Music / Jazz
Bristol’s month in jazz – December 2024
As the year winds down let’s take a moment to appreciate the people who keep our jazz diaries regularly topped up.
Jazzata’s Ian Storrer rounds off his fortieth year of gigs with the Albert All Stars Big Band (Beacon, Sunday, 8), a 16-piece supergroup of Bristol jazzers led by trumpeter/drummer/composer Andy Hague (pictured above).
Andy is, of course, the man behind the weekly Be-Bop Club whose 2024 programme closes with his Art Blakey tribute The Text Messengers (Be-Bop Club, Thursday, 19), a sextet almost all of whom are in the aforementioned All Stars.
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The monthly Cotham Club nights are down to David Mowatt, (another trumpeter with numerous performing outfits) and this month they have the brilliant veteran blues harmonica player Johnny Mars and his band (Cotham Parish Church, Friday, 20).
David also brings Palestinian reed player Faris Ishaq to St George’s in collaboration with the BEJE ensemble (St George’s, Sunday, 1). And then there’s guitarist Adam Stokes who maintains the Stag & Hounds Sunday sessions with his trio as well as an ongoing series of gigs at St George’s. For December his guest Rebecca Nash will be exploring the amazing music of Thelonious Monk (St George’s, Wednesday, 4).
Jon Taylor may be a less visible character, not being a jazz performer himself, but it is he that maintains the FringeJazz weekly nights at Bristol Music Club and of course Stew Seydel keeps the tradition of jazz alive and well at The Old Duke.
Big thanks are due to them all: jazz promotion is a precarious business at best but commitment to the music keeps them going nonetheless.
December’s big name jazz gig has to be bass player Gary Crosby and saxophonist Denys Baptiste celebrating John Coltrane’s seminal album A Love Supreme (St George’s, Tuesday, 3). Their quartet with pianist Andrew McCormack and Rod Youngs on drums is a top flight collaboration, as is Cameron Saint’s The Mingus Project (Fringe, Tuesday, 3).
Bass player Cameron founded the project to explore Charlie Mingus’ distinctive approach to modern jazz while at the Royal Welsh College and the five-piece line-up includes RWC tutors Huw Warren and Alex Merritt. Another RWC graduate – hot shot saxophonist Dan Newberry – headlines at the JFS session (Mr Wolf’s, Tuesday, 3) and it’s a shame all these are on the same night.
There’s a fair few other saxophonists on show this December, of course, with hard bopper Craig Crofton’s Quartet starting the Bell’s month (Wednesday, 4) and funk-friendly James Morton’s Groove Den Quartet rounding it (and the year) off (Tuesday, 31).
Reed-wielding guests at the Stag & Hounds sessions include Hackney Colliery Band’s Len Areliah (Sunday, 8) and Sefrial/Orphic/Starlings star Sophie Stockham (Sunday, 15) while Joe Northwood’s brassy trombone work leads off on Sunday, 1.
The increasingly ubiquitous tenor of Jake McMurchie will be guesting with piano trio Yetii at the FringeJazz night (Bristol Music Club, Wednesday, 4). Jake also figures alongside guitarist Neil Smith in vocalist Kat Coles Trio (El Rincon, Thursday, 12).
Yetii drummer Alex Goodyear brings his own trio to the Grain Barge (Tuesday, 10), while the band’s bassist Ashley John Long features in guitarist Denny Ilett’s All-Stars alongside Dave Newton (piano) and star drummer Sebastiaan De Krom at the Be-Bop (Thursday, 12).
The mighty Latin-jazz forces of the Buena Bristol Social Club can only rarely come together but when they do it’s a faultless celebration of Cuban son and salsa that should rattle the rafters at the Lantern (Thursday, 12).
Trumpeter Jonny Bruce – himself a master of that soaring Havana style – brings his Blue Note-leaning jazz Quartet to round off the FringeJazz year (Bristol Music Club, Wednesday, 11) with guest vocalist Victoria Klewin contributing some Great American Songbook faves.
Hugh Pascall has an acclaimed straight ahead approach to the trumpet and his Quintet (Be-Bop, Thursday, 5) also features the excellent James Allsopp on tenor sax. It’s been a big year for pianist/composer Daniel Inzani who celebrates his triple album Selected Worlds at The Forge (Thursday, 5), It’s a split performance beginning with his neo-classical piano trio and ending with his eclectically groovy big band.
James Chadwick’s 2024 album Inside Out was a welcome reminder of his distinctively spacious approach to jazz guitar and his trio come to The Fringe (Sunday, 15) while recently arrived Bristol resident Paul Mahon’s guitar joins Simon Greening’s saxes for ‘sonorous jazz’ as duo Avellana (Folk House, Thursday, 5).
Ezra Collective keyboard dynamo Joe Armon-Jones collaboration with dubstep pioneer Mala grew from a studio project to the live band show coming to Trinity (Thursday, 19) with Sheffield’s Sinai sound system.
Tokyo Station’s Jungle Jazz (Elemental Collective, Saturday, 7) is a similar encounter between jazz instrumentation and dance music culture and both acts must surely tip their hats to Banco de Gaia (Jam Jar, Thursday, 5) who pioneered live electro-acoustic dance music back in the 90s.
Fans of the neo-soul sound might explore two new acts – Chloe et Al front their quartet at the Robin Hood (Friday, 6) and vocalist Soulbee launches debut recording SPIRIT at Jam Jar (Sunday, 1) and 395 (Saturday, 14) with a variety of guests at each gig.
There’s some mighty grooves winding up 2024 at The Bell, with the jump-jive onslaught of Fatman Swings (Monday, 16), hard nosed funk from Stone Cold Hustle (Monday, 30) and a New Year’s Eve double bill of gnawa master Mohamed Errebbaa’s band and jazz-funk sax player James Morton’s Groove Den (Tuesday, 31).
Always especially welcome, though, is World Government (Monday, 23) who somehow manage to combine their freeform improvisational approach into relentlessly tight and danceable grooves.
More conventionally funky stuff can be expected from Clusterfunk (Canteen, Friday, 6), and the ageless reggae-meets-psych/funk outfit Fat Freddies Drop (Beacon, Monday, 9) are now impressively celebrating their 25th year.
Hip-hop meets New Orleans brasswork at the Old Duke for the Full House Brass Band (Friday, 13) and Brass Junkies (Thursday, 19). The Duke also has Gallic swingsters Fromage en Feu (Friday, 6) and the Tobacco Factory has the self-explanatory Maximus Manouche (Sunday, 8).
Even bigger swing sounds will be waking up the turtles at Bristol Aquarium (Saturday, 14) for the Kris Nock Big Band’s Jingle Bell Ball and The Attic has a Speakeasy night with the 20s sounds of Gin Bowlers (Saturday, 7).
It’s impossible to categorise Julia Holter’s work (Trinity, Thursday, 5) – her idiosyncratic use of sound and vocals is completely her own. Similarly, the duo of Tim Etchells and Aisha Orazbayeva deploy ‘free associative text’ with violin improvisation as headliners to a Tough Sell night (Cube, Friday, 6).
There’s an experimental sound night in the crypt of the Mount Without (Thursday, 19) headlined by Pablo Jimenez-Moreno using modular synths to ‘stretch the very concept of stillness’.
Perfect Combat (Bar 57, Satiurday, 7) brings his project to ‘push old technology to its limits’ to the Ambient Café night, while Café Kino launches a new night – Blessed Union 01 – with a quadruple bill of experimental musical artists. The Elmer’s Arms improv session Byrfyfyr happens on Saturday, 14 and the Exchange’s monthly Broken Numbers afternoon improv session (Sunday, 15) has a host of familiar faces including veteran Mark Langford on keyboards and trombone virtuoso Raph Clarkson.
Jam is happening, of course, at the Stag & Hounds (Sundays), the Old England Community Jam Collective (Tuesdays) and Mr Wolf’s Donut Filler (Wednesdays). The Fringe has Hot Club Jam (Monday 2), Peanut Butter Jam (Monday 9) and the Jazz Rapport Jam (Monday 16).
Canteen has Beat Cleaver’s Hip-hop Jam (Monday 2), the Stone Cold Funk jam (Tuesday 3, Tuesday 17), the Canteen Jazz Session (Wednesday, 4), Slapdash (Tuesday, 10), and the Canteen Latin Session (Wednesday, 18). The Jam Jar has The Door is Ajar (Saturday, 28).
Main image: Andy Hague
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