Miranda Radford Quartet
The Marr’s Bar, Worcester Thursday 27th February
Local promoter Music Spoken Here continues their hugely successful Up!Beat series featuring drummer-led bands with the Miranda Radford Quartet at The Marr’s Bar, Worcester on Thursday 27th February.
With so much negativity, uncertainty and division in the world right now, Music Spoken Here instigator Dave Fuller conceived the idea of the Up!Beat series to start the year with a focus on positive things that bring people together. Live music has an uplifting and unifying effect on everyone present at a gig and drummers play the essential role of keeping everyone in the group moving forward together towards a common goal.
The series launched in January with Lenny Kravitz’s drummer Jas Kayser, who played a set of all original compositions with her five-piece Chums band to a full house. Three weeks later, Birmingham-based Louis Hamilton-Foad, grandson of the late jazz saxophonist Andy Hamilton, performed with his band Impossible Conversations on Thursday 13th February. Videos of highlights from these performances can be found on the Music Spoken Here YouTube Channel.
This week’s performance features the youngest musicians that have appeared on the Music Spoken Here program, which has been running at the Marr’s Bar for nearly three years, showcasing progressive bands and artists from the UK jazz, funk and fusion scene.
19-year-old Trinity Laban student and drummer Miranda Radford studied with Will Cleasby, Billy Hart and Julian Joseph. Through the excellent London-based, jazz musician development organisation Tomorrow’s Warriors, she was mentored by Sultan Stevenson and Romarna Campbell, who was originally booked to perform this date with her trio but had to postpone. Through Tomorrow’s Warriors, Miranda was invited to join their prestigious, all-female Frontline band, an opportunity only open to their top students.
Her own quartet includes fellow Trinity Laban student Ky Osborne on keys, Tom Sheen on bass and Frontline trumpeter Klara Devlin, a student of Tony Kofi since she was 13 and finalist in the 2024 BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year. Incidentally, Music Spoken Here featured the winner of that award, bassist Ursula Harrison, on their program in January last year when she appeared with the Eddie Gripper Trio.
Miranda’s quartet explores the works of Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton and Herbie Hancock, with a few of her original compositions. Doors open at 8pm and admission is free for Music Spoken Here Club Members, while non-members are invited to pay what they can on the door (suggested £10-15). As the band are travelling up from London on the train, they will perform a single 90-minute set starting around 8:30pm so they can catch the last train back to Paddington.
For more information visit the Music Spoken Here website