A treat for all jazz fans in Leeds – don’t miss this!

Denys Baptiste (tenor/soprano saxes), Peter Edwards (piano), Gary Crosby (double bass), Rod Youngs (drums)

Born in Hounslow, West London of St Lucian parents in 1969, Denys Baptiste is an award-winning jazz artist, composer and educator. An outstanding saxophonist of international acclaim, Denys is renowned for his ability to make complex music accessible, creating mature, melodic, and highly memorable compositions that lodge in the memory on first hearing.

For the Seven Jazz concert Denys Baptiste returns to a classic quartet format giving audiences an opportunity to engage more intimately with the band. And although it’s his most progressive set to date, the music still remains entirely accessible with melodic free-flowing, contemporary compositions. Also very evident is the significant growth in his artistic maturity and stature.

Identity By Subtraction is Baptiste’s new CD release available at the gig – it features his long-time collaborators: pianist Peter Edwards , double bassist Gary Crosby and drummer Rod Youngs, offering him the perfect setting for his fiery solo improvisations among the tight ensemble playing of this formidable and highly intuitive band. Both the album and live set show cultural impressions and expressions of Europe, North America and the Caribbean that have come to define  Denys Baptiste as a jazz sax player.

Denys Baptiste’s Quartet are at Seven Arts on Thursday 17 May. Doors open 8pm, Music 8.30-11.15pm. Tickets £15/12 concessions, from Seven Arts bar or phone 0113 26 26 777   to reserve or purchase.  Full time student standby available on the door only £5

Two British, one American and one South African jazz icons to see over the coming month – trombonist Dennis Rollins, saxmen Denys Baptiste and Jean Toussaint and trumpeter Claude Deppa. We also have three big bands for you – Leeds College of Music Contemporary Jazz Orchestra and Kim Macari’s Big Band and salsa from Las Cameradas. But to start with, a stunning gig this coming Sunday afternoon…
Sunday afternoon 29 April 1pm: Jean Toussaint with the Dagda quartet

Jean Toussaint Tenor Sax, Tom Harrison saxes, Billy Adamson guitar, Tom West bass, Mike Clowes drums
Fantastic jazz for a fiver! Rising stars of the UK jazz scene since formation in 2010, Dagda in concert with Art Blakey tenor saxman Jean Toussaint. Dagda are led by saxophonist Tom Harrison, the band features guitarist Billy Adamson, bassist Tom West, drummer Mike Clowes and special guest ex Art Blakey saxman Jean Touissaint. Their recent debut album is ‘Suite for RLH’, a through-composed suite in 5 parts dedicated to the memory of Harrison’s grandfather. Get their early….£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm
Thursday evening 3rd May 8pm – 8pm : Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio

Dennis Rollins trombone, Ross Stanley organ Pedro Segundo drums

Dennis Rollins’ Velocity Trio is the newest offering from the multi-award-winning British trombone star. Highly infused with jazz and swing, Velocity Trio incorporates a progressive, contemporary, and – it being Mr Badbone – a funky edge to its sound. Featuring organ virtuoso Ross Stanley and fire-y, young Portuguese drummer Pedro Segundo the synergistic energy of this exciting project is truly unique, eclectic and mesmerising.
£15/12 concessions in advance from Seven Arts 0113 26 26 777 or on the door. Stand by tickets for full time students are £5 on the door only. Doors open 8pm for the concert, music is 8.30-11pm.
Sunday afternoon 7 May 1pm: Leeds College of Music Contemporary Jazz Orchestra

The Leeds College of Music Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, comprises experienced players from the College performing challenging music from the contemporary repertoire. The concert will also include the performance of several student compositions. Their director is James Hamilton won the UK Contemporary Jazz Composition award in the British Composer Awards 2010 for “The Causeway Suite”. He was nominated for the award by Martin Coultas on behalf of Jazz Yorkshire. The judges commented “This is so much more than skill and technique by a composer with energy and talent”.
£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm
Sunday afternoon 14 May 1pm: Las Camaradas

Last year we had to turn people away from their gig it was so popular. At last year’s Chapel Allerton Festival (pictured) the band had people dancing in the streets. Under the guiding hand of trombonist Jonny Enright, they’re back with their `all singing all dancing’ vocal section, a driving rhythm section, flute/ saxes and some punchy brass featuring the exuberant trumpets of Chapel Allerton’s very own Phil Green and Kate Liddington. Dance music for the ears, hips and feet!”
£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm

Thursday evening 17th May 8pm : Denys Baptiste Quartet

Denys Baptiste (tenor/soprano saxes), Andrew McCormack (piano), Gary Crosby (double bass), Rod Youngs (drums)

Born in Hounslow, West London of St Lucian parents in 1969, Denys Baptiste is an award-winning jazz artist, composer and educator. An outstanding saxophonist of international acclaim, Denys is renowned for his ability to make complex music accessible, creating mature, melodic, and highly memorable compositions that lodge in the memory on first hearing.
£15/12 concessions in advance from Seven Arts 0113 26 26 777 or on the door. Stand by tickets for full time students are £5 on the door only. Doors open 8pm for the concert- music is 8.30-11pm.
Sunday afternoon 21 May 1pm: Kim Macari’s Big Band play the music of Duncan Lamont

Trumpet player and bandleader Kim Macari returns to Seven with her big band following her highly successful performance last year that paid homage to her fellow Scot – composer and saxophonist Duncan Lamont.

When Gil Evans in a magazine interview was asked who his favourite contemporary writer was, he quoted Duncan Lamont.

Kim says “I met Duncan in 2006, when I played part of this suite with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland. Duncan came on tour with us and since then, he’s become a friend and a wonderful supporter of my pursuits in music. I’m excited to have the chance to work with him again, and bring this music to a wider audience. Duncan is an incredibly talented composer and I think he’s underrated here in the UK – more people should hear this music!”

“It’s a pleasure for me, and I know the band will sound great. I’m really pleased Kim is doing the suite,” Duncan Lamont.
£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm
Sunday afternoon 28 May 1pm Al Macsween’s sextet with special guest Claude Deppa- tribute to Moses Taiwa Molelekwa

Claude Deppa: trumpet, Al Macsween piano, Kenny Higgins on bass, Simon Moore on drums, Kenji Fenton on sax, Lamin Jassey percussion.

Another fantastic gig for a fiver! Claude Deppa (Brotherhood of Breath and Carla Bley band) plays trumpet in this tribute to the life and music of Moses Taiwa Molelekwa, one of South Africa’s finest jazz pianists and composers who died in 2001. The band is led by popular Leeds pianist Al Macsween. £5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm

May Jazz Workshops

Our Summer 2012 series of workshops start on Saturday 28 April. The tutor for the first session will be Kim Macari, trumpet player & band leader. The other sessions in May are Saturday 12 May and Saturday 26 May both tutored by Martin Townshend. The workshops are 2.30-4.30pm at Seven Arts, 31A Harrogate Road, Leeds, LS7 3PD cost £10/£8 concessions. For further information & bookings contact Jean Watson by email at jeanwatsonlifeskills@hotmail.com or phone 0113 237 0700 , Or speak to us at our Sunday afternoon jazz or at any of our evening jazz concerts!

Dominic Moore runs a Seven jazz improvisation group at the Methodist Centre, Chapel Allerton, LS7 4NZ on Fridays (£5 per session- 7.30-10pm) – just turn up and play! The dates for the coming month are Friday April 27, Friday May 11, Friday May 25
For all details of all our events and latest news updates see us on www.sevenjazz.co.uk, follow us on Twitter or befriend us on Facebook.

Look forward to seeing you soon at Seven Arts, Chapel Allerton, 31 Harrogate Road, Leeds LS3 3PD

Steve Crocker
Seven Jazz Leeds- Jazz Yorkshire club of the year 2012

Doors open 8 pm Music starts 8.30 pm. Admission price: £8/£6 on the door. At the Fox and Newt, 9 Burley Street, Leeds LS3 1LD (opposite Park Lane College) Tel: 0113 245 4527.

Ma Trio

Ma Trio

Tom Challenger (saxophone) Matt Calvert (electronics, synths) Dave Smith (drums, sabar)

Collider

Large Hadron Collider

Collider

Matt Anderson

This coming May, the Matt Anderson Quartet will embark on an extensive U.K. tour which will take the band up and down the whole country, from Edinburgh in the north to London in the south.

Following their 2011 regional tour supported by Jazz Yorkshire and attracting the acclaim of audiences and promoters across the area, the Leeds-based foursome have cemented their reputation as one of the most exciting contemporary jazz ensembles in the North of England.

The quartet in its current form was set up by Jazz Yorkshire ‘Futures’ saxophonist Matt Anderson in 2010 after he graduated from Leeds College of Music with First Class Honours, also receiving the Sam Hood Rosebowl for Outstanding Performance (Jazz). He has since studied with Iain Ballamy and Stan Sulzmann, and was awarded ‘Young Musician of the Year’ at the Jazz Yorkshire Awards 2010.

Matt’s spacious and malleable compositions provide the perfect backdrop for the searching, flowing drumming of Sam Gardner and virtuosic guitar playing of Aubin Vanns. John Marley, one of the busiest bass players in the U.K., keeps the group thoroughly anchored during even their most intense moments. Playing mostly original music by Matt and the other band members, the music is informed by the great tradition of jazz saxophonists all the way from Sonny Rollins to Chris Cheek, whilst the band also takes interest in contemporary approaches to rhythm, harmony, melody and form.

You can follow the band’s progress on their tour blog, found at www.matt-anderson.org.uk, which will feature recorded samples of the gigs as they happen, photos and more.

13/5 – Pave, Hull – 01482 333181
16/5 – The Lescar, Sheffield – 0114 2668974
18/5 – Matt n’ Phreds, Manchester – 0161 8317002
20/5 – Splinter @ The Bridge, Newcastle – 0191 2326400
23/5 – Charlie Wright’s, London – 0207 4908345
26/5 – HEART, Leeds – 0113 2754548
27/5 – Whighams, Edinburgh – 0131 2258674

Ends

matt.anderson@mail.com / 07807327144 / www.matt-anderson.org.uk

The band are @Seven Arts Leeds this Thursday 19th April (masterclass 6.15pm, concert 8pm) Tickets 0113 26 26 777 – don’t miss this!!

http://londonjazz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/review-new-york-standards-quartet-at.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/apr/15/new-york-standards-quartet-review?newsfeed=true

Steve Crocker

Seven Jazz

Doors open 8 pm Music starts 8.30 pm. Admission price: £8/£6 on the door. At the Fox and Newt, 9 Burley Street, Leeds LS3 1LD (opposite Park Lane College) Tel: 0113 245 4527.

Born to Brew

Storytelling Improvisation duets with Matthew Bourne (UK)-analog keyboards/piano and Sean Noonan (N.Y.) – drums/storytelling

Born to Brew is a fermentation of shape-shifting improvisations, stories of minimalism and intoxication that wander through dense soundscapes. Like if Cecil Taylor and Samuel Beckett were out on a night of romance and in quest of a good bar fight.  Premiering daring new compositions that merge Noonan’s new Irish-American storytelling style improvised on the drum set.

Plus support from a rare solo set by Trio VD guitarist, Chris Sharkey

JOHN BUTCHER & GINO ROBAIR + PAUL HESSION + SETH COOKE, CLIVE HENRY & KEVIN SANDERS

Line up: John Butcher & Gino Robair (duo), Paul Hession (solo), Seth Cooke, Clive Henry & Kevin Sanders (trio)

8pm – 11pm, Thursday 3rd May 2012, Left Bank, Cardigan Road, Leeds, LS6 1LJ, £8.00 on the door or £7.00 in advance
Advance tickets available from bangthebore.org or with 10% booking fee from Jumbo Records, Leeds

Bang the Bore is proud to present its first concert in Leeds, in conjunction with the Left Bank arts centre – three improvisers of world renown, playing in one of Leeds’ most visually and sonically evocative venues.

John Butcher
Winner of the 2011 Paul Hamlyn Foundation award for his work as a composer, John Butcher has arguably achieved more than any other contemporary saxophonist in redefining the limitations of the instrument and extending the contexts in which it can find relevance. Through free improvisation, open composition, multi-tracked studio experiments, use of feedback and site specific performances that exploit the acoustic idiosyncrasies of unique environments he has broadened the range of the instrument into previously unheard territories of timbre, polyphony and resonance. Over the last thirty years he has played with AMM, Derek Bailey, Polwechsel, Fred Frith, John Stevens, The Ex, Christian Marclay and hundreds more; at Left Bank he’ll be playing in a duo with Gino Robair.
www.johnbutcher.org.uk

Gino Robair
Improviser, percussionist and composer Gino Robair has performed and recorded with many of the most consistently adventurous musicians working today, including Tom Waits, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith and Terry Riley. His opera, I, Norton, has been performed throughout North American and Europe; he has composed for the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, gamelan, MTV, Comedy Central and the CBS animated seriesThe Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat; and he is one of the ‘twenty five innovative percussionists’ included in the book Percussion Profiles (SoundWorld, 2001). At Left Bank he’ll be improvising on percussion and electronics, describing his strategies and equipment ‘energised surfaces’ and ‘voltage made audible.’
ginorobair.com

Paul Hession
Free drummer Paul Hession has perhaps done more to expand local interest in improvised music than anyone else in Leeds, whether as curator the much missed Termite Club, organiser of the Improvised Music Workshop or founder of Improvised Music Leeds. The breadth of his collaborators is equally inspiring, including Peter Brötzmann, Squarepusher, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Otomo Yoshihide, Marshall Allen, Derek Bailey, Alan Wilkinson, Mick Beck and Harry Pussy’s Bill Orcutt. At Left Bank he’ll be performing solo on percussion and electronics.
softdrum.com

Thursday evening 5th April 8pm – 8pm : Sue Richardson’s “Too Cool” – the music of Chet Baker

Since being tipped for the top by Jazzwise in January ’08 Sue Richardson’s career has been going from strength to strength. Sue’s quintet gigs are a great combination of her original songs and imaginatively reworked standards. You will love her reworking of the Chet Baker songbook. The musicians in the band also take centre stage with well thought out solo spots.

£12/10 concessions in advance from Seven Arts 0113 26 26 777 or on the door. Stand by tickets for full time students are £5 on the door only. Doors open 8pm for the concert, music is 8.30-11pm.

Sunday afternoon 8th April 1pm: The Riley Stone-Lonergan Trio

Riley Stone Lonergan sax, Max Sterling double bass, Steve Hanley drums.

Our Easter Sunday gig features a sax player who is well on his way to the top. A year after his first appearance at Seven Arts he is hotly tipped as one to watch this year by Jazzwise Editor Jon Newey (amongst others), young boss-saxophonist Riley Stone-Lonergan is certainly set to make a mark on the UK jazz scene in 2012.

£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm

Thursday evening 12th April 8pm – 8pm : Howard Alden and Jeanne Gies

Howard Alden guitar and Jeanne Gies vocals with Gary Jackson bass, Caroline Boaden drums

As an addition to our jazz programme schedule we are pleased to announce the welcome return to Seven Jazz of America’s best known jazz guitarists and Concord recording artist Howard Alden, in concert with New York jazz singer Jeanne Gies. Howard and Jeanne enchanted us with their appearance last year so we were really pleased to hear they were back in the UK again this Spring. We have the same fine musicians on bass and drums as well – Gary Jackson and Caroline Boaden.

£15/12 concessions in advance from Seven Arts 0113 26 26 777 or on the door. Stand by tickets for full time students are £5 on the door only. Doors open 8pm for the concert, music is 8.30-11pm.

Sunday afternoon 15 April 1pm: “Kefaya” with Giuliano Modarelli

Giuliano Modarelli (guitar), Joost Hendrickx (drums), Kenny Higgins (bass), Al MacSween (keys and electronics), Richard Ormrod (reeds and flute), Olivia Moore (violin)

Kefaya (previously called Kalimero) are an exciting new UK-based collaboration. Their sound could be described as an exploration through jazz and contemporary electronics into world folk music, from Arabic, West-African and Italian folk music, to Indian classical, dub, flamenco and klezma. Their material often contains a deep social and political awareness and you can even expect to hear some reworkings of classic revolutionary anthems.

£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm

Thursday evening 19 April 8pm – Michael Janisch and the New York Standards Quartet

Tim Armacost sax, David Berkman piano, Michael Janisch bass, Gene Jackson drums

The NY Standards Quartet features some of the marquee players of their generation. Although they worked together in different combinations for years in New York, the members of the New York Standards Quartet (NYSQ) formed as a band to tour Japan in 2006, and have been playing for enthusiastic audiences in Japan, the US and Europe ever since. They recently released their second CD, “Unstandard”, on Challenge Records – which sold out on their 2011 Tour of Japan. Conceptually, the NYSQ strives to develop its own language by radically reinterpreting music from the standard jazz repertoire, pushing the boundaries of these well-known songs.

Tickets £15/12 concessions in advance from Seven Arts 0113 26 26 777 or on the door. Stand by tickets for full time students are £5 on the door only. Doors open 8pm for the concert, music is 8.30-11pm.

Sunday afternoon 22 April 1pm: The United States of the North* mark *The 90th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Mingus

Adrian Knowles bass, Richard Ormrod saxes/woodwinds, Tony Birkill saxes/woodwinds,Jonny Flockton guitars, Barkley McKay piano, Tim Brickel audiovisuals

The United States of the North* are a new family of musicians, brought together to shine a new light on music from the USA. On Sunday 22nd April 2012 they will mark what would have been the 90th Birthday of Composer Charles Mingus. This exciting event will combine new settings of the composer’s works with audio-visual responses.

£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm

Sunday afternoon 29 April 1pm: Jean Toussaint with the Dagda quartet

Jean Toussaint Tenor Sax, Tom Harrison saxes, Billy Adamson guitar, Tom West bass, Mike Clowes drums

Rising stars of the UK jazz scene since formation in 2010, Dagda in concert with Art Blakey tenor saxman Jean Toussaint. Dagda are led by saxophonist Tom Harrison, the band features guitarist Billy Adamson, bassist Tom West, drummer Mike Clowes and special guest awarding-winning Irish saxophonist Michael Buckley. Their recent debut album is ‘Suite for RLH’, a through-composed suite in 5 parts dedicated to the memory of Harrison’s grandfather.

£5/4 concessions, kids under 16 free, doors open at 1pm, music 1.30-4pm

Our jazz workshops at Seven Arts return on Saturday 28th April 2.30-4.30pm for the summer season. Dominic Moore continues to run our popular jazz workshop/improvisation group at the Methodist Centre, Chapel Allerton on the following Friday dates (£5 per session) 7.30-10pm : 20 April and 27 April Contact Dominic dominicgmoore@hotmail.com.

For all details of all our events and latest news updates see us on www.sevenjazz.co.uk, follow us on Twitter or befriend us on Facebook. Look forward to seeing you soon at Seven Arts, Chapel Allerton, 31 Harrogate Road, Leeds LS3 3PD.