitarist Joe Morris who American jazz bible Down Beat has called “the pre-eminent free music guitarist of his generation” with Morris’ track record having included stints with free jazz giants Anthony Braxton, David S. Ware, William Parker and Matthew Shipp.

Back in May when Buck along with his colleagues in The Necks, Chris Abrahams and Lloyd Swanton, performed their unique brand of minimalism, drawing on the broad sweep of the innovations made by Terry Riley and Steve Reich, the results at the Union Chapel in Islington were quite spellbinding. On this tour Buck will be able to explore new visceral territory with these fine avant players and especially up close in the intimate club and pub spaces the group is a must go-see.

– Stephen Graham

Dates are The Cluny, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (27 October); Vortex, London (28); the Hare and Hounds, Birmingham (29); The Cube, Bristol (30); The Folly Bridge, Oxford (31) and The Rising Sun, Reading (1 November).