Music / Jazz
The week in Jazz January 2 – 8
As the dust settles on 2016 there’s the sound of saxophones ringing out over the city, with an unfeasibly brilliant gathering of the things at The Bristol Fringe looking like the week’s hot ticket. The venue opened last year’s programme with a cracking gig from The Three Tenors and for 2017 they’ve upped the ante by adding a fourth. Thus the core trio of Jake McMurchie, Ben Waghorn and Nick Dover gets the lily-gilding addition of special guest Andy Sheppard, with the gold standard rhythm section of Jim Blomfield (piano), Mark Whitlam (drums) and bass player Riaan Vosloo now newly arrived as a Bristol resident. Given that line-up (and Andy’s imminent departure for warmer climes) advance booking for the tiny Fringe back room is essential.
There’s more saxophone action when the mercurial alto player James Morton (above) brings one of his soul-funk sets to No 1 Harbourside (Saturday 7). It’ll be a jazz-duelled party but unfortunately you’ll have to choose between local hero James and London’s outrageous tribe of ‘sweaty brassophiles’ BYOB (aka Bring Your Own Brass) who rock the Canteen on the same night. Whichever you pick it should be fun.
The organ trio thing still seems to be running well, with no less than three quality outfits making an appearance this week. First up is Groovelator at Canteen (Wednesday 4), with Mark Lawrence’s jazz-rock guitar jousting with John-paul Gard’s Hammond keyboards and Tom Gilkes on drums, then tenor sax man John Pratt’s JP3 (Colston Hall Foyer, Friday 6) joins him with Jonny Henderson (organ) and Matt Brown (drums) and, finally, Dakhla/Sefrial alto player Sophie Stockham picks up the same rhythm duo for her Sophie Stockham Trio gig at The Alma (Sunday 8).
And, finally, the welcome return of The Bebop Club is marked by Andy Hague’s classy Double Standards project (Friday 6). This quartet with George Cooper (piano), Al Swainger (bass) and Andy Tween (drums) gives Andy the chance to explore some undeservedly lesser-known tunes from cool trumpet heroes like Chet Baker, Miles Davis and Kenny Dorham.
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