Jazz Midlands Mentoring Scheme Showcase
Dan Lockheart “Roots To Leaves” with Alex Hitchcock
The Marrs Bar, Worcester
Thursday 21st September, 8pm doors, 8:30 start
Earlier this month, Ezra Collective became the first jazz act to win the Mercury Prize for their album Where I’m Meant To Be. Accepting the award, drummer Femi Koleoso said: “This is not just a result for Ezra Collective, or for UK jazz, but this is a special moment for every single organization across the country, ploughing efforts and time into young people playing music.”
This makes me particularly proud and delighted, as a partner of Jazz Midlands, to open our Music Spoken Here Autumn program of exceptional live music at The Marrs Bar in Worcester with the live performance of a project developed through a mentoring program for young jazz musicians in the West Midlands.
Headed up by bas|sist and Birmingham Royal Conservatoire teacher Arnie Somogyi, in association with Jazz Midlands, the scheme paired up five Birmingham Conservatoire graduates (Dan Lockheart, Lucy Mellenfield, Liam Brennan, James Owston and Shiv Singh) with established professional musicians (Alex Hitchcock, Neil Yates, Laura Jurd, Trish Clowes and Soweto Kinch respectively) to provide guidance on composition, performance and professional networking. Each candidate developed an original project with their respective bands, which they performed for the first time along with their mentor in Birmingham over the weekend.
After a stonkingly good ‘warm-up’ gig in in the packed, hot room above 1000 Trades on Sunday evening, saxophonist Dan Lockheart will be performing his project Roots To Leaves for Music Spoken Here at The Marrs Bar on Thursday 21st September. This five-piece suite explores our connection with nature through improvisation and spoken word, inspired by poems commissioned for the project on the themes of seed, roots, trunk, branches and leaves. Dan brings his compositions to life with an accomplished, melodic confidence on flute, soprano and tenor sax, complimented by mentor Alex Hitchcock on tenor sax and accompanied by the incredible emerging talents of Torin Davies on guitar, Josh Vadiveloo on bass and Jonno Gaze on drums.
Come down to see where new British music is going! You don’t need tickets for any of our shows, just turn up and pay what you can afford (minimum £5, cash or card) on the door.
By: Dave Fuller
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