Tony Oxley
Tony Oxley (born 15 June 1938 in Sheffield, England) is a drummer active in free jazz and free improvisation. Oxley's playing has been described (in the Penguin Guide to Jazz) as "a unique blend of lumpen momentum and detailed percussive colour". He often augments the traditional drum kit with nonstandard/homemade percussion and electronics.
Oxley, along with drummers such as Han Bennink and John Stevens, was one of the first and most important free-improvising drummers in Europe. He was a member of two key free-improvising ensembles in the 1960s, Joseph Holbrooke (with Derek Bailey and Gavin Bryars) and the Howard Riley Trio (with Barry Guy); he was also a key member of Guy's London Jazz Composers' Orchestra in its earlier incarnations. In the 1980s he became a regular partner of the American free pianist Cecil Taylor; Taylor's group with Oxley and bassist William Parker became known as The Feel Trio, recording albums for Free Music Production and a mammoth 10-CD set, Two T's For a Lovely T (Codanza). Oxley has also become a regular partner of the trumpeter Bill Dixon, and has worked with Anthony Braxton, Alexander von Schlippenbach and many other free jazz musicians.
Oxley is also an accomplished "straight" jazz drummer. He is still perhaps best known in this capacity for his work on John McLaughlin's debut album, Extrapolation (1969); he was also briefly a member of the Bill Evans trio, and has also worked extensively with Tomasz Stanko and Paul Bley. His early conventional playing can be heard to good effect on his collaborations with Gordon Beck Experiments with Pops and Gyroscope. He also made a substantial contribution to John Surman's second album How Many Clouds Can You See?. He was house drummer at Ronnie Scott's club for some time and can be heard on Ronnie Scott's live album Ronnie Scott and the Band. He also collaborated briefly with Vangelis in the early 1970s.
Oxley's first albums as a leader – The Baptised Traveller and Four Compositions for Sextet – were released in the late 1960s on the CBS (Columbia) label, but quickly deleted; they were later reissued on CD but a followup album on RCA Victor, Ichnos, remains an elusive collector's item. These unfortunate experiences with major labels prompted Oxley to join with Bailey and Evan Parker to create Incus Records, the first musician-owned label in the UK (though Oxley left the label early on). Recent recordings have been for the labels FMP, Sofa, a/l/l and Incus, among others.