If you haven’t yet bought your tickets for Wynton Marsalis and his 13-piece Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra concert in Symphony Hall, there’s not a lot of time left. The gig is this coming Tuesday.
These players have become regular visitors to Birmingham and pick up more fans on each occasion. This time round they are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the most iconic record label in jazz: Blue Note.
The roster of Blue Note players is like a history of jazz in the second half of the 20th century, and includes Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Art Blakey, Horace Silver and McCoy Tyner. The Lincoln Center band is the US’s national jazz orchestra in all but name and the flag-bearers for the nation’s jazz history. The vast repertoire that Blue Note recordings represent is sure to provide them with all they need to get Symphony Hall swinging hard.
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The band starts playing at 7.30pm on Tuesday, June 24, and tickets start at £19.50. There is more at
They are so often the drums and bass team in Birmingham jazz gigs, you could call Jonathan Silk and Nick Jurd our very own Sly and Robbie. They step forward tomorrow (Friday) as co-leaders for a gig at The Red Lion.
Joining them will be Sam Wooster on trumpet and Nadim Teimoori on tenor saxophone. You can expect some fine new tunes from both Jonathan and Nick, and a hard grooving rhythm team fronted by two strong soloists.
This is one of Birmingham Jazz’s club nights so members get in free, the rest pay £5. It starts at 7.45pm and there is more at
Before them on Friday the Professor of Jazz Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Pete Churchill, takes to the M40 for a Symphony Hall cafe bar Jazzlines Free session with the company of double bassist Steve Berry and drummer Eryl Roberts.
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Expect some, er, good compositions! It starts at 5pm, and entry is free. More at
The jazz space at The Spotted Dog is not huge, but it gets stretched on occasion and one such is Tuesday when bassist Tom Bunting brings in his Dectet.
The group contains all kinds of familiar faces, with another Bunting, Andy, on piano, Anthony Marsden on the vocal mic, Chris Young and Alex Merritt on saxophones, Colin Mills swapping his more customary baritone saxophone for a bass clarinet, George Hogg on trumpet, Tom Dunnett and Richard Foote on trombones, and Jonathan Silk on drums.
The Spotted Dog is down in Warwick Street, Digbeth, there is a glass that goes round into which you need to stuff a note or two, and the fun starts at 9pm. More on Jazz @ The Spotted Dog on Facebook.
The good people at Stratford Jazz welcome a visitor from Los Angeles to their regular fortnightly Wednesdays at No 1 Shakespeare Street in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
That visitor is guitarist Jon Dalton, and he has John-Paul Gard on organ and Toby Perrett on drums. An organ trio is shorthand for a rabble-rousing, greasy good time.
The music starts at 8pm, entry is £10 on the door and there is more at .