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Phil Minton

Phil Minton (born 2 November 1940, Torquay, United Kingdom) is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter. Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake with his own ensemble. He even once participated in a Jimi Hendrix tribute project, belting out the lyrics in particular over-the-top fashion. Between 1987 and 1993 Minton toured Europe, North America and Russia with Lindsay Cooper's Oh Moscow ensemble.He is perhaps best known, however, for his completely free-form work, which involves "extended techniques" that can be as unsettling as they can be mesmerising.… more »