Peter Jones at Twickenham Jazz Club

Leon Greening

Peter Jones - vocals
Kelvin Christiane - saxophone
Leon Greening - piano
Andy Cleyndert - bass
Sophie Alloway - drums

Kelvin Christiane

14th January 2020
Twickenham Jazz Club, Twickenham, UK

Sophie Alloway

Lesley and Kelvin Christiane ushered in the new jazz decade at Twickenham Jazz Club with the Peter Jones Quartet. 2020 here we come!

Peter Jones

Peter Jones has taught film and media at a variety of London colleges, and published a short book on black cinema (BFI Publishing), followed by a handbook for media and film students (Hodder Arnold). During the making of his first album (`One Way Ticket to Palookaville' - 2013) he developed a serious interest in the work of Mark Murphy. In 2018 he published This is Hip, an outstanding book on the life and music of Mark Murphy. His second album (`Utopia') was released in 2016.  

Andy Cleyndert

Lydian Collective - High 555

Sophie Alloway

Lydian Collective
Aaron ‘Lazslo’ Wheeler - keys
Todd Baker - guitar
Ida Hollis - bass
Sophie Alloway - drums

5th December 2018
Jazz Café, Camden, London, UK

Aaron Wheeler

Lydian Collective support jazz legend Bill Cobham at Camden's throbbing live spot the Jazz Café. Unveiling a new single 'High 555' and building on the success of their debut album ‘Adventure’, (which has generated over 1 million album streams on Spotify in just 6 months).

Their debut album helped to put them firmly on the map of the instrumental Jazz Funk Fusion scene, and leading onto recent appearances at festivals such as Cheltenham Jazz, ‘So What’s Next’ Festival in The Netherlands, Cambridge Jazz Festival and plays on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction show; as well as features on Spotify’s ‘The State of Jazz’ and ‘Fusion Fest’ playlists.

Todd Baker

After the intricate and rhythmically complex ‘Adventure’ album, they have now shifted gears on this single with a hi-octane stomping four to the floor danceable fun and funky groove, led by a juicy distorted synth bass line!

Ida Hollis

‘High 555’ takes the listener through the usual compositional twists and turns that have made Lydian Collective tunes so popular, but this time the focus is on a solid groove to get the body moving! This single is available here https://lydiancollective.bandcamp.com/album/high-555 and will be part of an EP, which is due to be released in Spring next year.

Will Gibson Septet - Southbank Ziggurat

Paul Jordanous

Will Gibson Septet
Will Gibson - saxophone

Sam Leak - piano

Kevin Glasgow - bass

Sophie Alloway - drums

Paul Jordanous - trumpet

Trevor Mires - trombone

Leo Appleyard - guitar

Sam Leak

Date - 25th November 2016
Venue - BAM Festival, Southbank Centre, London

Current Album - Facets (Pathway Records 2016)

Will Gibson

Future performance

15/01/2017 -  Will Gibson Septet - Omnibus, London
22/02/2017 -  Will Gibson Septet - Swing Unlimited, Bournemouth

Trevor Miles

Ziggurat
Angled dunce hats rise before us in corrugated rooftops.
Worlds within worlds, cup cake frills and spiked edges,
A spiral staircase is chopped into black and white confetti.
Escher stairs fold themselves in an impossible origami.
Shadows cut over bannisters and raining down in shards of black.
Free running world of concrete shadows.
Back and forward, build and conquer.

Will Gibson (b.1986) is a London-based saxophonist, clarinettist & composer. He began clarinet, piano & writing music at an early age. From 1996-2005 he attended Junior Trinity College of Music in London on Saturdays, where he continued his instrumental lessons & studied composition with Cecilia McDowall. He took up saxophone around the age of 14 after becoming more influenced by jazz & in particular John Coltrane. He also joined the Pendulum Youth Jazz Orchestra, where a large part of the repertoire was by Kenny Wheeler. During this time he was awarded the Chappell Prize for Composition, the Hambourg Prize for Improvisation & won the European Piano Teachers Association Composition Competition.

Sophie Alloway

From 2005-2009 he went to Trinity College of Music where he obtained a BMus (Hons) in performance. Here he studied with Mark Lockheart, Julian Siegel, Michael Whight, Fiona Cross & Andrew Poppy. He became involved in ensembles from both jazz & classical sides, & was awarded the Ronnie Verrell Award for Big Band & the Wilfred Hambleton Clarinet Prize.

Leo Appleyard

Since graduating Will has performed extensively throughout the U.K. & Europe in various bands & projects. In 2012 he was awarded second place in the Worshipful Company of Musicians Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition for his big band piece Solicitudes, which was performed by the Trinity College of Music Big Band in Ronnie Scott's.

The artwork from Will Gibson's new album Facets will be part of an exhibition of album art at the Robert Phillips Gallery, Walton-on-Thames from 13th-22nd January 2017. Free entry.

Exhibition details click here

Wild Card - Organic Riot - Him You Ten

Wild Card, Organic Riot, Top End Records, TER003CD

All too rarely do our cartoon heroes leap off their pages and live up to expectations. For many years Clement Regert, Sophie Alloway and Andrew Noble of London Jazz trio Wild Card were stylised figures who I imagined lived in a colourful marshmallow world of bright colours and oversized footwear. It was only last year that I experienced Wild Card for the first time at Pizza Express in Soho and was able to calibrate real fleshy faces to those represented on social media by graphic personas.

Wild Card
Everything Changes

The artist who is responsible for 'Le Look' of Wild Card is Fung Voon Him You Ten. He has created the artwork for Wild Card's previous albums Mixity (2008) and Everything Changes (2012). The paths of Him You Ten and Wild Card's Clement Regert first crossed here in London and their friendship and working relationship still endures despite the Atlantic Ocean coming between them. Him You Ten returned to his native Montreal, Canada with his wife and two sons in 2010 before taking up a position as a Cloud Architect at Vice Media Inc in NYC.

Shinichirō Watanabe's
Samurai Champloo.

Our featured artist isn't just a man of the arts but one of action too. Him You Ten was a respected member of London's aikido community, training at Hikarikan in London Southbank University, UK. He started his training as a Shotokan Karate student and holds the grade of 1st Kyu. It could well be this interest in martial arts that inspires his art, and it seems both himself and Regert grew up watching and reading Manga cartoons. These have bubbled over into his creations for Wild Card especially the most recent album. The composition of this artwork is a direct homage to Shinichirō Watanabe's Samurai Champloo.

The hip hop influences of duo Force of Nature played a strong role in the soundtrack of Samurai Champloo and the lyric style makes more than a cameo in Wild Card's Organic Riot too. With rapper B'loon coming through loud and clear from the Intro to title track Organic Riot and finally the powerful Tchouks.

Clement Regert

This isn't the only voice on the album and it is here I could talk of the melting pot of nations and influences appearing here, from France, Japan, Brasil, Australia and the United States to mention just a few. No I play this with a straight bat and Natalie Williams does exactly that with two appearances on Feeling Good and Wash him out, but it is Regert's guitar which gives me the feeling on the former and Graeme Flowers' brass that aerates the latter.

This is truly a marmite of ideas and styles, the title Organic Riot is a fitting moniker to what is a fluid and satisfying nosh. Read the excellent review by Ian Mann on The Jazz Mann website for further insight.

Him You Ten

If we can weave the theme of Art and Music one last time then it would be to give you the definition of the word Champloo. It originates from the Okinawan word chanpurū, which simply means "to mix" as in the stir fry dish Goya chanpuru. Taste this Organic Riot for yourself on the 18th April, 2015 at Café POSK, 238-246 King Street, London, W6 0RF when Wild Card officially launch the album. and give you their mix of heavy grooves, swinging hard-bop and fleet footed Samba,
AL.

 

 

Clement Regert - Wild Card

Clement Regert - guitar

Being embedded in London's Jazz circuit you get to hear about many of the musicians way before you ever get a chance to listen to them live. One such name is Clement Regert who has forged ahead with his Wild Card trio alongside Andy Noble (organ) and Sophie Alloway (drums). Since arriving in England in 2005 he has steadily made a name for himself amongst our Jazz elite and it is no surprise that he called upon such talented musicians as Dennis Rollins, Graeme Flowers and Pedro Segundo for this gig at Soho's Pizza Express (12/06/2014).

The usual balance of young professionals and adventurous tourists had been upset by the first night of the World Cup finals. Many of London's white collar community had fled to the suburbs and we were left with a smattering of couples with eyes only for one another and a melting pot of nationalities hell bent on boosting the trade in union jack hats and Oxford Street bargains.



Andy Noble - organ

Those that chose to stay at home and be dazzled by Brazil's yellow strip soon realised that all that glitters is not gold. Clement Regert's Wild Card kicked off with the finest of Brazilian exports by comparision. 'Canto de Xango' by Baden Powell de Aquino gives you not only compassion, but dexterity and most of all intellect, a quality not always associated with his fellow footballing countrymen. Regert gave us his own brand of Baden Powell, one which was brassy, turning Powell's usually dainty footsteps into deep and confident grooves.



Pedro Segundo - Percussion

'Sweet Smoke' choked off any more thoughts of round balls full of hot air. It was an early view of tonight's most impressive performers, Andy Noble and Pedro Segundo (percussion). Noble is another import to London's jazz family, from Australian stock originally. Our statuesque man on keys climbed even higher with his deep pulsing work on 'Place du Tertre', which is the square on Montmatre and the home to a small army of caricaturists. I do not need to exaggerate any of Noble's vital statistics in picture nor words.



Lowly Worm

Both artist and audience alike needed their night vision goggles to spot the olive skinned dreamboat Pedro Segundo in the Pizza Express' darkest recesses. Compositionally he was perfectly balanced by the fair complexion and white shirt of Sophie Alloway to his right. Together they looked like the King and Queen of a jumbled up chess set. Segundo provided much of the night's texture and his subtle solos were worth pricking up the ears for, especially on Kenny Barron's 'Sunshower'.



Sophie Alloway - Drums

The Latin themes that were carried so successfully by Noble and Segundo brought out the best in Clement Regert too. His lithe sleek frame wiggled and swayed to the infectious rhythms. With his trademark hat atop his head and hips swaying he resembled the iconic Lowly Worm of Richard Scarry fame. It wasn't all upbeat finger popping and Regert's intelligence came to the fore on his version of 'Feelin' Good'. He has a tendency to chew the melody with a dancing jaw and here because of the tune's slow pace he resembled a Spaghetti Western villain not unlike a French Lee Van Cleef.

Dennis Rollins - Trombone

Much of the evening's joy was reserved for the twin barrels of brass from Graeme Flowers (trumpet) and Dennis Rollins (Trombone). 'You are Amazing", a Regert penned tune, rubbed both organ and guitar together with a verve like two ancient Greeks oiling themselves. The tune's hero was Graeme Flowers, who gave us the glory. A real modern day Achilles. Sophie Alloway was above such manly macho camaraderie being the "Goddess of Groove" as Jazzwise's Jon Newey describes her.

Graeme Flowers - Trumpet

I hate to break the bad news that Alloway and the rest of Wild Card are indeed mortals. On the upside it means they are easier to track down. See them next week, Thursday 26th June at The Plough, not the big dipping variety but the pub in Ealing, which is much easier to get too.

AL.