EFG London Jazz Festival 2021

Gareth Lockrane Big Band Return

Event Has Passed

Last Show: Saturday 20 th November 2021

PizzaExpress Live (Holborn)

JBGB Events have, for the last three  years, been enthusiastic supporters of the 19-piece Gareth Lockrane Big Band, promoting their brilliant music and outstanding musicians, to enthusiastic jazz lovers in sold out concerts. Building on  their annual concerts at Dean Street, we are now able to extend the partnership and hopefully satisfy audience demands, by creating a three concert residency across January, May and October 2022. The Gareth Lockrane Big Band is, in our opinion, the greatest ever UK Big Band and ranks alongside the great bands, from what has traditionally been the exclusive preserve, of the USA. 

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“...Lockrane is the next best thing and the most exciting and inventive instrumentalist in the country.”

Jack Massarick (London Evening Standard)

Think of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band that in the late 1980’s revolutionised Big Band arrangements, and then Wynton Marsalis and his Lincoln Centre Orchestra in the 1990’s that made virtuosity common place, but then add new writing and distinctive arrangements, with a band leader playing flutes, and you have their 21st century dynamic successor in  Gareth Lockrane and his Big Band. 

This Three Concert Residency  will feature not only a wealth of Gareth Lockrane’s original compositions and arrangements, including numbers from their highly rated album “Fistfight At The Barn Dance”, but also new writing for a further 2022 album. 

The success of our Big Band Sunday lunchtime concerts at Dean Street is now extending into this residency, not only for established Gareth Lockrane supporters, but also to welcome music lovers of all tastes to experience the empathy, imagination and pure musical talent on show when 19 individual musicians come together to create one integrated sound with the original writing and arranging skills of Gareth Lockrane. 

 

Band Lineup

Gareth Lockrane (flutes/tunes); Andy Schofield, Mike Chillingworth, Graeme Blevins, Josephine Davies, Tom Smith (saxes) Tom Walsh, Steve Fishwick, Andy Greenwood, Henry Collins (trumpets) Tom White, Olli Martin, Harry Maund, Richard Henry (trombones) Ross Stanley (piano) Ryan Trebilcock (bass) Ian Thomas (drums)