Friday Night Jazz & Blues

Mingus Moves + ZZ Birmingham Band

A celebratory evening of live Jazz and Blues

Mingus Moves

Expect fantastic tunes from the great Charles Mingus – such as Better Get It in Your Soul and Fables of Faubus from the 1950s, or Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love and Remember Rockefeller at Attica from the 1970s – all specially arranged for small group. You’ll find groove, hard bop, collective improvisation, blues and church influences to name but five elements in his masterful compositions. Mingus’s music is here presented in the firm belief that it should be heard more often and enjoyed more widely.

In Mingus Moves for this special gig are Duncan Anselm (alto sax), Richard Jenkins (piano) and Luke Belcher (bass), plus special guest Will Rees-Jones (tenor sax).

Alto player Duncan Anselm has gigged extensively around the South West since the 1980s. Particular highlights include several appearances at Swanage Jazz Festival, gigs with Harry Beckett and Nigel Price, and broadcasts on Radio 2 (‘Jazz Parade’ introduced by Charles Fox) and HTV (‘At the Albert’ introduced by Miles Kington). Duncan’s two CDs on the Bopcentric Music label feature fantastic quintets of leading London musicians Nat Steele (vibes), Nick Tomalin (piano), Dominic Howles (bass), Matt Home (drums), Dave Warren (guitar) and Matt Fishwick (drums).

ZZ Birmingham Band

What ZZ Birmingham doesn’t know about the blues wouldn’t fill a postcard home from Birmingham, Alabama. Check out his long running Blues Cruise radio show on Glastonbury FM. You will be very well informed, yes, but also delightfully entertained. A superb showman and story-teller, these are the hallmarks of his stage show, too.

The core band is five-piece: sax, fiddle, drums and bass, with ZZ fronting on guitar/vocals and occasional harmonica. On live gigs he has the habit of adding trumpet and cello to create horn and string sections.

Refreshingly absent are lead guitar solos, overdone to the point of cliche in too many line ups. When the band is in full cry, ZZ looks to his horns and strings for the fills and thrills. He then subverts expectation by resting them to deliver a stripped down master-class on Hoochie Coochie Man.

This is a deserving fixture of the band’s core set, as is the rousing and anthemic Boots, ZZ’s own composition – although he credits Bob Dylan among others as having a hand in its creation. Expect other originals as well as first rate covers.

Ladies and gentlemen, put on your Hi Heel Sneakers and dance the blues with the ZZ Birmingham Band… blues and beyond!

Friday 9th September

8pm – late

Tickets

£5 on the door

18’s and over only