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LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL 2008

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19 November 2008

DON'T MISS the last days of London Jazz Festival 2008 on the Southbank.  Daily until Sunday 23rd November.

WEDNESDAY 19^th NOVEMBER

7.15pm
Ronnie Scott’s
CLEO LAINE & JOHN DANKWORTH
Lifelong ambassadors for British jazz, Cleo and John were recently honoured with a special Gold Award at the BBC Jazz Awards. Cleo  remains one of the great jazz singers, with a richly expressive voice that simply astonishes in its range and depth of tone; Dankworth's repertoire of landmark big band suites and deftly arranged song cycles continues to expand and surprise. Together, they are the most enjoyable of double acts, full of energy and musical creativity - tickets are already selling fast for the chance to catch them in the intimate surroundings of Ronnie Scott’s.

7.30pm
Barbican
HERBIE HANCOCK SEXTET
Herbie Hancock has consistently crossed boundaries and is a true star at the very top of his game, verified by winning a GRAMMY earlier this year, one of the few jazz artists to ever do so. Hancock returns to the Barbican for the first time in three years in this very special event - for the first time in Festival history a major international artist will play both the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall in the same Festival. Bringing a stellar new band to London he will play Southbank Centre on Saturday 15 November before crossing the river to play tonight’s concert at the Barbican. With Terence Blanchard on trumpet, Lionel Loueke on guitar, Gregoire Maret on harmonica, James Genus on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums.

7.30pm
Southbank Centre/Queen Elizabeth Hall
BBC BIG BAND WITH SPECIAL GUESTS ROY HARGROVE & BENNY GOLSON
The BBC Big Band’s special Festival projects have given the opportunity to hear music by a string of great jazz composers – Gerald Wilson, Randy Weston and last year’s Joe Zawinul tribute – in a setting rare to British ears. This year’s concert brings the band roaring and shouting into Roy Hargrove’s extrovert big band world of “power and seriousness, bebop and funk and mambo, and a little wildness” (NY Times). The cracking attack of Hargrove’s quintet, with its leader’s effervescent trumpet well to the fore, provides the engine room for a concert that’s sure to raise the roof. And to ice the cake, another hard bop maestro returns after his slot as featured soloist with Kurt Elling with some of his own landmark arrangements – Benny Golson is renowned as writer of some of the timeless jazz themes of the 50s and 60s – think Blues March and I Remember Clifford for starters.

10.30pm
Ronnie Scott’s
WEST END JAM AT RONNIE SCOTT’S
The late night jams at Ronnie’s are bound to be Soho’s place to hang after hours. With  an ace rhythm section and hosted by vocalist and trombonist Michael Mwseno, these sessions run nightly through the Festival except on Sundays and on Friday 14^th.

THURSDAY 20^th NOVEMBER

7.15pm
Ronnie Scott’s CLEO LAINE & JOHN DANKWORTH
See listing above

7.30pm
Kings Place Halls One and Two
PUNKT UK
Scene Norway culminates in a three day focus on the exciting Norwegian festival, Punkt. Set in the gorgeous harbour town of Kristiansand in late summer, Punkt was founded in 2004 by sampling wizards Jan Bang and Erik Honore. It takes the idea of live remixing to a new level, occupying two spaces in Kings Place to create back-to-back concerts which audiences can move between. In the live room, musicians including Nils Petter Molvaer, Sidsel Endresen and Eivind Aarset combine in various formations to create stunning sonic landscapes. After these 45 minute sets, the audience cross the foyer to the ‘Alpha Room’ (Hall 2) where these sets will be fed through to Erik Honore who together with other participating musicians, will take the original material and completely re-invent it with additional live contributions. Reflective acoustic sets can be transformed into pumped up electronica, whilst high density, full on performances can become stripped down to the essence of their idea and re-mixed into intimate solos or duos. The audience hears the core material re-sampled, cut and spliced and transformed into a completely new set.

Part of Scene Norway

7.30pm
Southbank Centre/Queen Elizabeth Hall
BUIKA
"Buika's expressive voice grabs hold of your heart strings and yanks them to inky depths" The Independent

Buika mixes soul, jazz and funk with raw flamenco to telling effect, and her latest album Nina de Fuego, released in July this year has been praised by journalists everywhere. Born in 1972 into a family from Equatorial Guinea, Concha Buika grew up alongside a Gypsy community on the Spanish island of Majorca. During the 90’s she moved to Madrid and found herself drawn to Flamenco and her foray into the music saw her hailed by the Spanish and European press as a new star and a remarkable newcomer on the world music scene. Apart from the sentimentality in Buika’s singing, it is the technical ability and sublime playing of guitarist and producer Javier Lim??span> (a key figure in the songwriting process of both Buika’s last recording Mi Ni??ola and Nina de Fuego) that has helped recognize her success and musical integrity. The styles on her latest album, although fundamentally Flamenco, incorporate jazz, soul and funk - drifting between Siguiriya and Bulerian rhythms. Concha Buika’s unique smokey voice displays vocal depth, expression and an emotion- her performance at the London Jazz Festival is sure to be stirring and intense.

8pm
Spice of Life
GARY CROSBY’S NU TROOP
Gary Crosby’s Nu Troop was formed in 1991 and is based on Art Blakey’s celebrated Jazz Messengers (with whom Gary performed in the early part of his career) and employs graduates from the Tomorrow’s Warriors project. The original group featured the then rising-star saxophonist, Denys Baptiste and successfully released its debut album, Migrations, on 14 April 1997 on Dune Records. It was the first release on the label. Nu Troop went on to win the Best Ensemble 1998 Award at the Jazz ?ienne Festival International Band Competition in France in July 1998 with Denys Baptiste picking up Best Soloist 1998 (3rd). Over the years, the lineup of Nu Troop has evolved and now features Denys Baptiste (tenor sax), Abram Wilson (trumpet/vocals), Andrew McCormack (piano), Rod Youngs (drums) and, of course, Gary. This all-star line-up is proof indeed of Gary's expertise in spotting the stars of the future!

8.45pm
Vortex
GET THE BLESSING
Leading the charge for the new UK jazz movement is Bristol-based quartet Get The Blessing, winners of this year’s Best Album accolade at the BBC Jazz Awards in July for their debut release All Is Yes.  By slyly blending jazz sensibilities with catchy hooks and rocking riffs and grooves, Get The Blessing have gained fans from all musical walks of life and are bringing new listeners to jazz as well as taking jazz fans away from their usual comfort zone.  With a collective pedigree that includes Portishead, Super Furry Animals, Robert Plant and Roni Size as well as years of jazz playing (the band were inspired by the Ornette Coleman’s chordless quartets of the 1960s), they combine their vast and varied talents to produce an often raucous but always intelligently composed mix of genres, and infuse their live performances with huge amounts of energy, humour and fun.

10.30pm
Ronnie Scott’s Bar
WEST END JAM AT RONNIE’S
The late night jams at Ronnie’s are bound to be Soho’s place to hang after hours. With  an ace rhythm section and hosted by vocalist and trombonist Michael Mwseno, these sessions run nightly through the Festival except on Sundays and on Friday 14^th.

FRIDAY 21^st NOVEMBER

7pm & 11pm
Ronnie Scott’s
CLEO LAINE & JOHN DANKWORTH
Please see above

9pm
Octave
JOE STILGOE
"His piano playing is a cross between Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Les Dawson"

Ian Shaw
A must-see live act, master wordsmith Joe Stilgoe is set to take the London Jazz Festival by storm. Already making a name for himself with a combination of blistering piano playing and a formidable vocal range, he mixes innovative arrangements of standards with witty originals.

10.30pm
Ronnie Scott’s Bar
WEST END JAM AT RONNIE’S
The late night jams at Ronnie’s are bound to be Soho’s place to hang after hours. With  an ace rhythm section and hosted by vocalist and trombonist Michael Mwseno, these sessions run nightly through the Festival except on Sundays and on Friday 14^th.


SATURDAY 22^nd NOVEMBER

Vortex
TYLER RIX
Tyler recently signed to Universal Classics & Jazz on the strength of his hugely impressive performances in the BBC’s Classical Star programme. A young saxophonist of considerable talent, Tyler’s music has been described as beautiful, atmospheric and spellbinding.

7pm & 11pm
Ronnie Scott’s
CLEO LAINE & JOHN DANKWORTH
Please see above

8.30pm
Pizza Express Jazz Club
JEF NEVE TRIO
Further evidence that Europe has become a hotbed of piano innovation, Belgian Jef Neve creates a soundworld that naturally moves from classical grace to a maelstrom of intense impro. Leading a trio that is remarkable in its collective musical intuition, “his concerts are almost like a religious experience, riveting audiences by the sheer power and imagination of his playing.” (The Observer)


10.30pm
Ronnie Scott’s Bar
WEST END JAM AT RONNIE’S
The late night jams at Ronnie’s are bound to be Soho’s place to hang after hours. With  an ace rhythm section and hosted by vocalist and trombonist Michael Mwseno, these sessions run nightly through the Festival except on Sundays and on Friday 14^th.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER  23^rd

7.30pm
Southbank Centre/Royal Festival Hall
CHICK COREA & JOHN MCLAUGHLIN FIVE PEACE BAND
WITH CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE, KENNY GARRETT & VINNIE COLAIUTA
John McLaughlin and Chick Corea have created some of the most explosive electric jazz of all time. They join forces for the first time since they were an essential part of the seismic days - some 40 years ago - when Miles Davis brought the language of jazz into collision with the technology of rock and funk. Their own bands of the 1970s, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever, were further landmarks in the evolution of a post-acoustic vision of jazz – re-united, they play music from past present and future with a stellar band. Kenny Garrett continues the Miles connection, the saxophonist from the trumpeter's latter-day bands; and Vinnie Colaiuta and Christian McBride are the drum and bass team par excellence - irresistible power and groove.


7:45pm
Southbank Centre/Purcell Room
ANDY SHEPPARD featuring NGUYEN LE – MELODY GAINSBOURG
Andy Sheppard’s latest  project, premiered this year at Jazz Sous Les Pommiers in Coutances, re-mixes the music of France’s cult songwriter in characteristically inventive and instrumental style, with a heavily rock-tinged Anglo-French band that includes Seb Rochford on drums, bassist Michel Benita and guitarists Angelo Bruschini and Nguyen Le, whose regular appearances on releases from the ACT label have made him a firm favourite with UK jazz fans.

8pm
Ronnie Scott’s
JAZZ AT THE PHIL
Ronnie’s recreates the rip-roaring spirit of Jazz at the Philharmonic – Norman Granz’s iconic series of tours and live recordings that took the excitement and atmosphere of the jam session to the concert halls of the world through the 50s and 60s. The great names in swing and bebop joined forces in a series of ad hoc blowing sessions and cutting contests – a line-up of top London soloists takes up the challenge.   

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