Music / Jazz
Bristol’s month in Jazz – July 2025
Some of the regular jazz nights – Bebop Club, FringeJazz, Fringe in the Round – might be taking a well earned rest but there’s still plenty jazzwise stuff happening around Bristol this July.
The great news is that the brilliant pianist/composer John Law, together with saxophonist/composer Jon Lloyd, is launching a new monthly night at the Bristol Music Club. Called PPianissimo the evenings will explore ‘sound, space and silence. And definitely no drums!’
They will happen on the first Friday of each month, starting in September, but a nice lunchtime teaser for the project (Bristol Music Club, Sun 13) sees John team up with guitarist Ant Law (pictured above, no relation) as new duo The Laws of (E)Motion.
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The Colosseum pub in Redcliffe is also launching weekly Jazz on the Terrace sessions on Saturday afternoons, and you can also catch John in Jon Lloyd’s excellent European Quartet with the fine Yetii rhythm section of Ashley John Young (bass) and Alex Goodyear (drums) at the Greenbank (Fri 11).
Of course things carry on at the Fringe, starting with contemporary post-bop guitarist Nick Costley-White (Fringe, Tue 1) and a fine quartet including Julian Siegel on reeds, Conor Chaplin (bass) and James Maddren drumming.
More exciting fretwork can be expected from the brilliant Rob Luft in their Airborn quartet project with Loose Tubes flute star Eddie Parker (Beacon, Fri 18).
The Fringe sees more top-quality music from the duo of pianist David Newton and violinist John Pearce (Wed 2) – a firm Fringe favourite pairing.
Funky fusion guitarist Jonah Hitchens and band are at the Architect (Wed 2) while the Bell has eminent US jazz-funk axeman B D Lenz (Mon 14).
And then there’s bass player Riaan Vosloo’s powerhouse contemporary quartet Uphill Game, featuring half of Get The Blessing, also at the Fringe (Wed 9).
There’s quite a spectrum of vocal stylings to be sampled across the month, starting with formidable improviser Maggie Nicols in her duo with percussionist Dan Johnson (the Cube, Thur 3).
Kay Grant, herself a well-known improviser, brings her new Kay Grant Group to Tobacco Factory (Sun 6) offering a set of well-loved tunes, and Katya Gorrie’s Quartet (Fringe, Wed 16) explores the likes of Julie London, Blossom Dearie and Peggy Lee.
Two highly stylised and impressive vocalists feature at the Jam Jar’s Queer Jazz event (Wed 9): t.l.k. deploys subtle electronica around her crystalline vocals to make her emotionally direct music, while multi-instrumentalist Wol is an emerging solo voice with a background in jazz, improvisation and beatboxing (and once upon a time a local hero, FKA Bellatrix).
Finally, folk-jazz songstress and sax player Pippa Marland provides the vocal lead for Carmina Trio’s acoustic Celtic Jazz (The Bell, Sun 20).
Canadian sax player Len Aruliah is the featured artist at July’s Flamingo Club night on the Grain Barge (Tue 8) while the month rounds off with a Latin-jazz highlight when the Starlings quintet play the Bell (Wed 30).
Heading off towards the groove end of things, it’s good to see alto sax tyro James Morton pairing up with the uber-funky trombone of Dennis Rollins once more when James Morton Groove Den hits The Lantern (Sat 12). Over the years whenever those two get together it’s always been a recipe for big fun.
Joe Northwood’s funky Nurdle quartet will be popping into the Bell (Mon 28), with Tom Berge’s keyboard to the fore, and likewise Hammond maestro John Paul Gard’s Manuals of Fire have their monthly residency at the Old Fishmarket (Sun 6) and Mohawkestra organ dynamo Ev Newman’s Dusk Art Rhythm Quartet figure at the Bell (Wed 9) and Canteen (Sat 26).
The Canteen also has the Breaks (Sat 19), a 10-piece fusion of jazz, hip-hop and ‘anarchy soul’.
Thinking more ambient and contemporary classical, the cello/trumpet duo JOW play at Cathedral Chapterhouse (Fri 4) and the electro-acoustic pairing of composer Graham Fitkin and harpist Ruth Wall bring their Uist collection of beautifully melodic Gaelic-rooted music to the Beacon as Harpland (Wed 9).
Strange Brew has two determinedly individual musicians (Wed 17) playing solo electro-acoustic sets: saxophonist/electronicist Robert Stillman and drummer/electronicist Tom Skinner.
Saxophonist/composer Kevin Figes, however, has something much bigger in scale on offer at the Mount Without (Wed 30). Sound Dimensions is a “genre defying’ suite of music for electronics, vocals, a jazz band and the Bristol Ensemble, the music having been inspired by Italian contemporary composers Ennio Morricone, Luigi Nono and Bruno Maderna.
There’s a few top names from the improv world coming – not forgetting the aforementioned Maggie Nicols gig (Cube, Thur 3).
The freethinking pairing of Rachel Musson’s sax and Mark Sanders’ drumming is joined by trumpeter Matt Davies for the latest Field Concert event at St Anne’s Church (Fri 4), with support from found-sound percussionist Seth Cooke.
The Cube also has the long-standing Flower/Corsano duo headlining an evening (Wed 16) with support from microtonal bagpipe outfit µ Ensemble and singer songwriter Annie Gardiner in vocal drone mode. Michael Flower deploys a remarkable Japanese ‘banjo’, a multi-stringed instrument capable of both drones and soaring melodic outbursts provoked by Chris Corsano’s relentless drumming.
Noise’n’drone fans have a hard choice on Wed 2, it seems, when Slit Throats headline a noise night at the Cube while ‘Babylonian-drone-doom prophets’ Wyatt E will be at Moor Beer.
But they can all converge on the Ill Repute (Fri 4) for the Flag Fen Project’s electric Druidism alongside the carefully created cinematic songscapes of Sounds of Ursa.
It’s all an unfortunate clash, however, with a a week of ‘sonic underground’ events at Cafe Kino, starting with a typically eclectic (and indescribable) triple bill from Improvisations Greatest Hits (Tue 1).
The regular South West Improvisers Group (SWIG) meeting at the Star and Dove (Mon 7) has volcanic double bass wrangler Dominic Lash as their featured guest, and the monthly anarchy of the Free Jazz Gachapon returns to the Dark Horse (Thur 10).
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And of course there’s jam … Fringe has Hot Club Jam (Mon 7), Peanut Butter Jam (Mon 14), Jazz rapport Jam (Mon 21) and Seed Sessions (Mon 28).
Canteen has Beat Cleaver (Mon 7/Mon 21), Stone Cold Funk Jam (Tue 1/Tue 15), Slapdash (Tue 8), Canteen Latin Session (Wed 16), Kole Tang (Tue 22) and Traffic Jam (Mon 28).
The Old England has the Community Jam Session every Tuesday and Mr Wolf’s has the Donut Filler Jam every Wednesday and two now fortnightly sessions are Speakeasy Jam (Bootlegger, Thur 3/Thur 17) and Suntrap Jam Session (Attic Bar, Thur 3/Thur 17).
Main image: Ant Law
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