January comes but once a year

Sometimes you have to wait for your best Christmas presents. For all the season’s fun’n’festive frolics many of Bristol’s jazz-lovers might still feel, once the New Year is behind us, that the best is yet to come . They’re waiting for the Bath Jazz Weekend, the packed mini-fest just a short walk from Bath Spa station brought together by promoter Nod Knowles.

The 2026 programme lives up to its five predecessors with a splendid mix of ten top quality acts over three days, the music ranging from Robert Mitchell‘s ever-popular solo piano to the fulsome group improvisations of Nick Malcolm’s Out Front five some and Olie Brice’s Quartet. Bassist and composer Alison Rayner brings her longstanding and highly reputed ARQ quintet, while the Pianissimo team of Jon Lloyd’‘s sax and John Law’s piano bring their stylish quartet. Impressionistic pianist Rebecca Nash will unveil her duo with tenor player Alex Merritt while keyboard wizz Elliot Galvin showcases The Ruin, an electro-acoustic soundscape inspired by a mediaeval poem. You can read full programme details here.

One highlight especially pleasing to organiser Nod will be the appearance by French musician Louis Sclavis, for over 30 years a star of the prestigious ECM label roster. Louis’ fine melodic sensibility and astonishing virtuosity as improviser on clarinet and bass clarinet have made him what Nod has called a ‘maestro among maestri’ and an ‘incomparable genius’. He will be performing in a duo with cellist Bruno Ducret on Saturday evening. And, as has become traditional, the whole programme will be bookended by a jazz-related film – 1962’s All Night Long – courtesy of Off The Wall Films and a burgeoning talent, namely Tomorrow’s Warriors pianist Emily Tran, whose quintet also features young BJW veteran Mali Sheard on saxophone.

Making sure that Friday’s opening night ends on an upbeat party vibe will be trombonist Raph Clarkson and his celebrated Equal Spirits project. This fine collaboration between South African and British artists revives the spirit of bands like Blue Notes and Brotherhood of Breath who brought the energy and brilliance of the South African scene to London in the 1960s. Raph has appeared at past weekends and he has a great affection for the event, as he told Bristol 24/7: “I’ve loved playing there and I’ve loved being there. I really like that sense of the musicians hanging out in the same building, drinking and eating together. It’s a great chance to catch up with people, too – last year Conor Chaplin was there playing with Iain Ballamy and Rob Luft – I played with Conor when he was fifteen but I hadn’t seen him for over a year. I knew Rob from my NYJO days, too.”

Raph also values the weekend’s ‘equal share’ basis whereby everyone involved has an equal share of any money made from ticket sales. “That equal share thing is such a clear and beautiful way to do things, you get a real sense of community from that. And the way it’s programmed – I love anything where there’s that variety and openness to music stylistically – and the mixture of local people with more national or international. If you go you’ll see a real range of music and a real cross-section of what’s going on. I’m really excited to be playing there again!”

Though he would have been barely three when Nelson Mandela walked to freedom in 1990, Raph was introduced to the vigorous UK jazz of exiled South African musicians a few years later when his parents were teaching at the Dartington Hall Summer School alongside Keith Tippett. Later, at York University, trumpeter Chris Batchelor’s workshop on the legendary Brotherhood of Breath made a vivid impression and after University Raph went on to dive into playing the music himself : “It was that thing of playing maybe the traditional gospel three chord thing but going really free over the top … that mixture of real free improvisation and maybe blues.”

His career blossomed in all sorts of directions, forging his reputation as versatile jazz player and improviser. Yet when opportunity knocked he knew exactly where he wanted to go: “In about 2016-17 there were a few different grants from the Musicians Benevolent Fund (now P.R.S.) for travel and professional development. I wanted to immerse myself in something I really loved and decided South African music suited me. (Amazing South African harmonica player) Adam Glasser mentored me and said why not write a set of music to actually play with people out there? So I wrote some stuff, did a gig at (London jazz club) the Vortex and then I went over and played it with a different set of musicians in three South African cities.”

From his first rehearsal with these new colleagues he was overwhelmed by their enthusiasm and accomplishment: “it was such a joyous experience because they completely took the tunes to heart and put everything of themselves into it. I was so blown away by that and by how much they gave, the amount of joy there was. In terms of leading the rehearsal I didn’t really have to do much at all.”

That rehearsal set the standard for the whole tour and Raph returned determined to develop the project further. Hooking up with producer Sonny Johns they went back in 2020: “We went out and recorded a bunch of the tunes I’d written plus some improvisations and jams with the Johannesburg rhythm section and a vocalist Nosihe Zulu. We brought it all home and started to work on it, adding things as we went along. It was largely shaped by Sonny, I asked him to produce it – I trust his ears. It was the thing that kept me going through the lockdowns. The album Wise and Waiting came out on Ubuntu Music in 2024 to instant critical acclaim.

“The album has 24 musicians and the dream would be to do a big production on it with a choir and bringing the musicians over. At some point I’d love to do something bigger but the difficulty is getting the funding to pay everybody properly for rehearsal and performances. Here in the UK it’s been one-offs with UK-based musicians. What’s nice is we’ve been doing the it regularly enough and the guys really love it. We’ve added new tunes and the music is getting that bit looser.” What’s also nice is that, as well as Yorkshire-based vocalist Xolani Mbatha, originally from Durban, the UK band includes trumpeter Chris Batchelor whose workshop on South African music so inspired Raph back in his university days.

Last Minute Meter Readers (photo: Tony Benjamin)

What’s certain is that, despite the very high standard of the rest of the programme, the Equal Spirits set will be a lively highlight of the Bath Jazz Weekend. Raph has fond memories of South African audiences whooping, cheering and dancing but accepts that’s possibly not so likely at the Widcombe Social Club in January. But he knows they will get a positive response, whatever: “I’ve done two crazy duos with Tony Orrell there and people listened and were up for it despite the madness and the hi-vis tabards. For an audience to go with that it says everything – an openness to listen. It’s the best!”

Raph Clarkson’s Equal Spirits play on Friday 9th January , Bath Jazz Weekend runs from Fri 9-Sun 11