Jazz | Trinity Laban

Introduction

A beating heart of the London scene, our Jazz Department has nurtured many of the UK’s finest emerging talent. Here you will forge your own path in London’s thriving music industry and beyond, by developing your technical rigour and immersing yourself in our community of global arts creators.

Jazz at Trinity Laban is holistic, enabling you to become the artist you want to be. Whilst we embrace and celebrate jazz traditions, the Jazz Department here is contemporary in outlook, balancing skill and individual artistry and ensuring a student-centred approach.

Hans Koller, Head of Jazz

Auditions

Our audition process is designed to help us find out about your performance or composition style, interests, and personality. We want to assess whether you have the potential to benefit from our approach, and we aim to provide a positive and friendly atmosphere, allowing you to enjoy yourself.

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Undergraduate Courses

Join our community of global arts collaborators and creators for your undergraduate study. From classical to jazz and popular music, our wide selection of courses seek to redefine musical and performing excellence.

BMus (Hons) Music / Performance / Composition / Jazz

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BMus (Hons) Jazz

Postgraduate Courses

Lead the arts beyond convention with our postgraduate music courses, with pioneering master’s and diplomas allowing you to challenge musical convention and direct the spotlight.

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Graduate Diploma

Collaboration is fundamental to the process of creating jazz, and therefore fundamental to your training at Trinity Laban. In addition to your one-to-one tuition, you will develop your musicianship and professional relationships through regular performance opportunities with ensembles ranging from small bands to our Big Band and Jazz Orchestra. Our ensembles are led by some of the UK jazz scene’s best, including Winston Rollins, Mark Lockhart and Laura Jurd. Learning from these esteemed musicians, you will leave your training here well prepared for the demands of the industry.

Situated in a city buzzing with jazz venues, your performance opportunities will extend well beyond those at your fingertips here at Trinity Laban. Oliver’s Jazz Club is on our doorstep in Greenwich, and we have relationships with major festivals and venues across the city: London Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott’s, Southbank Centre, Pizza Express on Dean Street, and the Vortex, to name a few.

A thorough understanding of your art-form is essential to support your playing/singing. Your instrumental/vocal studies will be supplemented with group classes focusing on jazz harmony, rhythm, history, arranging and composition, and coaching rhythm and horn sections. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to take a deeper dive into the origins of jazz, with classes in African, Brazilian, and Cuban music. We will encourage you to draw on a wealth of diverse influences and explore the things that capture your imagination, to help you shape your individual voice.

Also available to you will be a wide range of instruments and equipment on short- and long-term loans. This includes double basses, saxophones, and a range of brass instruments. There are also permanent drum kits, amps and pianos located in our jazz rooms, and drum kits, amps, PAs microphones and keyboards available to book out for personal practice and external gigs.

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Open Days

Discover your future in Music, Dance, and Musical Theatre at one of our upcoming open days.

We’ll show you how studying at Trinity Laban equips you with the tools to develop your career, build a network and become the artist you want to be.

We are hosting Open Days in the USA in January 2025, so come and meet us.

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Dr Hans Koller

Head of Jazz

Open bio details for Dr Hans Koller

Learn about Dr Hans Koller

Dr Hans Koller

Hans Koller was born into a musical family, his father was a jazz-loving Lutheran pastor, his mother a music teacher and his four sisters all played instruments.

Koller started playing in bands with saxophonist Stan Sulzmann and trumpeter Chris Batchelor and went on to form his own group, ‘Neverland’, with bass player Dave Whitford, saxophonist Rob Townsend and drummer Stuart Laurence. This group was augmented into a nine-piece outfit for Koller’s début album Magic Mountain (1997), which established him as one of the leading new jazz composers in the UK. Three years later he won the Joey Award for composers organised by Eastern Arts, and subsequently was awarded major commissions by Birmingham Jazz and by the Freden International Music Festival. In 2001 he released Lovers and Strangers, an album featuring his trio alongside the harpist Helen Tunstall, the singer Christine Tobin and the percussionist Corrina Sylvester.

Research interests and areas of supervision:

Composition and improvisation, specifically 12-tone improvisation and development and transformation of serialism and counterpoint for jazz composition and performance
George Russell’s Lydian-Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization
Thelonious Monk
Jazz histories and futures
Jazz pedagogy
Collaboration with dance

Biography

His next album, New Memories (2002), was hailed as “the most expansive, expressive and exciting new jazz orchestral sound to have emerged in this country since the late-lamented Loose Tubes” by John Fordham in The Guardian.

“An exuberant and remarkable talent, Koller’s music is full of surprises.” – Ian Carr – Rough Guide to Jazz, 3rd edition (2004).

Over the next decade Koller worked on refining his sound, writing for Steve Lacy (London Ear ), working in large group contexts with Evan Parker, and with Kenny Wheeler and Bob Brookmeyer, performing and recording with the NDR Bigband (Scenic Routes ), as well as playing piano in various groups led by Mike Gibbs (including a tour of England in 2007 alongside Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell and Adam Nussbaum).

Subsequently, Koller produced a number of significant outputs of his own music including performances with Phil Woods and the BBC Big Band, a project with Dave Liebman, writing for the WDR Big Band with Gerard Presencer, a project with the HR Big Band, and, in 2009, an album with Bill Frisell and Evan Parker (Cry, Want ). Koller had by then begun to focus on valve trombone, inspired by a 2006 study/stay at Bob Brookmeyer’s house, and started a fruitful small band partnership with drummer Jeff Williams, and bassist/trumpet player Percy Pursglove. He recorded quartet albums for Babel (Chasing the Unicorn), with Paris-based Canadian saxophonist François Théberge, for Evan Parker’s PSI label with the legendary German saxophonist Gerd Dudek (Day and Night), and in 2011 started forming a formidable creative partnership with NYC altoist John O’Gallagher. On their first meeting, Koller and O’Gallagher were memorably described by John Fordham in The Guardian as “two heavyweight theoreticians fizzing with jazz heat”, and the pair went on to work regularly, producing two BBC Radio 3 broadcasts, performances and recordings in both large ensemble and quartet contexts, and collaborating in a 2015 commission from Jazzlines to write for the renowned BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group).

Koller’s most ambitious work, his 2016 triple vinyl release Retrospection (on Stoney Lane Records), brought together over 30 of the world’s leading jazz musicians, including Steve Swallow, Jakob Bro, and the NDR Bigband.

Growing up in rural Bavaria, Koller first came into contact with jazz musicians in his teens while attending jazz summer schools run by Brian Abraham’s District Six in Ingolstadt. In 1991 he came to England, first to Middlesex University where he majored in composition, then at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) where he obtained a masters degree in Ethnomusicology.

Creative Practice:

Over the last 20 years Koller has created a substantial body of over 80 original compositions, recorded in fourteen critically acclaimed albums.  His works have been performed, interpreted and/or documented in collaboration with many of the leading lights of contemporary jazz such Bill Frisell, and Steve Swallow, with the pioneers of the early Avant-garde such as Steve Lacy, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Evan Parker, and with the genre-defining, ground-breaking composers/improvisers Bob Brookmeyer, and Kenny Wheeler. 

Chris Parker described Koller as “simply one of the UK’s most individual voices, both as a composer and pianist”. His début big band album New Memories from 2002 was hailed by John Fordham in the Guardian as “the most expansive, expressive and exciting new jazz orchestral sound to have emerged in this country since the late-lamented Loose Tubes” and his 2011 record with Bill Frisell was named an “instant classic” by John Eyles, giving it five stars. His recent triple vinyl release received five stars in Jazz Journal, as well as from Mike Gates (UK Vibe) who described the recordings as “an incredible achievement [which] have to be rated as one of the most important and musically rewarding releases of 2016.” Matt Miller, writing in New York City Jazz Record, described him as “an artist steeped in tradition but with a distinct voice of his own”, while Dave Gelly, writing in the Observer, went as far as saying that “like his piano playing, Koller’s writing for large ensemble is difficult to describe because it doesn’t sound remotely like anyone else’s.” Michael Tucker noted that his “approach to the interplay of the historical and the contemporary is as open-minded as it is creative”. Ian Carr, in his entry on Koller in the Rough Guide to Jazz (4th edition), remarked: “Koller is an exuberant talent, his music full of surprises”. And John Fordham, who has written on his work regularly since the early 2000s commented in 2016: “Koller solves the perpetual jazz conundrum of making music for the mind and the body […] with an intelligence and vivacity that brings him ever closer to the stature of George Russell, Gil Evans, Mike Gibbs, and that long procession of his famous elders”.

Conceptually, the body of work that Koller has created is important through the way in which it challenges prevailing, orthodox ideas about innovation and tradition in jazz. He has always looked at the history of jazz as a history of continuous renewal and re-invention. His rapport and collaborations with Steve Lacy (saxophonist with Thelonious Monk in 1960), with Dave Liebman (saxophonist with Miles Davis 1970-74), and with Bob Brookmeyer (trombonist with Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan 1954-1957) has helped positioning his works in the context of jazz history, yet he has always viewed tradition and innovation as two sides of the same coin, in much the same way as he approach composition and improvisation as essentially complementary. The development of jazz language is, in his mind, an on-going process, occurring cumulatively, i.e. innovations build on one another without the need to eschew previously valid ideas. Koller considers jazz as an attitude to music making, rather than a circumscribed style. In addition, intrinsic to jazz language is the idea of cross-genre. From its local beginnings to its global present jazz is essentially a musical fusion.  He continues to be inspired from within but at the same time he regards crucial work with musicians from outside jazz, and also to adopt and adapt methodologies, concepts, ideas and traditions from outside jazz – to illuminate the inside…   

Byron Wallen

Jazz Trumpet & Composition

Byron Wallen

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Byron Wallen

Byron Wallen (b. 1969) was raised in a musical family and as a child studied classical piano, euphonium, trumpet, flute, and drums. In the mid 1980’s the trumpet became Wallen’s primary instrument of choice. Wallen’s first major work, Tarot Suite (1994), was inspired by a love of mythology and symbolism, which reflected the archetypal journey of human life through an interdisciplinary pan-continental approach.

Biography

Wallen’s study of cognitive psychology has aided his transition towards conceptualising music as a medium for healing. Wallen raises awareness and invokes change by unlocking boundaries through the nature and science of sound. Widely recognised as a seminal figure in Jazz, Wallen is an acclaimed writer and producer whose original scores have been commissioned by the Science Museum; PRS, The BBC, Jerwood Foundation, Southbank Centre, National Theatre, Arts Council, FIFA and Sage Gateshead. He has also composed soundscapes for Universal Pictures, Warner Bros and Game of Thrones.

Wallen’s PRS commission (2017) Anthem for Woolwich forges new links between schools, venues, musicians and residents to strengthen the resilience and promote the cohesion of the community. His latest commission is a collaboration with Sheila Hill and Howard Skempton for Brighton Festival 2019 called Eye to Eye.

Wallen has received the BBC Jazz Innovation award (2003) and has been nominated several times for the MOBO award. In 2017 he was awarded the Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists.

Photograph credit: Urszula Tarasiewicz.
Chris Batchelor

Jazz Trumpet & Combos
Steve Waterman

Jazz Trumpet & Combos

Steve Waterman

Learn about Steve Waterman

Steve Waterman

Renowned as one of the top British jazz trumpet players both at home and on the international scene, Steve began his career while studying at Trinity College of Music, playing with the European Community Jazz Orchestra and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Since then, he has worked regularly on the British and European jazz scene with John Surman, Andy Sheppard, Tony Coe, Carla Bley, Don Weller and many others.
Tom Walsh

Jazz Trumpet

Tom Walsh

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Tom Walsh

Tom Walsh, b. 1991, graduated from the Royal Academy of Music’s Jazz Course in 2013, and since then has gone on to work with artists such as Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau & Randy Brecker. Tom has played with some of the premier large ensembles and orchestras in Europe, including WDR Big Band, BBC Big Band, Philharmonia Orchestra and the English National Ballet Orchestra. Alongside his role of Professor of Trumpet at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Trinity College of Music, he is an active session musician and arranger, having recorded on over 1000 tracks from his home studio.
Malcolm Earle Smith

Jazz Trombone, Vocals, Combos & Ensembles

Malcolm Earle Smith

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Malcolm Earle Smith

Malcolm is a highly regarded educator with 30 years of experience working in primary and secondary schools, adult education, summer schools and higher education. He has been Lecturer in Jazz at Trinity Laban since 2005. As a teacher, Malcolm has been involved in primary, secondary and adult sectors as well as with all the major music colleges. He also teaches for the University of Glamorgan and Wavendon Jazz Summer Schools, and runs workshops for the Associated Board.

Biography

Malcolm’s love of many different styles of jazz has made him a versatile performer as well as a distinctive voice on the UK Jazz scene. In 1989, after studying at Exeter University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he joined the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, occupying the lead trombone chair for two years. He has since performed with a variety of artists including Kenny Baker, John Dankworth, Henry Lowther, Martin Speake and Liam Noble. His debut album Lyric Trombone (1996) received wide acclaim – including encouraging words from American trombonist Jimmy Knepper, one of Malcolm’s major influences. He has also worked with soul artists Ronnie Spector and Martha Reeves and has twice toured with Bryan Ferry, featuring on two of his albums As Time Goes By, and The Jazz Age. More recently, Malcolm has performed widely with the acclaimed Basin Street Brawlers and Three Way Stretch, a trio which also features Liam Noble and Dave Wickins, and draws on a wide range of jazz styles to achieve it’s unique sound. Their album I’ll be Seeing You (2020) is dedicated to the memory of the late Dave Wickins.

As a vocalist, Malcolm has developed a distinctive swinging style and an exciting approach to scat singing. Things are Looking Up by VoxCity5 (2007), features Malcolm’s original arrangements for two voices and rhythm section. The line-up includes fellow vocalist, Nia Lynn and pianist Barry Green. His next release (due out Autumn 2020), features Malcolm’s vocals backed by a quartet, all of whom are graduates of the Trinity Laban Jazz Course and now well known names on the UK jazz scene: Leo Richardson (saxophones), Chris Eldred (piano), Conor Chaplin (bass) and Douglas Marinner (drums).
Trevor Mires

Jazz Trombone

Trevor Mires

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Trevor Mires

Trevor Mires has been at the forefront of the London music scene for the last fourteen years.

His performing credits are wide ranging. He has performed with, among others, George Benson, recorded and toured with multi-instrumentalist James Morrison, toured with Sam Rivers Big Band, Michel Le Grand, and recorded with Pat Metheny, Toots Theilmans and David Sanborn.

Trevor was a member of jazz funk band Jamiroquai, and Incognito, recording and touring with both for a number of years. Maintaining a healthy balance between commercial and more creative projects, recording in studios for TV and film, Trevor is currently Trombonist/arranger for Sir Tom Jones, and recently toured with Randy Brecker’s European Big Band, as well as recording with Radiohead, and performing with the likes of Alicia Keys, Beyonce, and recording and performing with Mark Ronson.

Recent work has included playing lead trombone with the Buddy Rich Big Band featuring Dave Weckel, recording for Kasabian, James, Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison.
Mick Foster

Jazz Saxophone & Combos

Mick Foster

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Mick Foster

Mick Foster is a saxophonist, woodwind player and composer who is known as one of the UK’s foremost exponents of the baritone saxophone. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and has since worked extensively in the fields of jazz, commercial and classical music. He has played with many ensembles such as the big bands of John Dankworth, Stan Sulzmann and Mike Garrick, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Swing Out Sister, The Syd Lawrence Orchestra, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, English National Opera and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Mick is active as an educator; he currently teaches at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Trinity Laban and Goldsmiths College; he is also a tutor for the National Youth Jazz Collective.

Biography

Mick has recently been recording and touring with Alan Barnes + 11 and Jim Rattigan’s ensemble Pavillon, and is currently a member of The Humphrey Lyttelton Band, the Back to Basie Orchestra and the London Jazz Orchestra. Other notable jazz musicians that Mick has worked with include Dame Cleo Laine, Jacqui Dankworth, Trudy Kerr, Mark Lockheart, Guy Barker, Laura Jurd and Digby Fairweather. Mick has recorded three albums under his own name and is in demand as a session musician, having played for many film and TV soundtracks including Prometheus, Vice and Downton Abbey.

As a composer Mick has written for various ensembles which include the London Jazz Orchestra, Quartz Saxophone Quartet, Docklands Sinfonia and Onyx Brass as well as his own jazz groups. His music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and he has pieces published by Saxtet Publications; some are included on both the ABRSM and Trinity College exams syllabuses.
Julian Siegel

Jazz Saxophone & Combos

Julian Siegel

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Julian Siegel

Julian Siegel is an in-demand saxophonist on the European Jazzscene. In 2007 he was awarded the BBC Jazz Award for Best Instrumentalist. His current bands are the Julian Siegel Quartet featuring pianist Liam Noble, the Julian Siegel Trio with US Improvising stars Drummer Joey Baron and Bassist Greg Cohen and the influential band Partisans, co-led for the last 14 years with guitarist Phil Robson. Julian has played in large ensembles led by Andrew Hill, Mike Gibbs alongside Bill Frisell, Steve Swallow and Adam Nussbaum, the Hermeto Pascoal UK Big Band, Django Bates Delightful Precipice, John Taylor, Jazz Jamaica, Kenny Wheeler, Colin Towns with the NDR big band, Hans Koller New Memories Band with Steve Lacy and with Jason Yarde’s ‘Acoutastic Bombastic’.

Biography

In smaller groups he has played with Gary Husband’s ‘Drive’, Django Bates’ Human Chain, NYC performance artist/violinist Laurie Anderson and pianist/singer-songwriter Steve Nieve, The Smith Quartet, Kirk Lightsey, Norma Winstone, Jason Palmer’s Quartet featuring Jeff Ballard. He is a member of Oren Marshall’s ‘Charming Transport Band’ featuring musicians from Ghana and Nigeria. Julian has also performed with vocalists Cleo Laine, Beverley Knight, Joe Lee Wilson, Liane Carroll, Eddi Reader, Charlene Spiteri, Jacqueline Dankworth, Lizz Wright, Juliet Roberts, Keziah Jones, Terri Walker, Christine Tobin and punk rock legend Steve Ignorant (formerly of Crass).
Jean Toussaint

Jazz Saxophone

Jean Toussaint

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Jean Toussaint

Originally from St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, saxophonist Jean Toussaint left Berklee College of Music, Boston in 1982 to join Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. It was the beginning of an inspired four and half years spent with musicians including Terence Blanchard, Mulgner Miller and others. While in New York, Jean also worked with Gil Evans, McCoy Tyner and Wynton Marsalis. In 1987 he left Blakey to come to England for a few months. He stayed. Jean has since toured with many visiting American bands including Max Roach, Cedar Walton and David Murray as well as with his own bands. The Jean Toussaint Trio, Quartet and Quintet play swinging, surging straight-ahead contemporary jazz with a strong emphasis on melody. Nazaire, his electrocute band, plays a blend of jazz funk and club music.
Dominic Ashworth

Jazz Guitar

Dominic Ashworth

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Dominic Ashworth

Dominic Ashworth studied guitar at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is an active freelance player who has worked with Carol Kidd, Jacqui Dankworth, Dave Cliff and Janette Mason. Dominic is also a composer, and has written and recorded many original works for radio and television and performs with orginal guitar trio Digtal Moves. He performs in London with groups such as Julian Stringle’s Pathfinder, the Mick Foster Group, Digby Fairweather’s Half Dozen and Michael Garrick’s Big Band & Quartet.
Mike Outram

Jazz Electric Guitar
Phil Robson

Jazz Guitar

Phil Robson

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Phil Robson

Phil Robson is a guitarist/composer based in London, UK. He is internationally regarded as a highly versatile and creative player who appears in all kinds of diverse settings. Born in Derby in 1970 Phil had already enjoyed music from the age of 14 onwards and rapidly became part of the house rhythm section in the local club with such visiting musicians as John Etheridge and Bheki Mseleku as well as with his clarinettist father, Trevor Robson. As band leader, Phil has received commissions for his octet from Birmingham Jazz and Derby Jazz. Phil co-leads Partisans with Julian Siegel (sax, bass clarinet) featuring Gene Calderazzo – drums and Thad Kelly – bass. Partisans was formed around gigs in London’s Vortex jazz club in 1996 and are considered one of the most important bands in the new jazz scene in Europe. They have recorded 3 CDs including the second Sourpuss on Babel with the bands latest , Max nominated for the album of the year in the 2006 BBC Jazz awards and for Best Ensemble in the 2008 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. Phil is also a member of the Liam Noble quartet with pianist Liam, drummer Tom Rainey, bassist Drew Gress. Alec Dankworth Trio with Alec – bass, Julian Arguelles – sax; Gerard Presencer Quartet and the BBC Big Band.
Hannes Riepler

Jazz Guitar

Hannes Riepler

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Hannes Riepler

Since arriving in London (via studies in Amsterdam) in 2006 Austrian-born guitarist Hannes Riepler has become an integral part of the London jazz scene. Passionate about forging new musical friendships and creating performing opportunities he established the Vortex Downstairs Jazz Night held every Sunday at the renowned Vortex Jazz Club. This weekly gig has attracted international attention not only for the incredibly high standard of music making but also as the place to “hang” for jazz musicians not just from London but any jazz musician passing through the capitol. One of these nights featured a set including New York saxophonist Chris Cheek and London based drummer James Maddren with bassist Oli Hayhust sitting-in. The energy and chemistry between the four musicians was so natural it led to a European tour (2015) and Riepler’s second album as a leader ‘Wild Life’ on the UK label Jellymould Jazz (2016). His first album ‘The Brave’ has earned international acclaim.

Biography

Riepler is also known for his work with French saxophone star Julien Lourau (Electric Biddle) and since late 2015 member of US-drummer Jeff Williams’ band. He holds teaching positions at Trinity Laban and Middlesex University (London).

Riepler’s writing and playing are refreshingly cliché free and “The Brave” represents a highly promising début . The Jazz Mann

“… music making and improvisation at the highest level” Jürgen Spiess, Reutlinger Nachrichten

“London continues to be a magnet for foreign jazz musicians, and one of the best is Austrian guitarist Hannes Riepler” The Daily Telegraph
Orlando le Fleming

Jazz Bass

Orlando le Fleming

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Orlando le Fleming

World renowned bassist Orlando le Fleming was born in Birmingham but spent most of his early childhood living in Exeter, Devon. Both of his parents are professional musicians; his mother a cellist and his father a composer. His first ambition was to become a professional cricketer, an aim that was realized when he played for five years in the minor counties.

Biography

After receiving a place at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Orlando decided to give up cricket and pursue his love of music. While based in London, he quickly established himself as one of the UK’s most prominent bass players touring and recording with Jason Rebello, Julian Joseph, Iain Ballamy, Tommy Smith, Jean Toussaint, and Guy Barker to name a few.

Orlando moved to the United States in 2003 and became one of the most in demand bass players on the New York jazz scene, playing and recording with Ari Hoenig, Branford Marsalis, Jimmy Cobb, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Seamus Blake, David Sanchez, Joey Calderazzo, Antonio Sanchez, Wayne Krantz, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Leslie Odom Jr.

Orlando has also released numerous albums as a leader, including the critically acclaimed OWL trio (with long-time associates Will Vinson and Lage Lund) and Romantic Funk, a pastiche of classic fusion sounds inspired by the band Weather Report.

More recently Orlando is working on a co-led trio with Mark Turner and Jeff “Tain” Watts.
Calum Gourlay

Jazz Bass

Calum Gourlay

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Calum Gourlay

Calum Gourlay was born in Glasgow and grew up playing in Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra, The National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland and Tommy Smith’s Youth Jazz Orchestra, in which he was the very first bassist selected from across Scotland at the age of 16.

In 2004 he was the only bassist enrolled that year for the BMus Jazz course at The Royal Academy of Music. He graduated with first class honours in 2008.

He has since gone on to establish two residencies at the Vortex Jazz Club, London – Thelonious from 2015 to 2017 presenting the entire catalogue of Thelonious Monk with Martin Speake and Hans Koller; and a monthly big band residency playing his own music starting in February 2017.

Biography

As a sideman, he has performed with many leading jazz musicians from across the UK, and the world. Gourlay has held the acoustic bass chair with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Tommy Smith, since 2006. He has also featured prominently with Tommy Smith’s own quartet.

Since 2018 Calum has been a professor of Jazz Bass at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance. He has also taught one to one at the Royal Academy of Music and presented his own big band music with The Guildhall Big Band.

His debut album ‘Live at The Ridgeway’ (2015) received rave reviews from the UK jazz press, not least because of its confident format – a solo, live recording in front of an intimate audience.

In 2019 Calum released his first quartet album ‘New Ears’ on Ubuntu records. In 2020 the album was nominated for both a Scottish Jazz Award and an Ivor Novello Composer Award.
Steve Watts

Jazz Bass, Combos & Rhythm Coach

Steve Watts

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Steve Watts

Steve Watts has been playing jazz on the British scene for over 25 years, during which time he has worked with many musicians of international stature, incuding: Django Bates, Iain Ballamy, Julian Arguelles, Kenny Wheeler, Stan Sulzman, Jim Mullen, Joe Lovano, Kirk Lightsey, Richard Rodney Bennett and many more. He is a member of the influential Loose Tubes jazz orchestra and “The Printmakers “- a band featuring Norma Winstone, Nikki Iles and Mike Walker. He has made numerous broadcasts for radio and television and has recorded widely. Live work has taken him all over the world and his playing can be heard on the soundtracks of many films.

He is a committed educator and currently teaches at Trinity Laban and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He has previously taught at the Royal Academy of Music and for the National Youth Jazz Collective as well as teaching and leading workshops in schools across the country.
Omar Puente

Jazz Violin

Omar Puente

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Omar Puente

Born in Santiago de Cuba, Omar learned his love of violin from his father. As a student at Esteban Salas, Santiago’s finest music school, Omar studied classical music under world renowned professors. At the age of 12, Omar left his family to travel alone to Havana and take up his place at the Escuela Nacional de Arte. The next six years were spent studying classical music by day under Russian and Cuban masters, and Cuban music by night in Havana’s famous music Halls. After graduating from the Instituto Superior de Arte (Cuba’s university for the performing arts), Omar joined the José María Vitier band and toured Cuba, Mexico, and finished up at the New York Jazz Festival. He joined the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba (NSOC) where he progressed to first chair. During this time he continued to play with other bands and made an operatic tour of Italy, played at Club Tropicana, made tours of Europe with Rubén González and Latin America with Guillermo Rubalcaba. He also began to develop a recording career, working with the likes of Orquesta Revé, Charanga Habanera, Pablo Milanés, Leo Brouwer and Silvio Rodríguez.

Biography

Since arriving in England in 1997, Omar has maintained an international profile, playing all over Europe, the USA and Africa, playing with such musicians as Tito Puente, Kirsty MacColl, Jools Holland and Courtney Pine. Omar has appeared on the BBC and several ITV channels, various radio shows as well as at venues the length and breadth of Britain: from Aberdeen to the Isle of Wight, Newcastle to the Eden Project, Belfast to Cork including Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, The Jazz Cafe, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Royal Festival Hall.

Omar teaches jazz violin at Leeds College of Music, Cuban music at various places including LCM, and Trinity College of Music, London. He continues to teach in Havana, and maintains a close relationship with the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
Lauren Kinsella

Jazz Voice

Lauren Kinsella

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Lauren Kinsella

Lauren Kinsella performs in a range of diverse projects as a band leader, side-woman and collaborator. Using her voice as an instrument, her work encompasses composition and improvisation across several genres including jazz, alternative folk, experimental and contemporary classical music. Awarded UK vocalist of the year (Jazz FM 2016), she has received many accolades to date including the Arts Foundation Fellowship in jazz composition (2017), THSH Jazzlines Fellowship (2015) and the Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize (2013). Kinsella’s performances and music are reviewed worldwide and she regularly features on radio stations including BBC Radio 3 and Radio 6 and RTÉ Lyric FM. To date, she has released several critically acclaimed albums on Edition Records, WideEarRecords, Diatribe and Two Rivers Records.
Brigitte Beraha

Jazz Voice

Brigitte Beraha

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Brigitte Beraha

Brigitte Beraha, improvising vocalist and composer, is one of the leading talents on the UK jazz scene. Embracing a wide variety of influences and genres, Beraha’s sound is free and spontaneous with an emphasis on exploration, expression and fearlessly testing the limits of the voice as instrument. Alongside original contemporary jazz and the core jazz and latin repertoires, she is increasingly involved in exciting cross-genre projects, such as the recreation of Basil Kirchin’s music as part of Hull City of Culture 2017 or Raising Hell with Henry Purcell led by Ethan Iverson at Kings Place in 2018.

Beraha has recorded a number of critically acclaimed albums, both as leader and as part of collaborative projects such as Babelfish, Solstice and Red Skies Trio. The latest under her name, Lucid Dreamers, introduced a new electronic dimension to her work proving once more the agility, adventurous spirit and limitless imagination that have marked her out as a truly exciting and versatile artist with a huge range of experience and creative scope.

‘One of the most adventurous vocalists around, a musical explorer…’ The Jazzmann

‘Brigitte is someone who concentrates on the music’s core values: imagination, individuality, improvisation.’ Jazz Review
‘Possessed of Norma Winstone-like subtlety and precision.’ The Guardian

‘Beraha scats with a daydreaming quality that is both engaging and never distracting.’ John Fordham
Cleveland Watkiss

Jazz Voice

Cleveland Watkiss

Learn about Cleveland Watkiss

Cleveland Watkiss

Cleveland was born in Hackney, East London to a Jamaican family. At age 16, he won twice in a local singing talent competition, hosted by “FatMan” of FatMan Sound System (North East London Based Roots, Reggae & Dub Sound System). Later he studied music at the London School of Singing and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama thereafter. He was taught by the most respected coaches in the industry.

He has worked closely and performed together with the diverse range of artists across the world, including Stevie Wonder, The Who, Richard Spaven Trio, Louis Moholo, Bobby McFerrin, Goldie, Björk, Talvin Singh, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Abdullah Ibrahim, Shabaka And The Ancestors, Nigel Kennedy, George Martin, Black Top, William Parker & Hamid Drake, Branford & Wynton Marsalis +JALC, London Community Gospel Choir, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra and many others.

Biography

He’s an original founder member of the Jazz Warriors, and now Co-Director of Warriors International. Most recently, for his services to music Cleveland has been appointed an MBE.

He has also received multiple prestigious awards and nominations, including Jazz Vocalist of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2017 (Winner), Best Jazz Act at the MOBO Awards 2017 (Nominee), Best Vocalist at the London Jazz Awards 2010 (Winner), and Best Vocalist at the Guardian Jazz Awards (Winner) for three consecutive years.
Andrea Vicary

Jazz Piano

Andrea Vicary

Learn about Andrea Vicary

Andrea Vicary

Pianist and composer Andrea Vicari was born in Miami (Florida) and grew up in Birmingham (England). Educated at Cardiff University (Bmus(Hons) PGCE) she won a scholarship to study at The Guildhall School of Music in London. Andrea has to date eight albums in her own name and two musicals; and has contributed to others such as ‘Round Trip’ and “East and West’ with Jazz Extempore plus ‘The Vortex Foundation Big Band’; Claude Deppa and Trudy Kerr. She played a successful season at London’s ‘Bass Clef’ club with the late US sax innovator, Eddie Harris and gigged with US trumpet legend Art Farmer.

Biography

As well as her own band Andrea often tours with ‘Jazz Extempore’ a European quartet which combines the jazz idiom with the folk influences of Eastern Europe. Recent tours have included performances in Italy, Croatia, Bosnia- Herzogovina and Bulgaria. Andrea performed in China at the prestigious 3rd Maritime Silk Road Art Festival 2017 with Croatian guitar virtuoso Elvis Stanic – the only UK musician to perform at the festival.

A prolific composer, she has been commissioned by the Arts Council, the BBC, Jazz Umbrella, the Peter Whittingham Trust, Teignmouth Jazz Festival and completed a setting of the poetry of A.E Housman for the Ludlow festival, released on the CD New Perspectives. Other projects include The Leasowes Bank festival; ‘Women in Jazz project’ held at the ‘Hideaway Jazz Club’ during the London Jazz Festival; Scoring the Chet Baker “Speedball” musical and co-composing a new musical “The Austerity Playbook” plus and a funded residency at Lyth Arts Centre, Wick, Scotland. The BBC recently recorded Andrea for a live album with South African trumpet virtuoso Claude Deppa at the Ipswich Jazz Festival.

Andrea is also a well known and respected jazz educator holding a senior lecturer post and professorship at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of music and dance (jazz). She is musical director and founder of the highly successful ‘Dordogne International Jazz Summer School’ and was a judge on the ‘Nottingham International jazz piano competition’ and the University of South Africa International Piano competition in Pretoria. Andrea is currently part of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra Ambassadors jazz education project presenting workshops in schools nationwide. She instigated a Young Women’s jazz education taster day at Trinity following research project and feature article in Music Teacher magazine. Andrea has taught jazz and jazz piano at Pimlico Academy for twenty eight years – formerly the prestigious Pimlico Special Music Course – alumni including Antonio Pappanno (Royal Opera House), Django Bates, Andrew McCormack, Artie Zeitz, David Okumu etc. Andrea has published “A-Rhythm-A-Tik” a compendium of multi-level original jazz pieces for adult learners and teenagers; accompanied by a series of online video lessons.

Andrea Vicari presents a weekly show on JazzLondonRadio.com called “JazzDoodles” where she has interviewed many legends of jazz such as John Taylor; Peter Erskine; Hiromi; JohnAbercrombie; Omar Puente; Bill Stewart; Jonathan Kreisberg; Marc Copland; Antonio Serrano etc.
Liam Noble

Jazz Piano

Liam Noble

Learn about Liam Noble

Liam Noble

After studying music at Oxford University, and jazz at the Guildhall in London, Liam Noble started to build a reputation of note playing with Stan Sulzmann, Anita Wardell, John Stevens and Harry Beckett. His first CD, a solo entitled “Close Your Eyes” was released in 1994, and contained a mix of standards, originals and improvisations. This mixture of approaches has characterized his music ever since.

Biography

In 1997 he joined the Bobby Wellins Quartet, the rhythm section of which continues today as the Liam Noble Trio, recently documented on the 2009 CD “BRUBECK”, gaining an almost unprecedented 5 star review in The Guardian.

In 2001, “In The Meantime”, released on Basho Records, explored longer compositional forms and unorthodox improvisational structures, and April 2002 saw a commission from Birmingham Jazz resulting in a song cycle based on Japanese Death Poetry. Noble plays keyboards and samples throughout, marking a new foray into electronica inspired by artists such as Aphex Twin and Arto Lindsay.

In 2004, following a Cheltenham Festival gig the previous year, Liam recorded the acclaimed “Romance Among The Fishes” on Basho Records with guitarist Phil Robson and the New York rhythm section of Drew Gress and Tom Rainey on bass and drums respectively.

Liam’s working relationship has continued with Tom Rainey in the free improv trio, “Sleepthief” with Ingrid Laubrock, with an album released in September 2008, and a second, “The Madness Of Crowds” in 2011. Other frequent collaborators have included Christine Tobin, Paul Clarvis and Julian Siegel. His growing reputation as a free improviser has also resulted in recent performances with Mary Halverson, Marc Ducret, Mat Maneri, Evan Parker, Okkyung Lee and Peter Evans.

In June 2011 he was featured on a recording by Zhenya Strigalev with Larry Grenadier, Tim LeFebvre and Eric Harland. “Brother Face”, an expanded version of his trio with Chris Batchelor and Shabaka Hutchings, looks to expand short form composition into longer arcs. As a kind of summation of the diverse areas in which he works combined with a compositional eye for structure, this new group was highly praised at its premiere performance at the Cheltenham Jazz festival in 2012.

A solo CD, “A Room Somewhere”, released in 2015 on Basho Records, features an eclectic mix of improvisations, as well as versions of music by, amongst others, Edward Elgar, Joe Zawinul, Gillian Welch, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Liam has also played duo gigs with Dave Liebman and Tim Berne, two highly contrasting giants of jazz who exemplify the chameleon-like tendencies of his collaborations.

Liam holds posts as Lecturer in Jazz at Birmingham Conservatoire and  Trinity Laban. He has published 4 volumes of transcriptions of the Bill Evans Trio, and a book of original compositions “Jazz Piano; An In Depth Look at the Styles of the Masters”, both published by Hal Leonard.
Kit Downes

Jazz Piano

Kit Downes

Learn about Kit Downes

Kit Downes

Kit Downes is a BBC Jazz Award winning, Mercury Music Award nominated, solo recording artist for ECM Records. He has toured the world playing piano, church organ and harmonium with his own bands (‘ENEMY’, ‘Troyka’ and ‘Elt’) as well as with artists such as Squarepusher, ‘Empirical’, Benny Greb and Sam Amidon. He has written commissions for Cheltenham Music Festival, London Contemporary Orchestra, Ensemble Klang at ReWire Festival, the Scottish Ensemble, Cologne Philharmonie and the Wellcome Trust.

Biography

Kit performs solo pipe organ and solo piano concerts – and also plays in collaborations with saxophonist Tom Challenger, cellist Lucy Railton, composer Shiva Feshareki and with the band ‘ENEMY’. He is also currently working with violinist Aidan O’Rourke, composer Max de Wardener and in an organ trio with Reinier Baas and Jonas Burgwinkel. He also teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he himself studied and now holds a Fellowship.

“An exceptional soloist” – Wormser Zeitung
“It testifies to his world-class stature” – The Guardian
“One of the finest pianists of his generation” – Jazzwise
“Considerable chops and flowing imagination” – Downbeat
Dr Bruno Heinen

Jazz Piano & Composition

Dr Bruno Heinen
Learn about Dr Bruno Heinen
Dr Bruno Heinen

Described by the Guardian as “eclectic, eccentric, and unobtrusively erudite”, Bruno Heinen is a London-based contemporary improvising pianist, composer and educator.

Research interests and areas of supervision:

Using twentieth century classical works as a springboard for new improvised jazz composition

Improvised counterpoint: counterpoint as a route to the surprising

Biography

Bruno is a frequent host of the Ronnie Scott’s Late Late show, and has performed in venues and festivals including Southbank Centre, the Shanghai World Music Festival, the London Jazz Festival, Malta International Arts Festival, the Rest Is Noise Festival, Cadogan Hall, and the Royal Albert Hall. He has had his music played on BBC Radio 3, Jazz LineUp, Late Junction, BBC6 Music, BBC Scotland, in Austria, Canada, and the USA, as well as giving live broadcasts and interviews for the BBC and Rai 3 Italy.

He was taught by the late John Taylor and Pete Saberton, and has just been awarded an AHRC-funded practice-based PhD from the Royal Northern College of Music with the title ‘Counterpoint in jazz piano with specific relation to the solo work of Fred Hersch‘. As part of his research, he received funding to travel to New York City to interview and work with Hersch in 2016.

As a composer, Bruno has written for groups ranging from sextet to two pianos and percussion (for a project with Pete Saberton), and from big band to classical string ensemble (for a commission in 2017 from the Camerata Alma Viva). In 2009, Bruno was nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Composers Award.

He recently held the piano chair for two performances of Bernstein’s Wonderful Town at the Barbican Centre with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Bruno has a longstanding musical partnership with the outstanding Palestinian singer, composer and broadcaster Reem Kelani.
Dr Tom Challenger

Jazz Composition

Dr Tom Challenger
Learn about Dr Tom Challenger
Dr Tom Challenger

Research interests and areas of supervision:

Jazz performance

Composition

Jazz theory

Improvisation
Asaf Sirkis

Jazz Drumkit

Asaf Sirkis

Learn about Asaf Sirkis

Asaf Sirkis

Born in Israel, Asaf started his professional career as a drummer in the late 80’s and played with some of Israel’s Jazz luminaries such at Harold Rubin and Alber Beger.

Biography

A few years after the recording of his first solo album ‘One Step Closer’ Asaf relocated to the Netherlands, France and finally settled in London around 1999 where he soon became one of the most active Jazz drummers around. During that time Asaf became a founder member of Gilad Atzmon’s ‘Orient House’ Ensemble and started his long time collaboration with renown saxophonist Tim Garland and pianist Gwilym Simcock. Asaf has been leading his own bands and projects such as ‘Asaf Sirkis & the Inner Noise’ – a band of an unusual line up of church organ, guitar anddrum as well as the Asaf Sirkis Trio. He has been extensively playing worldwide and has recorded over 100 albums as a sideman and as a leader. Asaf have been playing with many other renown jazz and world artists such as: Dave Holland, Jacob Collier, Tim Garland, Gwilym Simcock, Larry Coryell, Jeff Berlin, John Abercrombie, Bob Sheppard, Norman Watt-Roy (off the Blockheads), Wilco Johnson, Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt, Natacha Atlas, Dave Liebman, David Binney, Gary Husband, pianist John Taylor, Norma Winstone, Kenny Wheeler, Andy Sheppard and many more.

“Since arriving in London from Israel at the end of the end of the ‘90s, Asaf Sirkis has earned a reputation as one of the world’s premier drummers”

— Ian Patterson, All About Jazz
Gene Calderazzo

Jazz Drumkit

Gene Calderazzo

Learn about Gene Calderazzo

Gene Calderazzo

New York drummer Gene has established international jazz career.

Notable performances include working with Sting, Radiohead, James Moody, Phil Woods, Benny Golson, Ulf Wakenius, Gary Husband, Wayne Krantz, Bobby Watson, Eddie Gomez, Evan Parker, Randy Brecker and brother Joey Calderazzo, Bheki Mseleku, Hans Koller, Crass Collective, Phil Robsons’ Six Strings and the beast among others. He has recently toured with Partisans, Zoe Rahman, and the Julian Siegel quartet.

Gene is also a visiting tutor at The Royal Academy of Music and The Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Pat Davey

Rhythm Tutor
Barak Schmool

Contemporary Rhythm Tutor

Barak Schmool

Learn about Barak Schmool

Barak Schmool

Barak Schmool studied saxophone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. At the age of 20, illness prevented Barak from practising saxophone for six months which led to his picking up percussion, eventually specialising in West African drumming and Latin percussion. Since then Barak has worked with Artists such as Bosco De Oliveira, Nana Tsiboe, Robert Mitchell and Hilaire Penda, as well as a long association with Django Bates’ Big Band, Delightful Precipice.

Biography

Barak has also founded a number of different projects, each with unique stylistic and world influences. These include the Afro-rhythmic groupTimeline, the Cuban batá-fusion of Méta Méta, and the integrated dance performance of Synergy and Roots of Unity. Barak is also the founder of F-IRE (Fellowship for Integrated Rhythmic Expression); part record label and part educational initiative, encompassing a wide variety of genres within and beyond the scope of jazz. F-IRE was awarded the 2004 BBC Jazz Award for Innovation, and all of the musicians nominated in the ‘Rising Stars’ category were members of F-IRE.

Barak is also a regular teacher at the Royal Academy of Music and City University.

Qualifications and Educational Background

MA, GRSM, LRAM, ARAM
Gareth Lockrane

Visiting Artist in Jazz Combos

Gareth Lockrane

Learn about Gareth Lockrane

Gareth Lockrane

Gareth Lockrane started playing at the age of 10 and after raiding his dad’s record collection discovered jazz at 14. Early influences included Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Bill Evans and Stan Getz on the jazz side whilst also being transfixed by the great blues-rock guitarists of the 60s and 70s as a child – Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy continue to be major influences. On flute the initial main inspirations were saxophone “doublers” like Frank Wess, James Clay, Roland Kirk, Bobby Jaspar and James Moody and later on he fell under the spell of flute visionaries like Jeremy Steig, Eric Dolphy, Hubert Laws, Paul Horn and Eddie Parker amongst many others.

Biography

In 2002, he formed the band Grooveyard with saxophonist Alex Garnett which released a critically acclaimed CD “PUT THE CAT OUT” which went on to win the Best European Jazz Group award in the 2003 Granada Jazz Festival. Grooveyard completed a successful Jazz Services tour of the UK in 2005. Their 2012 album “THE STRUT” is the ‘sequel’ to PUT THE CAT OUT and has been released on the fabulous independent jazz label Whirlwind Recordings, “THE STRUT” was named Jazz Album of the Year” in MOJO magazine!

He also founded his own septet which released the album “NO MESSIN” in 2009 and went on to win best album in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards that year. This band features Robbie Robson (trumpet), Steve Kaldestad (sax), Trevor Mires (trombone/euphonium), Robin Aspland – (piano) Matt Miles (bass) and Matt Home (drums).

He has formed his own big band, a fruition of all Gareth’s musical interests – combining his cinematic influences of greats such as Jerry Fielding, Lalo Schifrin and Bernard Herrmann with the soul jazz and unrestrained improvisatory nature of Grooveyard and the intricate through-composed nature of his septet writing. Making their debut in the 2008 London Jazz Festival and influenced by, amongst others, Gil Evans, Maria Schneider, Kenny Wheeler, Jim McNeely, Thad Jones, Basie, Mingus and many more,the band blends heavy grooves and luscious orchestrations to spectacular effect. The band play almost exclusively Gareth’s compositions and arrangements. Watch this space for an album of this band some time in the near future!