Battle Festival Jazz Day

Each will perform a 50-minute set followed by a 20-minute break to allow the Hall to be reset for the next band. The first band will begin at 3pm and the last will be finished by 8.30pm.

Tickets are also available to purchase from BRITISH design BRITISH made or by calling Box Office on 07377 386468 (open 4-6pm)

Please note, we operate a non refund policy

TIMINGS:

3pm  REBECKA EDLUND TRIO

This esteemed trio explores the sound world of forest jazz and feisty folk music through original compositions, improvisations and favourites from the American Song Book.

Rebecka Edlund is a Swedish singer, lyricist and composer with a soft spot for the ocean, anecdotes and rusty orange. Her music is a concoction of jazz and Scandinavian folk music, herding calls, bird whistles and other peculiar sounds, exploring freely improvised storytelling and contemporary songwriting. Rebecka’s debut album ’Något om en björk’ (2022) was nominated by Lira Music Magazine as one of the best folk jazz albums of the yEar. Rebecka is a curator of The Whirlpool Series at Vortex Jazz Club and recent collaborations include Laura Jurd, Elliot Galvin, Corrie Dick, Rob Luft and Huw Warren.
Yorkshireman Owen Spafford is a fiddle player and composer whose creative life orbits the worlds of experimental, traditional and improvised music. He is a National Centre for Early Music Young Composer Award winner, BBC Young Composer Competition nominee 2019, and an All-Britain Fiddle Champion in the Fleadh Cheoil na Breataine. Equally at home in a traditional session as he is in a free improvisation workshop, Spafford’s understanding of the oral tradition and love for vernacular music from around the world enables an inventive and thoughtful musical voice. Owen is currently studying composition with Edmund Finnis at the Royal Academy of Music.

Guitarist James Kitchman hails from the forsaken realm of Northumberland. Described by BBC Radio 3 as possessing ”huge amounts of style and panache”, he is recognised as one of the most distinctive and sought-after jazz guitarists of his generation. Projects have encompassed a broad array of musical styles and disciplines, including co-leading Southern Cone Quintet’s take on Argentinian, Chilean and Uruguayan folk music and recording a guitar/vocal album as Kitchman / Schmidt exploring folk songs of the Appalachian Mountains. His debut album ‘First Quartet’ (Ubuntu Music) has been played by BBC Radio 3, Jazz FM, & Worldwide FM, whilst receiving critical acclaim.

4.10pm    ROBERT MITCHELL TRUE THINK  

Robert Mitchell is an award-winning pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader and published poet who has built a formidable reputation for working across creative genres. Over his 30 plus years entrenched in the art of music, Robert has released 12 albums of his own projects, participated in over 100 projects as a sideman, has performed/toured in 40 countries and is achieving a growing reputation as an inspirational educator. He was recently appointed Professor of Jazz Piano at the Guildhall School of Music.

During his career, he has worked with an extraordinarily wide range of jazz artists, including opening for Wayne Shorter at the Brighton Dome and Branford Marsalis at the Barbican. In 2019 he was Musical Director of a BBC4 tribute to the great ‘60s TV programme Jazz 625 Live: For One Night Only, which won Best Music Programme at the 2020 Broadcast Awards.

He always has a range of projects on the go. For this session he’ll be appearing with his new electronic/song ensemble TRUE THINK (Truth inc / Truth Ink), which features Swedish vocalist and songwriter Liselotte Östblom on vocals, award-winning Zayn Mohammed on guitar, multi-genre bassist and keyboard player Tom Mason and renowned drummer and percussionist Saleel Raman.

They’ll be performing music from their new double album Hold The Light / The New Resistance, featuring powerful songs of protest, love and peace. They blend electronic, jazz, RnB, spoken word, film and folk influences together to create a unique sound.

One observer described a recent performance as “absolutely incredible – searing musicianship and precisely declaimed poetry combined with a rich instrumental palette and impeccable ensemble playing, all punctuated by epic, euphoric improvisation. Life changing stuff.”

5.20pm   JASON REBELLO / ORLANDO LE FLEMING DUO

This high-flying duo features two of the UK’s most respected jazz musicians – keyboardist Jason Rebello and bassist Orlando le Fleming.

Jason Rebello already had three critically acclaimed albums under his belt by the time he was 23. Five years later, in 1998, he became Sting’s keyboard player, touring the world and recording with Sting’s band for six years. He then spent another six years with guitar legend Jeff Beck’s band, while still finding time to work with artists such as Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Pee Wee Ellis, Joss Stone and Madeleine Peyroux.

In 2013, Jason decided he wanted to re-establish himself as a solo jazz artist, He has since released two albums, the most recent of which, ‘Held’, won best new CD in the British Jazz Awards.

Orlando le Fleming was born in Birmingham but brought up in Devon. Both of his parents are professional musicians, his mother a cellist and his father a composer. But his first ambition was to be a professional cricketer, an aim he realised by playing for five years in the minor counties. But when he was offered a place at the Royal Academy of Music, his lifelong passion for music won out.

While based in London, his virtuoso technique, boundless creativity and powerful beat led to him touring and recording with the likes of Jason Rebello, Julian Joseph, Jean Toussaint and Ian Ballamy. Then in 2003 he moved to the United States, where he became one of the most in-demand bass players on the New York jazz scene, playing and recording with many of New York’s finest bands.

Orlando has also had great success as a leader. In 2020 his drum-less OWL trio (with long term associates Will Vinson and Lage Lund) released a new recording featuring virtuoso vocalist Kurt Elling. And one of his more recent projects, Romantic Funk, will release a third album this year with a guest appearance from Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

6.30pm TIM GARLAND’S LIGHTHOUSE TRIO

Tim Garland’s first break as saxophonist was joining Ronnie Scott’s band age 23. Later he was to join Chick Corea as a regular member of several globe-trotting projects over a seventeen year period. Playing tenor and soprano saxes, bass clarinet and flute, Tim also won a Grammy for his symphonic orchestrations on Corea’s “The New Crystal Silence” album from 2007.

He combines jazz with modern classical composition. He has fulfilled commissions from several of the world’s top orchestras, including the LSO, The Royal Northern Sinfonia and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Along the way he has won multiple nominations and awards.

Twenty years ago Garland launched his Lighthouse Trio, a truly unique and formidable acoustic band where interplay is paramount. 2024 has seen the 20th anniversary tour of this international trio that features pianist Gwilym Simcock and drummer/percussionist Asaf Sirkis.

Garland’s association with the prodigiously talented and much-praised Simcock goes back a long way. Both share a broadly similar musical approach that’s informed by a blend of fusion, folk, and classical forms, while the formidable Sirkis, a drummer and percussionist with a well-deserved reputation as one of the best in the business, seems at home in any environment, but here masterfully employs a bespoke kit of middle eastern frame drums perfect for the setting.

The anniversary concerts in 2024 will feature works from a project entitled Moment Of Departure created by Turkish painter and printmaker Esra Kizir Gokcen to complement the new music, released on a new album in May.Tim Garland and the now-world-renowned Simcock (Pat Metheny Band) share compositional input.

7.40pm  LIANE CARROLL TRIO

A grand finale featuring 1066 Country’s best loved songstress. For this session she’ll be joined by the two regular members of her trio, both very well known to the local jazz audience: husband Roger Carey on bass and Russell Field on drums.

Liane has been a pillar of the British jazz scene for over 35 years. While we like to think of her as one of our own, she also has a huge national and international reputation.

She has collaborated with such diverse artists as Paul McCartney, Gerry Rafferty, Long John Baldry, Ian Shaw, Claire Martin and drum and bass outfit London Elektricity, with whom she appeared at Glastonbury in 2017.

As a recording artists Liane has gained much critical acclaim. Her five most recent albums have all earned a four-star review in the Guardian. ‘Seaside’, her homage to her life by the coast, won the coveted British Jazz Award for Best New CD in 2015
A world-class performer, her powerful blues-tinged voice and exciting infectious material, not to mention a wicked sense of humour, will make this a memorable and hugely enjoyable gig.