Last month Rottingdean celebrated Peter’s arrival as a local resident with an exhibition of his paintings at the Grange Gallery and an evening of jazz music at the Plough Inn. It was good to hear that the arrival of such an outstanding jazz musician in our local community was being recognised. If you look into […]
I grew up in London, living very happily with my mum. It was a close and intense relationship. We’d both get worked up about things quickly but were always open with each other, and I think that has influenced me in terms of how I approach both people and music now. I was lucky […]
My childhood was chaotic, exciting and a bit emotionally unstable at times. Both my parents were actors (my mum still is!) but my elder brother and I were loved and were always encouraged to do what we wanted to do. I remember lots of laughs, and my dad played the piano, we grew up […]
Entitled Infection in the Sentence, pianist Sarah Tandy’s debut album takes its inspiration from a poem by Emily Dickinson. Tandy has a love of both literature and music, learning piano from a young age. “My mum was a piano teacher so when I was a kid, from really young, at 4 or 5, I was […]
New Generation Jazz: Alex Hitchcock Quintet The Verdict, Brighton Friday 18th January, 2019 This quintet, featuring saxophonist Alex Hitchcock and trumpeter James Copus, are a formidable frontline partnership. Both are members of Patchwork Jazz Orchestra, and bring a special chemistry to their performances with tight unison lines and an enviable musical telepathy. The quintet released […]
My childhood was characterised by car journeys. We moved a lot so I spent much of the time reading out facts from encyclopedias to my mum. ‘Muuuuuuum did you know..?’ On repeat for 3 hours. I also read Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, I read lots as a small child. We lived in Ireland, Sheffield, […]
New Generation Jazz: Tom Barford Quintet The Verdict, Brighton Friday 30th November, 2018 Saxophonist Tom Barford appeared at The Verdict as part of the New Generation Jazz series to promote his latest album, Bloomer, on Edition Records. They mixed tunes from the album with other original material, most notably from guitarist and composer Billy Marrows. They […]
New Generation Jazz: Jonny Mansfield Elftet The Verdict, Brighton Friday 7th December, 2018 Vibraphonist Jonny Mansfield, a graduate of the Royal Academy jazz course, and the most recent recipient of the Kenny Wheeler Prize, brought his ambitious eleven-piece project to Brighton, combining strings, brass and woodwind with vocals, guitar and vibraphone. They began with an […]
Rod Youngs is one of the busiest drummers on the jazz scene, though he rarely appears in Sussex. Last year you would have seen him at Love Supreme Festival and Jazz In The Round: Emergence Festival in Hastings with the Denys Baptiste Quartet and as part of A Change Is Gonna Come with Carleen Anderson […]
How would you describe the music of ‘Hilary Burt’s Blue Calluna’? My compositions come from a knowledge of jazz and jazz harmony but my writing also has elements of latin, funk and folk. I decided that the most accurate genre is ‘jazz-folk’ but even that doesn’t fit many of my tunes. I never think about […]