The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble, or MJAFE, performs classic songs from artists including Nick Drake and Pentangle, along with traditional songs such as “She Moves Through the Fair”: an approach described as “paying tribute to the 1970s folk revival through a vibrant jazz lens.” The band, which Sean Khan formed in 2023, released Sean Khan presents The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble on the Acid Jazz label in the following year, showcasing songs including Drake’s “Things Behind the Sun,” John Martyn’s “Solid Air” (he describes Martyn as a “phenomenal” guitarist) and Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes.” The MJAFE’s upcoming concert at the Afro Futures Festival is only the third time it has appeared live, following a concert at the London Jazz Festival and another at Ronnie Scott’s.

Certain Blacks, the organisers of the Afro-Futures Festival, approached Sean via the band’s manager, Colm Carty. “It’s my first contact with Certain Blacks,” Sean explains, “I’ve got South American and Caribbean roots through my father, my mum’s Irish. I’ve got relatives in Paris, from Surinam, and in Amsterdam from the Dutch Antilles, but I’ve never met them. I was always going to Ireland as a kid, but I also have those South American and Caribbean roots, so that background may have interested the organisation, but I don’t know.”

As a saxophonist and arranger, Sean has had a varied career. He began his career in dance music and still works in that genre. He’s also a lover of classical music, particularly Debussy and Ravel, as well as having a love of folk, which he’s rekindled since he began the MJAFE: “I’ve got very eclectic tastes and I play with a lot of the younger generation of jazz musicians who also seem to have wide musical interests. That kind of open-mindedness was very important when I picked the musicians for the MJAFE. I picked people I’d worked with in the past, I know their mindsets. I wrote very specific arrangements and asked them to stick closely to those arrangements, not to veer off, because it’s not a jazz record. There are a couple of jazz tracks, where I did say ‘OK, let’s give it some welly,’ but the rest of the tracks are centred on the vocalists. This music, by Drake, Martyn, Pentangle, is very historically significant. So when I picked the musicians, I knew there’d be no egos, that they’d play these arrangements beautifully.”

The ensemble lineup for the Rich Mix concert is slightly different from that on the album. “Filippo Galli is now on drums, he’s ‘all ears’. Al McSween is on keys, he already knew the Pentangle numbers. They both played the London Jazz Festival gig, a great night. Mirko Scarcia is still on double bass: he played on the album. They’re three really open musicians. I play a lot with Filippo in different projects.” Sean also has a core group of players he can call on for each instrument: “players I know are capable of handling what I want.” Rosie Frater-Taylor and Kindelan sang on the album. Rosie will be appearing at Rich Mix but Kindelan won’t be able to join the concert. “If we had unlimited funds, we’d do so much more with this project,” Sean explains, “But the economics of the situation don’t allow it.”

The MJAFE album features guest appearances by bassist Dave Pegg, mainstay of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull, and Pentangle vocalist Jacqui McShee, who sings on “Light Flight,” the theme to 1960s TV show Take Three Girls and Pentangle’s best-known song. “Jacqui’s amazing,” says Sean, “she’s really open as a person, really up for trying stuff. Colm got her involved and also brought in Dave Pegg. Dave’s got great ears: I just wrote down some chords for him but he didn’t want a chart, he just wanted to play. He did his own twist on what I’d written down — very cool.”

The setlist for the concert will focus on the album’s eight tracks, but there will also be some additional music. “There’ll be a set of some of my older material at the beginning of the evening. I worked with Hermeto Pascoal a few years ago, on Palmares Fantasy and also with Peter King, who was a friend of mine and joined me on Supreme Love: a Journey Through Coltrane. I’ll be playing two tracks from the Hermeto album and one from the Peter King record to open up the evening. I’ve also written a new number for the opening set. As well as the tracks from the MJAFE album, I’ve added an arrangement of “The Trees They Do Grow High,” from Pentangle, with Jacqui on vocals, and a version of “Primrose Hill” from John and Beverley Martyn’s Road to Ruin album. So there’ll be World Premieres of those two arrangements at Rich Mix! I think these new arrangements are very recordable. I’d also love to delve further into John Martyn and Nick Drake’s back catalogues. There’s a lot of brilliant music in there.” As for the upcoming Afro-Futures Festival show: “The audience will get their money’s worth — I always try and give value for money.”

The MJAFE plays Rich Mix on Thursday 6 March at 7.30pm as part of the Afro-Futures Festival

The post Sean Khan and The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble first appeared on UK Jazz News.

“I have a relationship with everyone in the band,” Tom says, “As friends from music college, as my mentors, or as someone I got to know because I love their playing. Everyone’s chosen for their unique sound, and what they can bring to the music. The music draws on big band traditions, but I’ve been enjoying experimenting with different influences: Pat Metheny, Carla Bley, Guy Barker, Chris Potter, Ellington, Basie, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Maria Schneider.”

“Our sold out launch show at Ronnie Scott’s on 6 January was so much fun, and the room was absolutely buzzing,” he continues. “Because of the tricky logistics of organising shows with 18 musicians, we aren’t touring the album in the normal sense, but we have a number of shows booked in for the rest of the year which I’m treating as album celebration gigs. We are in Letchworth in April (date tbc), Pizza Express Soho on 22 June and 5 October, East Neuk Festival as a septet on 27 June, and the Concorde Club in Eastleigh on 8 October. I’m currently booking some more, so I will update my social media and website with the details when they come out.”

A Year in the Life arose from the band’s first gig, for which Tom produced a concert’s worth of music in just 2 or 3 months (a tough task, as he writes and arranges all of the band’s repertoire). “I had to do a whole lot of writing very quickly,” he explains. “In the following 7 or 8 months I added songs and refined the material. Some of the compositions are quite old, in their original forms. One of them is 8 or 9 years old: I wrote it for a small group, then for a septet, then finally I expanded it for a big band.” Before recording, the band played live on only 2 or 3 occasions and held what Tom calls a “bunch” of rehearsals: “It sounded really good the first time we played. It came together quickly.”

“The tunes sometimes come from stories, sometimes they arrive fully-formed and I have to work out what they remind me of, other times I go in with a plan of action. ‘Saviour Suzanne’ (inspired by saxophonist and bandleader Suzanne Higgins) is a good example. That started out as a small-group song that felt quite Cedar Walton-y, which I liked. Then I met Suzanne and she really helped me out, and I decided to expand it for big band, changing its vibe to something a bit more Thad Jones, Art Blakey. I’ve heard Suzanne do Thad Jones recordings and that definitely influenced the song’s direction. When I’m composing, it generally takes about three weeks just working through ideas at the piano. I’ll think about it when I’m on the tube, record myself playing on piano or sax, trying to create something that will ensure it’s different. Then I’ll start committing it to paper or Sibelius, where it changes a lot. Because each composition takes such a long time, there’s no point writing anything if it doesn’t mean something, if it doesn’t have an arc or story. It’s got to be quite personal, something that makes sense to me. I’m sure ‘We’re Being Watched’ came from spending too much time on social media, getting this awful sense that we’re all just part of The System.”

“I’m writing a song at the moment called ‘Mass Wisteria’,” Tom continues. “It’s a fun shuffle piece that keeps getting interrupted by breakouts, double-time swing or something. It feels settled, then out of nowhere it’ll go somewhere else. I wrote a reasonably standard big band shuffle, which we performed. Now I’ve heard it in its entirety and it works for the audience, I’m going back to mess it up, add in weird stuff. That’s quite a fun process.”

Thankfully, ‘Speedboat in Trouble’ isn’t based on Tom’s personal experience: “That was one of those lovely images in my head. I started writing this bebop head with a driving groove. It put me in mind of being on a speedboat, hurtling through the water, then it turned into a whole story. It’s kind of a word-painting sort of song, a three-act story: starting well, racing forward, and then hitting trouble before reaching calmer waters. But it didn’t actually happen to me!”

Tom writes for specific players: “The trumpets are a good example: Tom Walsh, Freddie Gavita, George Hogg and Alistair Martin all approach the instrument in a unique way, so it’s fun to produce interesting combinations across the section, thinking about how each player sounds, or approaches a solo. I was really pleased by the soloing on the album. I’ve spent a huge amount of time picking who was going to play what. At gigs we open things up a bit, but on A Year in the Life there were definitely specific people put in specific places for their own vibe.”

“I’d say it’s pretty free,” Tom says of his composing style. “If it was a smaller band I’d probably try to keep things a little freer, ‘cos that feels a bit more ‘jazz’, but the nature of the big band beast means there’s a lot more through-arrangement. Maybe as a result of what’s happened at gigs I tell the band more of the story of the songs. So, for example, when we recorded ‘Speedboat in Trouble’ I explained the story to both soloists – on the album it’s Trevor Mires on trombone and Alistair Martin on trumpet – and they approached their solos totally differently from the gigs. It definitely gives the music more of a narrative arc if the musicians know what emotions they’re meant to be conveying, rather than just giving them chord changes and saying, ‘Go for it!’.”

Tom’s now working on the band’s next project, aiming to record towards the end of 2025. “Since recording A Year in the Life I’ve written Trailers, a suite of six pieces inspired by film music, referencing different genres, directors or composers. It’s gone down really well with audiences. For example, ‘Shades of Noir’ references film noir, Hitchcock, Bernard Hermann. I tell the story before we play it and it captures the audience’s attention way more than if I simply said, ‘We’re going to play a jazz ballad’.” However, his focus is on the album’s release: “The whole of 2025 is going to be devoted to this music – a year of A Year in the Life.”

A Year in the Life will be released on Fey Moose Records on 21 February 2025.

The post Tom Smith Big Band first appeared on UK Jazz News.

“I started the big band in 2005, my last year at Aylesbury Grammar School. Some of the original musicians are still members,” Mike explained. “We started at weddings and private events, playing swing music, which I’ve always loved. Around 2008 I saw John Wilson on TV, conducting what looked like a big band in the middle of an orchestra. I thought ‘Wow! I really want to do that.’ We started playing for vintage dances, then in clubs such as Ronnie Scott’s. I always had the ambition to form a big band with strings, and in 2019, I thought I’d give it a go. We put on a big show featuring strings, and it grew from there.”

The Swing Orchestra is a busy ensemble and has recently played Cadogan Hall, as Mike explained to UK Jazz News in October. It’s also a continually expanding group: “The first Orchestra had 20 members. We’re up to about 32 members for this tour.”

Mike is the Orchestra’s conductor and its main arranger. “At the start I hadn’t had much experience of arranging for strings, but I’d worked with string sections quite a bit, in musical theatre for example. I grew up playing percussion in orchestras – at the back, not playing much, counting lots of bars rest. I learnt to arrange for strings by listening, by reading classical scores and studying arrangements by people such as Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins.”

The addition of a string section impacted on the Orchestra in two ways: stage setup and musical dynamics. “We experimented with various different stage layouts, and we’ve ended up with the rhythm section in the centre, strings to my left and horns to my right. In lots of ensembles like this, the rhythm section is pushed to the back, but when we put it at the centre it acts as the beating heart of the music, and everybody locks in to the drummer, who basically leads the group. Adding a string section also changes the way big band and jazz musicians play. I tell every new rhythm or horn section player, ‘You can’t play like you’re in a big band.’ If you play with that volume, there’s no chance the strings will be heard to the extent they deserve to be.”

“Over the last 18 months we’ve really focused on dynamics; our horn players have to play so much quieter than they would normally. Arrangers such as Nelson Riddle are very clever: you get big moments in the songs when the horns can blast out, really go for it, but at other times they have to play more quietly. The rewards are fantastic; it sounds so good. I remember hearing Clare Teal speak about seeing Wynton Marsalis with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and she recalled being surprised at how quietly they played. So if Wynton’s doing it, that’s a good enough reason for the rest of us to do so.”

The Orchestra’s usual line-up includes 12 strings (7 violins, 2 violas, 3 cellos), 10 horns, piano, bass, drums, guitar, two percussionists, conductor and four vocalists. “We’ve got five vocalists on the tour, with four performing at each concert. We do like changing the show. We have an unofficial policy that no two shows are the same, so we change vocalists around and that allows us to do different songs each night. It keeps the show fresh.”

Despite the title, the set isn’t exclusively devoted to Christmas songs: “At the start of the tour we aim to get people into the Christmas spirit, but they probably don’t want to hear a whole show of Christmas songs, so about one-third of the 26-28 songs will be seasonal. Closer to Christmas, it will be more like 50:50. We always listen to audience feedback about how many Christmas songs there should be. I know I’ve got it right when the same number of people say there were too many as tell me there weren’t enough.”

“I respectfully suggest there aren’t too many great Christmas songs, but the great ones are really great. We try to use the most beautiful arrangements. For example, we play ‘White Christmas’ at most shows, using a Gordon Jenkins arrangement written for Louis Armstrong to suit his voice. It’s marvellous, really special.”

One-third to half of the arrangements are originals by Mike or Simon Joyner (trumpeter and associate conductor). The rest are classic arrangements. Each vocalist sings lead on a similar number of songs each evening, and adds vocal harmonies to songs such as the Sinatra version of “Let It Snow,” which features “a fantastic, really jazzy, vocal chorus.” There’s also a Christmas Overture, to which Mike has added what he calls “an MGM-style choir. Our vocalists are going to be very busy.”

In January, the Down for the Count All-Stars will be on the road, presenting Swing That Music!. “The All-Stars is our original band, the lineup we perform as when we play venues such as Ronnie Scott’s or Pizza Express. We call it a mini big band: three saxes, two trumpets, piano, bass, drums and two or three vocalists. It’s a really fun, flexible, lineup. You can do a really strong Count Basie kind of set, and you can play some of Louis Armstrong’s repertoire. There are lots of vocals and big solos on numbers like ‘Jumpin’ at the Woodside’.”

The bands have almost completely different sets, with just a few songs in both repertoires: “‘Mr Bojangles’ is always requested, so we do that in both bands. ‘That’s Life’ is another popular request that’s in both sets. Other than that, the All-Stars concentrates on late-30s and early-40s swing music, while the Orchestra repertoire is more focussed on Capitol Studios, mid-50s, early-60s music.”

The Down for the Count Orchestra and All-Stars are growing in popularity, with audience numbers increasing and more young people coming to concerts, especially in larger cities and university towns. 2025 is another busy year: “After the All-Stars tour of Swing That Music!, we have some more Orchestra shows in the summer, then more All-Stars shows, then the Orchestra returns for Christmas.”

The Down for the Count Swing Orchestra’s Swing Into Christmas! begins touring on 17 November in Inverness, and continues until 28 December.

The post Down for the Count Swing Orchestra – Swing Into Christmas UK Tour first appeared on UK Jazz News.

A former National Youth Jazz Orchestra musician, David formed the Big Colors Big Band in 2008. The name was the idea of Mark Doffman, David’s partner in the founding of the band. “We always intended the repertoire and sound of the band to be rich and full of contrast and for a while we subtitled our gig posters ‘technicolor for your ears,’ which sums it up. At that time, no other bands in the area were playing that mix so we had to make it happen ourselves. The spelling of Colors acknowledged that most of the charts would be by American arrangers, something which we’ve continued to run with.” 

The band’s self-titled debut album, released on 33 Jazz in 2010, included Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower” and Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” as well as Sting’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger.” The band has a more focussed approach to tune selection for the Jazz Café POSK event, presenting, as the event’s title makes clear, “An Evening of Mid-Century Cool — the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and more …” This tantalising phrase begs the question of just who “and more” might include. David gives a few examples: “There’s a couple from Herbie Hancock, plus compositions by Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, and an early Joe Zawinul.”

As for the compositions of Davis, Coltrane and Mingus, David explains that “There’ll be one or two from Miles’s Kind of Blue of course, and a great arrangement of ‘Boplicity’from the Birth of the Cool album. We’ll playColtrane’s gorgeous ‘Naima’as well as ‘Blue Train.’ The Mingus tunes will be ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,’which Brandon makes a beautiful job of, and ‘Nostalgia in Times Square,’which still sounds pretty hip 65 years after it was written. I spend a lot of time choosing the material and the order in which we play it. I like the idea of a programme creating a mood – a kind of narrative.” This approach has already proven successful, the band’s 2023 performances of cool jazz proving popular with audiences and encouraging David to “tap into that pool of interest” again.

The Big Colors Big Band debut album used arrangements from the likes of Sammy Nestico and all the arrangements for An Evening of Mid-Century Cool are also by Americans. “In the past we’ve played charts by band members and it worked well. Steve Waterman did some gigs with us a few years back and we used three or four of his terrific compositions. It is something I’d like to do more of, perhaps with Mark Armstrong’s material or tunes from Jakub’s pen – if he manages to find the required head-space in the future. It’s a time-consuming process.” Finding the right Big Band arrangements of small-band tunes, such as ‘Naima’ and ‘Freddie Freeloader’, proved challenging. “It was very difficult,” says David. “The score should always be interesting, of course, using the full range of sounds and textures offered by the larger ensemble but if it becomes too complex or over-written, you lose the feel of the original.” He eventually found some high-quality arrangements for those tunes but “It took a lot of searching and listening.”

The Big Colors Big Band contains what David describes as “a few ex-NYJO ‘new kids on the block’.” The full line-up for Jazz Café POSK includes George Millard & Steph Green (alto), Brandon Allen & Ollie Weston (tenor), Mike Wilkins (bari), Josh Short, Mark Armstrong, Gabriel Taylor, Sam Virdie (trumpets), Matt Cooper, Tom Green, Ross Law, Pearce Abbey (trombones), Jakub Klimiuk (Guitar), Will Inscoe (piano), Murray Dare (bass) and Simon Spies (drums).

Saxophonist Brandon Allen has previously appeared with the band, while trumpeter Mark Armstrong and guitarist Jakub Klimiuk will be making their debut appearances in the line-up, although many of the players worked with Armstrong when he was NYJO’s Musical Director.

As with any jazz big band, organization and economics present problems and the Big Colors Big Band hasn’t performed as much as they would have liked over the 16 years of its existence, the most gigs in a single year being seven or eight. However, David has plans beyond the Jazz Café POSK concert: “We’ll be playing the Pangbourne Jazz Club in Berkshire in early January. We’ve played there before and the audience and vibe were inspiring – it’ll be a great way to start the New Year. Brandon and Mark are lined up for that one too. We’d love to do another album – I felt right at home in the recording environment. Perhaps something with Jakub and his record label? Right now, we’re focused on the next two concerts. It’s exciting – I can’t wait to hear these wonderful musicians playing this fabulous music.”

An Evening of Mid-Century Cool — the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and more … takes place at Jazz Café POSK, 238-246 King Street, London W6 0RF on Saturday 9 November 2024 from 7.00pm.

The post Big Colors Big Band, ‘An Evening of Mid-Century Cool — the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus…’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The new trio is the same as the old trio — composer Cowley on piano, Rex Horan on bass and Evan Jenkins on drums, pictured on the album cover in a strange amalgamation that melds the faces of the stubbled Jenkins, the neatly bearded Cowley and the casually hirsute Horan into one image. They’ve not been idle in the intervening years, each of them has been involved in a variety of musical projects and settings, but the trio is together again for this, its seventh studio album, which was recorded at Real World Studios.

Cowley describes Entity as “a warts and all human sounding record,” differentiating it from the digitally-produced and processed sound that characterises much of contemporary music. If this also suggests a raw, rough, pub-rock kind of recording, then it’s a masterly piece of misdirection. This is an album filled with melody, sophisticated playing, immediately catchy hooks, and, as always from Cowley, some witty track titles.

The album opens with the exquisite “Marble,” a dreamlike and beautiful tune, the softness of touch displayed by all three musicians contrasting with the hardness of the title even as Evans’ percussion builds the tempo and tension. This approach typifies much of the music: “Those Claws,” “Entity” and “Photo Box” are all notable for this restrained beauty. It’s also notable that while “Lemon Meringue” and “Shoop” both display a certain jauntiness and bounce, nothing on Entity matches the hard-edged, uptempo, muscularity of some of the trio’s previous work. “Adam Alphabet,” which Cowley has described as “rolling along like a surfboard on a bread slicer” and which is driven by one of his insistent, irresistible, earworm-ready piano phrases, comes closest. The trio’s acoustic instrumentation is to the fore, but subtle washes of synthetic/electronic sound do appear, underpinning “V&A” for example. Such sounds go uncredited, but they may well be from Cowley, or from producer and engineer Ethan Johns, credited on the cover with “inducing tears, joy and sonic beauty.”

Entity, as the trio’s website reminds us, can be defined as “an organization that has an identity separate from those of its members.” Entity is the product of just such an organization, an album in which joy and sonic beauty abound.

Release date is 20 September 2024

LINK: Purchase Entity from Presto Music

The post Neil Cowley Trio — ‘Entity’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Tomasz Furmanek describes the festival as “a labour of love,” the fruition of a plan he’s had in mind for some time. “Eventually, I decided to do it this year as the opening event of the autumn season. I also thought this would be a good year to start the festival because 2024 is the sixtieth anniversary of POSK [the Polish Social and Cultural Association], the organisation of which Jazz Café POSK is a small part. I probably started shaping the idea of a voice festival about a year or so ago.” The programme features three performances on Friday night, and four on Saturday, with ticket prices fixed at £15 for each night. Tomasz is grateful for the support that made this all possible: “I’d like to thank POSK and the Polish Cultural Institute, particularly Paulina Latham, for their support,” he says.

Tomasz books and promotes regular performances at Jazz Café POSK: this year’s events have included the Aga Zaryan Quartet, led by the singer he describes as “a very acclaimed and one of the most prominent vocalists in Poland.” “It’s no secret that I’m a big lover of jazz and especially jazz vocalists,” Tomasz explains, “There are so many jazz singers I’d love to present to the Jazz Café POSK audience. The British scene has so many incredible, outstanding, jazz vocalists.”

The festival will feature performers from across the jazz vocal spectrum, including established talents and younger, up-and-coming, acts. Emma Smith, Alice Zawadzki, Heidi Vogel, Rouhangeze and Sam Merrick will each headline their own sets. They will perform with leading instrumentalists including pianists Jamie Safir and John Turville, and bassist Tom Mason. (full listing below). “It was my idea to have a weekend of celebration of jazz singing in its many forms and shapes,” he says “I think it’s important to be intergenerational in the tradition of jazz. I believe it’s been that way since the beginning of jazz, with the younger learning from the older, but also finding common ground that transcends peoples’ ages and backgrounds.”

For Tomasz, one singer stands out: “My admiration for Norma Winstone is unbound. Norma is a goddess for me, a queen, a role model, you name it. I totally adore her as an artist, an incredible person. So, I didn’t have any doubt that Norma would be the most perfect singer to take part.” Norma Winstone has already performed at Jazz Café POSK on at least four occasions. For her festival appearance, with Nikki Iles on piano, Mark Lockheart on saxophones and Steve Watts on bass, Tomasz invited her to create her own set, a set she has named “Inspirations” and which Tomasz describes as “Norma’s bespoke curation for this night only.” It will include songs that she seldom performs on stage, a selection of songs that, as the title indicates, have inspired her own career. “I can maybe proudly say that it puts Jazz Café POSK on the map for programming unique and culturally important music,” Tomasz says with obvious enthusiasm (although he hopes this doesn’t make him sound too much of a boastful self-publicist).

While some performers, notably Winstone, represent experience, the festival opens by spotlighting young Polish singers at the beginning of their careers. Tomasz has selected seven UK-based vocalists for the “Polish Jazz Voices Spotlight” — Marta Mathea Radwan, Marta Gornitzka, Anita Łazińska, Marta Carillon, Agata Kubiak, Magdalena Supel and Małgorzata Janek — backed by John Crawford on piano, Jakub Cywiński on bass and Lester Ridout on drums.

“There are some very talented young Polish singers in the UK. I always want to present some of them in the club. It’s also my aim to help to integrate the fantastic British and Polish jazz scenes, create collaborations.” says Tomasz. “All seven of these singers have already achieved various levels of success in their own ways, and I have already invited some of them to headline their own shows at the café. The ‘Spotlight’ is to present them on the festival stage, giving them a platform to be heard by the British and Polish audiences who come to the club. I couldn’t choose just one or two, so I decided to invite seven, to introduce these artists in the context of a ‘spotlight’! Some of them usually perform original material, but in this show, they will perform standards: some will be Polish jazz standards, which will be interesting, but mostly they will be internationally-known jazz standards, presenting their interesting voices within the jazz context.”

Tomasz’s love of jazz voices, and his obvious commitment to the festival, bode well for the October weekend, and for the future. “If I could really book all of the singers who I love and admire, this festival would have to last a month,” says Tomasz. “My hope is to continue this festival every year, to develop it. Quality is vital, without compromises here — whoever is performing, I truly and deeply admire them.”

pp features are part of marketing packages

The POSK Festival of Jazz Voice takes place on Friday 4 October and Saturday 5 October 2024 at Jazz Café POSK, 238-246 Kin Street, London W6 0RF. For more information go to www.jazzcafeposk.org

FULL PROGRAMME

Friday 4 October 2024:

Set 1: POLISH JAZZ VOICES SPOTLIGHT: Marta Mathea Radwan, Marta Gornitzka, Anita Łazińska, Marta Carillon, Agata Kubiak, Magdalena Supel and Małgorzata Janek with John Crawford, Jakub Cywiński, Lester Ridout.

Set 2: ALICE ZAWADZKI JAZZ TRIO: Alice Zawadzki; Bruno Heinen; Tom Mason

Set 3: NORMA WINSTONE QUARTET: “Inspirations…”: Norma Winstone; Nikki Iles; Mark Lockheart ; Steve Watts.

Saurday 5 October 2024

Set 1: ROUHANGEZE with Tomasz Bura (duo performance)

Set 2: SAM MERRICK with John Turville, Jakub Cywiński, Lester Ridout

Set 3: HEIDI VOGEL with John Turville, Jakub Cywiński, Lester Ridout

Set 4: EMMA SMITH QUARTET . Emma Smith, Jamie Safir; Joseph Lee; Luke Tomlinson

The post POSK Festival of Jazz Voice, Oct. 4 & 5 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Possession, recorded in September 2023, is credited to Parkinson who founded the 14-piece fusion ensemble Kalpadruma in 2017. The ensemble’s history goes back to the Purcell School, where Parkinson completed sixth-form studies. As she explains: “At the Purcell I started writing music to bring jazz and classical players together in a lineup that was similar to Kalpadruma’s: string quartet, sax, trombone, flute and rhythm section. When I got to the Guildhall, I wanted to write for a large ensemble so I could combine my influences and interests beyond jazz and Western classical music. Initially I wrote music for a 12-piece — string quartet, flute, trumpet, bass clarinet, saxophone, guitar, bass, piano and drums — I had in mind a semi-orchestral vibe with a huge jazz influence. I was also encouraging musicians to work outside their primary traditions, across cultures. At first, it was mainly Indian music that I was reaching out to, collaborating with a bansuri player I’d known since my mid-teens. Since then, I’ve reached out to Arab/Mediterranean traditions as well. They’re both styles of music I’ve always listened to and wanted to understand on a deeper level.” 

Kalpadruma’s first gig, at London’s Luna Lounge, was, says Parkinson, “a bit unfortunate. We were delayed going on, the musicians had drunk quite a lot, so the music didn’t really sound that great, and quite a lot of people left at the interval.” Undeterred, Parkinson started gigging with the band’s core quintet of bass, guitar, piano and cajon in addition to her saxophone. The next Kalpadruma performance was at the Guildhall, performing a suite of mixed ensemble music in a concert at Silk Street Music Hall alongside Parkinson’s own saxophone concerto. She continued honing the music during her time at the Guildhall: “I realised what worked and what didn’t, refined my process, composed at the piano and re-wrote some scores.” The best of those compositions appeared on Kalpadruma’s first recording, the EP titled Onwards.

A commission for Jazz South’s Breakthrough, the Encounters suite, about female identity in cultures affected by war, built on Parkinson’s collaborations with Syrian musicians. After graduating, Parkinson found that Kalpadruma’s members had less time to rehearse, but conversely there were more opportunities to perform. There were other changes, too: “We’ve had various personnel come and go. I feel like the specific genre fusion I’m creating has become a lot clearer. At the start Kalpadruma was an ideal, I wanted to create a music that went across genre divisions and encouraged working across cultures. Now, the music has become more defined.” 

The addition of the qanun brought another change: “One of the musicians I was playing with was a qanun player. When I got the commission to write Encounters I included the qanun because it gives a really interesting quality, like an electric harp in a way, a really interesting texture. Kostas, who’s now our qanun player, is very open to different musics and helps me to write parts for the instrument. I’ve got a bit addicted to the sound.”

Lyrics are another vital part of Possession, interpreted by singer Rebecka Edlund. Some are Parkinson’s own, others come from sources including the poetry of Rumi (“I Choose to Love You in Silence,” retitled “Distant Devotion”), an Aramaic text of the Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father [Avvon D’Bishmaiya]” and the words of Liberian peace activist Lehmah Gbowee (“Permanent Verse”). “I started setting the Rumi poem in early 2022,” Parkinson says, “I love that poem and wanted to write more about the theme of possession. I wrote the lyrics to the title track after that. At the time I was upset about the end of a relationship and those themes were relevant to me. At Kalpadruma’s debut Ronnie Scott’s concert Martin Hummel (from Ubuntu, Parkinson’s record label) told me he liked the new material, which gave me a reason to write more in that style.”

Parkinson started writing the lyrics to “There” during the first lockdown. “I’ve always liked writing poetry for myself. I wasn’t necessarily thinking of setting those words to music but I could hear the potential of doing so. I found my concentration during lockdown was really bad, so I didn’t have the vision to do so there and then. I wrote the music in late 2022. ‘Mirror Image’ also came in late 2022. I wrote the lyrics during a Christmas holiday in Barcelona. I wrote the music for ‘Our Father’ for a choir when I was at the Guildhall, in 2017 — I was fascinated by the Aramaic text and its translation so I returned to it in spring 2023. By then I’d worked with Rebecka quite a bit and knew her voice would sit well with that sonority, especially with the qanun. I thought, ‘Oh, it’s going to be perfect’. I took time over it; it was the last piece I wrote. Lehmah Gbowee has always been a huge inspiration for me. In an interview she spoke of anger being a really powerful force that can drive you to a greater good. I thought it would be ideal to incorporate the words into ‘Permanent Verse’. That’s something I think has always been behind my own activism, driving my internal anger into something really good — I hope.”

Gareth Lockrane, one of Parkinson’s teachers, completes Kalpadruma’s lineup on Possession, as guest soloist on “Distant Devotion” and “Mirror Image.” It seems that his role as teacher is still ongoing: “Gareth can play over anything; he has this great harmonic and melodic understanding. I transcribed his solos later; it really helped me to see how he’d navigated the chord changes I’d written.”

After Possession is released, Parkinson starts an MA in Composition at Oxford University and in November Kalpadruma play the Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building in Oxford. Parkinson hopes the full 14-piece Kalpadruma can perform every two or three months, with more frequent performances from the quartet, quintet or sextet. She also plans to perform with the smaller ensembles in Europe, to keep writing new material, and to continue to work with female poets — including Maram al-Masri from Syria and the Palestinian poet Dana Dajani, with whom she first collaborated in 2022 — on extending her Encounters suite, which is about female identity in cultures affected by war. Clearly, this exciting young musician has ambitious plans to drive her internal anger into something good.

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Possession will be released on Ubuntu Music on 20 September 2024: the album launch concert will take place on 27 September at Toulouse Lautrec in Kennington. Kalpadruma also play the Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building, St Hilda’s College, Oxford, on 22 November. For more information see ashaparkinsonmusic.co.uk

The post Asha Parkinson: debut album ‘Possession’, release Sept 2024. first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Footprints in Jazz is an original BOP Jazz Theatre work and also the collective name that describes a suite of original BOP jazz repertoire. “We often present our jazz theatre piece entitled ‘Footprints’ as the opening to Footprints in Jazz,” says Dollie Henry, “taking inspiration from Wayne Shorter’s ‘Footprints’ and Dee Dee Bridgewater’s rendition on Red Earth – A Malian Story. Since Footprints in Jazz premiered in 2011, we have developed jazz theatre works using original choreography and compositions to underpin and reflect the many ‘creative footprints’ of the jazz idiom. We use the music of other artists, but we always aim to share our original work as a jazz composer and a jazz choreographer. That’s the unique underpinning of BOP.”

Paul calls Footprints in Jazz “a metaphor for our narrative work that expresses the journey of jazz, from Africa to America and then to the World.” His composition, “Directions,” is always part of the suite. He explains that “The music and the dance represent the different directions jazz artists creatively explore. Dollie’s choreography reflects this with its style and energy, giving the dancers the opportunity to share their individuality through solos and improvisation, as well as ensemble choreography.” Another consistent piece in Footprints in Jazz is “Last Dance with my Father.” Paul refers to it as Dollie’s “autobiographical work” following her father’s death in 2009 and notes that “as Dollie says, it was her way of saying goodbye in the only way she knew how, through dance! The dance explores the special relationship between father and daughter and that unseen connection through dance. The choreography has changed very little: the original solo performer, Valentina Dolci, will bring the piece to life again at The Place.”

BOP Jazz Theatre has drawn inspiration from Dizzy Gillespie (Dizzy Heights), Duke Ellington (Echoes of Ellington) and Maya Angelou (Through the Eyes of Women) and, in 2021, set the narrative jazz dance piece I.AM to poetry written by BOP’s non-binary dancer Jahmal Chase. “We try very hard to give a platform of representation to the artists that share themselves with us,” Dollie explains, “At The Place we will be adding a new piece, Tapestry of Life, a solo for female company member Nafisah Baba. Paul’s score combines Western and Eastern instruments including Mongolian vocals, with spoken word devised by me.”

Touches of Miles premiered in 1995 at the South Bank Centre, as part of Nubian Steps, a dance theatre event supported by Arts Council England. “I had the opportunity as a commissioned choreographer to bring together my vision for jazz theatre with six dancers and six jazz musicians, which ultimately enabled me to bring BOP to life as a company,” says Dollie. “I first heard Miles’ music as a child, from my father’s jazz collection. I always wanted to create to his music, so this was my opportunity. As we grow and change so does the piece, but we continue to keep Miles’ music, voice and energy alive in a theatrical way.” The music in Touches of Miles includes “All Blues,” “Flamenco Sketches” and “Milestones.” “The choreography has evolved,” says Paul, “So even if you were in the audience in 2001 the performance you will see in September will exhibit a different creative output, in dance and music. The main melodies remain the same but the improvisations are obviously very different with each performance. Part of the excitement of jazz theatre is that no two performances are ever the same.”

Selecting from Davis’ extensive catalogue wasn’t easy, Paul explains: “It’s important to choose compositions that allow us to create jazz dance and jazz music in a more theatrical setting. Therefore, the compositions we choose tend to create a ‘cohesive’ work, rather than trying to represent the full spectrum of Miles’ music. That said, some of his compositions are particularly narrative in style and conception and lend themselves more readily to interpretation in jazz theatre. To generate a cohesive theatrical setting throughout Touches of Miles, we use voiceovers of Miles and projections showing Miles on screen, enabling a theatrical and creative overview of Miles the man and musician!”

The choreography grew from the selected music, Dollie recalls: “Sketches of Spain is the inspiration for a solo dance work, ‘Aranjuez.’ ‘Flamenco Sketches’ offers a beautiful narrative storyline for a couple to perform a jazz pas de deux, bringing to light the fact Miles was a painter and once married to a dancer. ‘So What’ is a great vehicle to use in a more contemporary setting; changes in tempo allow for more lindy hop and hip hop flavours. Of course, the classic ‘All Blues’ lends itself perfectly to a lyrical 3/4 jazz dance interpretation, with everything from lighting to costumes in a hue of blue. There are also several instrumental pieces, where the band can improvise without having to respond to dance.”

Dollie and Paul always aim to achieve the best outcome for the productions, but the creative process differs depending on the music’s source. As Paul explains, “Creating original music for jazz dance theatre is generally a much longer process and needs a lot of discussions until completion of the final work. With pre-existing music, Dollie generally needs me to edit down, reshape musical tracks or add live instruments as additional soundscape, to achieve her vision and narrative ideas. Although a choreographer, her ear for music is immense! Dollie has many decades of experience creating dance for TV, musical theatre, concert dance and jazz theatre. She has developed the ability to ‘see’ a lot of the choreography in her mind’s eye before working with the dancers, which does speed up the creative process. However, the dancers’ creative responses and abilities are paramount, which generally means the work will develop and evolve and need reworking for a considerable period of time.”

Paul and Dollie are a husband-and-wife team so, says Paul, “We are used to each other’s creative flow and madness! We have been creating and devising BOP Jazz Theatre for over 25 years. We both understand the importance of respecting and appreciating each other’s creative processes — the most important facet of any creative partnership is creative trust. With original music and original dance, our initial discussions are concerned with the arc of the narrative, the differing sections of a piece, the orchestral size and instrumentation, the various tempos and time signatures of the work and whether the music will be performed live or recorded or a combination of both.” Dollie considers the number of dancers needed for each of the works, Paul sketches out a basic overview and records various sections, Dollie gives feedback that Paul acts on to continue composition. “This continues until the composition is in a reasonable state to move into the dance studio,” Dollie continues. “It’s not easy to write music for dance. I have worked with musicians who do not understand the nuances of creative dance or recognise the movement and how a choreographer/dancer needs to feel the music to create to it. In Paul I have found my soul mate in life and creativity. He understands dance narrative and the importance of creating and producing music with enough depth and gravitas for me to create too.”

For Paul, “The collaboration between choreographer and composer is unique. The composer must take into account all the rhythmic diversity, movement and emotional depth that a choreographer needs to express through their creative work. Similarly, the choreographer needs to effectively articulate the images in their mind’s eye, recognising that composition is a long and involved process. Above all, choreographer and composer need to respect and understand the difference between their disciplines.”

Pairing these works together, as Dollie says, “Offers the audience two sides of the BOP Jazz Theatre canon. In Footprints in Jazz the audience get to experience original jazz theatre works and compositions. Touches of Miles brings the past to the present and pays homage to great jazz icon. We feel very blessed to once again share our work that has spanned time and yet is still current and relevant. My quote of 27 years ago still stands true: ‘To create any unique company takes many talented and creative minds. The company is a credit not to one individual, but to a BODY OF PEOPLE simply know as BOP’.”

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BOP Jazz Theatre Company present Jazz Conversations at The Place, 17 Duke’s Road, London WC1H 9PY, on 20 and 21 September 2024 at 7.30pm.

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The Brass Pack is a powerhouse of a big band. Huge Band might be a more appropriate term, for this is a 25-piece outfit. It’s led by Lovatt, who prefers to call it an orchestra and who spent most of his time in the trumpet section with occasional forays to the front of the stage to solo or chat, and conducted by arranger Colin Skinner, who shared presentation duties with the leader. The orchestra opened the concert with a few bars of “The Very Thought of You” then followed with short bursts of more songs associated with Ella Fitzgerald, including “Lady Be Good,” “A Tisket, A Tasket” and “Lady is a Tramp.” This collection could be called an overture, or a medley, but Lovatt referred to it as “a kaleidoscope of tunes,” which seems like a much nicer term.

Any portrait of Ella Fitzgerald requires a vocalist, and after an instrumental version of “Let’s Get Together” Louise Clare Marshall walked on stage to take on the job. She began with “Mr Paganini” and followed on with “This Old Man.” The nursery rhyme doesn’t appear anywhere in Ella’s discography, but this was an “imagining” of what it might sound like if Ella had sung it with a big band. It was fun, Marshall and the instrumentalists getting into the swing of this simple rhyme. Next up was the more familiar sound of Jerome Kern’s “Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine,” its lush arrangement and romantic vocals quite the contrast with the rollicking sound of the previous song.

This was a night devoted to songs associated with Ella Fitzgerald, but her sometime collaborator, Billy May, also influenced the event, not least in the lineup of the Brass Pack, which was inspired by May’s Big Fat Brass album. Like that recording, the Brass Pack features trumpets, trombones, tubas, French horns, percussion, guitar, bass, drums, piano and a harp, but there’s no reed instrument to be heard. May also inspired what Skinner referred to as “comic effects” — my favourite being when the orchestra played a short phrase repeatedly as if a record were stuck, until Skinner held his baton vertically and gave it a shove. The concert’s first half ended with a medley of songs associated with Ella and/or Louis Armstrong, including “Dream a Little Dream” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” Marshall sang and Lovatt played, the trumpeter only displaying his vocal talent with an “Ohh, yehhhh” to close “Hello Dolly.”

As the audience returned to their seats the large screen to the rear of the stage, used effectively to display images of Ella and her collaborators, announced “Manhattan.” The orchestra returned and burst into a fast tempo rendition of the song before Marshall re-appeared for Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets.” This was a night filled with fine performances — too many to mention individually — but this was possibly the finest of the evening, thanks to a stripped-back arrangement that centred on the interplay between Marshall, harpist Geraldine O’Doherty and trombonist Gordon Campbell. Miss Otis regrets that she must turn down a lunch invitation as she is about to be lynched for murdering her lover. Speaking of murder in movies and song, the next number started with the theme from Jaws. The song was “I’m Gonna Go Fishin’,” music by Duke Ellington for the movie Anatomy of a Murder, with lyrics added later by Peggy Lee.

The Brass Pack closed the evening with a selection of George Gershwin numbers, mostly from Porgy and Bess. “Summertime” was the highlight, a restrained but expressive solo from Lovatt coupled with Marshall’s superb vocals. The audience demanded an encore and happily received “The Lady is a Tramp.”

The post Mike Lovatt’s Brass Pack — ‘A Portrait of Ella’ at Snape first appeared on UK Jazz News.

This Flight Tonight: the songs of Joni Mitchell is the creation of Welsh musicians and songwriters Paul Zervas, on acoustic guitar, and Kathryn Pepper on vocals and dulcimer. The pair have been working together for over a decade, but they’ve been performing this tribute only since 2023, showcasing songs from Mitchell’s first eight albums, beginning with 1968’s Song to a Seagull and ending with Hejira from 1976. Zervas and Pepper don’t merely present the songs in chronological order, however, they manage the setlist with an impressive feel for each song’s mood, pace and style — a reflection of the care which the duo clearly take with every aspect of the show.

The concert was part of the Summer at Snape programme, the 800-seat Snape Maltings Concert Hall was almost full and the large crowd — apparently the largest yet for a performance of This Flight Tonight — coupled with the hall’s impressive, almost mystical, setting within the Suffolk countryside, caused Zervas to feel somewhat nervous. He told us this more than once, but the nerves didn’t show in his expressive acoustic guitar playing, although they may have been responsible for him thanking us for coming out on a Thursday evening — as a few audience members pointed out, it was a Wednesday. He was happy to be corrected: there’s a warmth to these performers that readily translated to the audience and they soon formed a rapport with the crowd that lasted throughout the night.

Zervas and Pepper started the evening as a duo, the guitarist seated and the singer standing to his right. Pepper bore a startling visual resemblance to Mitchell in her singer/songwriter phase — long blonde hair, long white gown. Then she began singing and the illusion was complete. She matches Mitchell’s voice perfectly: her range, clarity of expression, intonation, distinctive vibrato and resonant lower register all come across in Pepper’s singing. This is no mean feat. The pair began with the upbeat and cheering “Chelsea Morning” followed by the more reflective and downbeat “Cactus Tree.” Zervas took a break as keyboard player Charlie Herbert joined Pepper for “Woodstock.” It’s still a beautiful song almost sixty years after it was written, although the misplaced optimism of the lyrics can make for tough listening today. Of all the eight albums, Zervas and Pepper gave Blue the most stage time: “Blue,” “California,” “All I Want,” “Carey” and “A Case of You” appeared in sequence to close the first half of the evening, with conga player and electric guitarist Sam Andrews and bassist Andrew Brown making their first appearance on “California” and Pepper adding dulcimer to the songs.

Zervas and Pepper opened the second set with “This Flight Tonight” (another song from Blue) and “For the Roses” before the rest of the band returned for half a dozen songs from Court and Spark, Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira. This set demonstrated Mitchell’s shift from the acoustic singer/songwriter approach of the first few albums towards a more complex, jazz-oriented, style. She began to record with leading jazz players including Larry Carlton, Victor Feldman and Jaco Pastorius: tough acts to follow, but the performers were well up to the challenge. Brown came into his own on these songs, while Andrews played some beautifully fluid lead guitar from his seat at the rear of the stage, mostly hidden behind his congas. The three songs from Court and Spark, the title track, “Free Man in Paris” and “Help Me,” were joyous. The show closed with “Coyote,” a beautifully crafted version of a song from Hejira, although Pepper recommended the recording Mitchell made with The Band on The Last Waltz. Quite rightly, in my view.

An encore was demanded and provided. Pepper and Herbert returned for a piano and vocal duet on another track from Blue, “River,” giving a perfectly-judged rendition of one of Mitchell’s loveliest and most heart-rending songs. The rest of the players reappeared for a singalong “Big Yellow Taxi” before the performance finished, unsurprisingly, with “Both Sides Now.” It was the end of a memorable evening. This Flight Tonight: the songs of Joni Mitchell is a fine and hugely enjoyable tribute to the performer and her work.

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