“The British Nigerian surely has an original guitar approach, marking him out as a new guitar star having absorbed his influences and come up with something new”.

Jazzwise magazine

He is now become an integral part of the homegrown music scene, who can lay claim to working alongside the industrys brightest talents, not just as a guitarist, but also as a composer and producer. 

From acting as Music Director to soul songstress Amy Winehouse on her live tour, to working with the likes of Omar, The Roots, Soweto Kinch, Eska Mtungwazi and Brotherly, he has led an illustrious and varied professional career.

Driven by a keen sense of self-determination, Temowo established his own independent record label Femitone Music in 2005, which saw the release of his debut album Quiet Storm a year later.

Heralded by the UK music press, the record included collaborations with performance poet Zena Edwards and emerging vocalist Anna Omak.

Temowos zest for jazz in all its manifestations has paid off handsomely and he now teaches at some of the Capitals leading institutions, passing on his knowledge and experience to aspiring musicians.

The future for Temowo is peppered with fruitful collaborations between artists old and new, with the shared aspiration of enticing a wider audience to the jazz world:

"One of the reasons why were not reaching some people Temowo says, is because they just don't hear a station whose sole mandate it is to represent jazz music. 

The genre needs a public identity, a station that plays Coltrane at three o'clock in the afternoon. Or plays Miles, whether its day or night. That's going to play all the young jazz, coming out of this country.

Sam Dubois, Steel Pan virtuoso, first attracted the attention of the UK’s Jazz aficionados as a member of Courtney Pine’s ‘Afropeans’.

A 2-time winning arranger at Notting Hill Carnival’s Panorama, Sam is rooted in the tradition of Pan and the musical cultures of the Caribbean.

However, born and raised in London, Sam has a kaleidoscopic musical vision that has inspired him to develop a sophisticated harmonic, textural and rhythmic vocabulary as a composer and improviser.

Sam’s band features some of the hippest and most creative young improvisors from across the London scene.

 

Alison Grant

Songstress with Soul Alison Grant has been singing forever. Mentored in her teens by Kim Davis, she has gone on to write, record and perform with Lemar, Soul to Soul, Sammy Jay, Terri Walker and Oliver Twist amongst others.

She recorded her debut album ‘Pen to Paper’ in 2008 but it was whilst touring in France with UK Hip Hop star Ty, that is was ‘discovered’!  Within 48 hours Ty had posted the uplifting ‘Living for Today’ track on You Tube and Facebook and only a few weeks later it sat at number 3 in the UK Soul Charts.

Alison sings ‘sweet and real’ as she says. Her lyrics are from the heart and her influences are universal.

Expect big things in 2012.

Anybody keeping an eye on the ongoing development of the British jazz scene will have noticed Zara McFarlane in the last few years. The 28 year-old London vocalist has made a string of impressive appearances with musicians who do not choose their collaborators without careful consideration – Denys Baptiste, Orphy Robinson, Soweto Kinch and Jazz Jamaica All Stars to name but some. McFarlane’s appearance on the latter’s 2006 Motown-themed album Motor City Roots revealed a singer whose power was offset by delicacy, as was clear from her sensitive handling of Stevie Wonder’s My Cherie Amour. All of these experiences have furthered the growth of Zara McFarlane as an artist in the most complete sense of the term and the singer made good on her potential when she issued her self-produced EP, Until Tomorrow in 2010. The 6 track mini-album was evenly split between original compositions such as Captured and standards like the perennial jazz favourite On Green Dolphin Street. There was enormous poise in the way that McFarlane handled the melodic line and chord changes of a piece but what was arguably as impressive was the fact that she asserted herself as a thoughtful lyric writer. Now that EP has evolved into a full-length album, Until Tomorrow, and it marks Zara McFarlane’s debut for Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings.

 

 

 

 

 “Absolutely beautiful guitar playing. Stuart is such a talent – get out there and support him.” Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio 2

“Guitarist Stuart McCallum’s compositions are exemplary of everything that is exciting about new British jazz.” Jazzwise, UK

"Simple, understated and hypnotic he had the audience locked in and silent…Living proof that less is more". Jez Nelson, Jazz on 3, BBC Radio 3

FFrom jazz beginnings to DJ culture, Stuart McCallum’s music is ‘alternative jazz’ – a distillation of influences, creating a sound that is concentrated and distinctive. Not wanting to hide behind over complicated harmonic and rhythmical structures, angular and forgettable melodies, Stuart’s music is a new hybrid of composition, production and performance. It embraces simple, memorable melodies, bass lines and drum beats, with electronica and improvisation enriched by elegant

orchestral writing.

 

rom jazz beginnings to DJ culture, Stuart McCallum’s music is ‘alternative jazz’ – a distillation of influences, creating a sound that is concentrated and distinctive. Not wanting to hide behind over complicated harmonic and rhythmical structures, angular and forgettable melodies, Stuart’s music is a new hybrid of composition, production and performance. It embraces simple, memorable melodies, bass lines and drum beats, with electronica and improvisation enriched by elegant orchestral writing.

Pierre’s story starts on the Caribbean island of Dominica where he persuaded a friend to loan him his guitar. “I started giving him one Caribbean dollar every week to loan me the guitar”, says Pierre. “Every Friday he would turn up at my house and I would have to go and nik another dollar from my gran to give to him. In 1978 Pierre arrived in the UK – but without a guitar. “I asked my mother whether she would buy me a bass guitar,” says Pierre. “So she ordered one from a catalogue, but when it arrived it turned out to be a cheap plank of plywood with SIX strings. I couldn’t tell her that it was the wrong guitar!” Back on six strings, Pierre hung on to “this almost unplayable plank” for about a year before buying a Les Paul copy. “I remember it was called a Grant,” says Pierre, ‘it was another plank of plywood – but it was a lot better than that first instrument.” The ‘Grant’ lasted for another year, while more funds were raised. “Then I bought my first ‘proper’ guitar on HP – a Fender Stratocaster.”

Hannabiell & Midnight Blue is a melodic African percussion ensemble with a mixture of reggae, jazz and classical music. Today, the band is comprised of Hannabiell Sanders- Percussion, Bass Trombone, and Mbira; Yilis del C. Suriel - Percussion, and Mbira; and the UK band members. The UK Band: George Macgrath - Drums, Nate Shaw - Piano, Helen Papaioannou - Saxophone, David Mabbott - Bass, Mark Barfoot - Djembe, Dun Dun. The USA Band: Michael Lawton - Piano, Tom Mullaney- Bass, Ahmed Abdur-Rahman Gorham - Drums. 
The Band is committed to playing music that will break down personal and cultural barriers; the performances never fail to convey the band’s passion for equality and change. Hannabiell & Midnight Blue was created in 2003, when a group of classical musicians gathered together to learn how to improvise. While experimental at first, the different layers and harmonies that were created during this period inspired Hannabiell to compose the mixture of sounds that today comprises Hannabiell & Midnight Blue. 
“The power to unite humanity and make peace rests within art forms that break stereotypes and brings diverse communities together.”

The New York Standards Quartet features Tim Armacost (Billy Hart, Ray Drummond) on tenor sax, David Berkman (Tom Harrell, Cecil McBee, the Vanguard Orchestra) on piano, Gene Jackson (Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland) on drums, and guest bassist Michael Janisch (Shirley Horn, Quincy Jones, Joe Lovano), a United States native now living in London.

 

Although they worked together in different combinations for years in New York, the members of the New York Standards Quartet (NYSQ) formed as a band to tour Japan in 2006, and have been playing for enthusiastic audiences in Japan, the US and Europe ever since. They recently released their second CD, "Unstandard", on Challenge Records - which sold out on their 2011 Tour of Japan. Conceptually, the NYSQ strives to develop its own language by radically reinterpreting music from the standard jazz repertoire, pushing the boundaries of these well-known songs.

 “These artists clearly relish the opportunity to stretch out, with the knowledge that they are among highly accomplished peers . . . . showing how ‘the standards’ can serve as a foundation for exploration, not just as museum pieces.” —Louisville Music News

THIS AMAZING GROUP OF MUSICIANS Will be hosting a master class for Birmingham musicians.  Participation will be on a first come first served basis.  You can register by emailing us at: contact@nucenturyarts.co.uk.  The master class fee of £6.00 and £4.00 will include entrance to the evening performance.