Cheltenham Festivals blog

Cheltenham Festivals blog archives

Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela at Cheltenham — Tony Dudley Evans, Artistic Director writes…

1 week
2 days ago

From Tony Dudley-Evans
Jazz Festival Artistic Director

There are two concerts at this year’s Barclays Cheltenham Jazz Festival that I am particularly looking forward to hearing. One is the Cuong Vu Trio gig on Sunday 2nd May which I wrote about in my last post. The other one is Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela, the collaboration between the bass player Dave Holland and the Spanish flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela and some of Pepe’s flamenco family.

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We’ve tagged this post with , on Monday 1 March 2010.


Young UK and US Bands at Cheltenham — Tony Dudley-Evans, Artistic Director writes…

3 weeks
1 day ago

From Tony Dudley-Evans
Jazz Festival Artistic Director

Cheltenham Jazz Festival has built its reputation to a large extent on its ability to spot young jazz talent from UK, USA and Europe. It has always presented the really hot new bands on the New York scene and the Jerwood Rising Stars and Jerwood Jazz Generation programmes have enabled us to choose the best young talent from around the UK. And it has been really pleasing to see the response from audiences; sessions with young unknown bands in the Pillar Room, a not obvious but nonetheless great jazz venue, have always drawn big crowds with many bands selling out.

The Pillar Room has reflected in the last few years a strong tendency in UK bands towards bringing together jazz and elements of rock and electronica. We had in the first years of the Jerwood programme bands such as Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland, both bands with drummer Seb Rochford and saxophonist Pete Wareham as their main men. Then another example is that we had Fraud led by saxophonist James Allsopp, who blew the Pillar Room away with a full on set at the very unjazz hour of 12 noon on a Saturday.

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We’ve tagged this post with , on Tuesday 16 February 2010.


Exclusive video preview: Festival Directors’ Picks

1 month
2 weeks ago

The year’s only just begun, but we’re already excited about what promises to be one of the best years of Cheltenham Festivals yet.

For the first time this year, we’ve persuaded our Festival Directors to take some time out of their busy schedules to reveal their pick of the year’s events.

Be the first to book and save £££s with Membership.

Jazz Directors’ Picks

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Music Directors’ Picks

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We’ve tagged this post with , , , , , , , on Tuesday 19 January 2010.


Stewart Lee and free-jazz

2 months ago

Stewart Lee

Following his fantastic win on Celebrity Mastermind — where he specialised on British avant-garde guitarist Derek Bailey — we are excited to announce that comedian Stewart Lee will be joining us at the 2010 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, to explore the world of improvised jazz.

In collaboration with our artistic director Tony Dudley-Evans, Stewart is curating a special three night series, which will include performances by British free-jazz legend Evan Parker, drummer Mark Sanders, bassist John Edwards, rising star of the New York scene trumpeter Peter Evans and a special Xposed Club Night featuring Chris Cundy.

We’ve tagged this post with , , , on Tuesday 5 January 2010.


Tony Dudley Evans, Jamie Cullum and Jazz 2010

4 months
3 weeks ago

Jamie Cullum

Following the announcement of Jamie Cullum as Guest Director, Artistic Director Tony Dudley-Evans took some time to share his thoughts on the opportunity to work with Jamie this year…

‘I am delighted to be working with Jamie Cullum as our Guest Director for the 2010 Jazz Festival. Jamie has had a long relationship with the festival appearing first in 2003 at the Daffodil just as his career was lifting off and then returning to do an amazing concert in the Town Hall in 2004. But he has been a regular attender at the festival right from the beginning and I well remember him asking me not to book him for 2005 as he didn’t want to miss out of any of the gigs. Then indeed in 2007 he came as guest of the festival just to hang out and catch the gigs.’

‘The Cheltenham team will be working with Jamie to programme a number of events and of course Jamie will be appearing with his own band. We share very similar tastes and already Jamie has come up with some great ideas.’

Tony Dudley-Evans
Artistic Director.

We’ve tagged this post with , , , on Thursday 15 October 2009.


Golden Age of Steam on Radio 3

5 months
4 weeks ago

Golden Age of Steam on Radio 3’s Jazz on 3 tonight at 11.15pm

golden-age-close-up

From Tony Dudley-Evans
Cheltenham Jazz Artistic Director

BBC Radio 3’s Jazz on 3 programme tonight features a performance from The Golden Age of Steam recorded at the 2009 Cheltenham Jazz Festival.

The Golden Age of Steam is the splendid name for a trio led by saxophonist composer James Allsopp and featuring the keyboard player of the moment Kit Downes, plus one of my favourite drummers Tim Giles. This is the set they played at Cheltenham Jazz Festival this year.

James Allsopp and Tim Giles were key figures in the Fraud group that had a major success at the 2007 festival; with Kit Downes the material is free-er, spacier and more thoughtful and contemplative. But it is in that area of music that combines structure with freedom and moves from composition to improvisation and back in interesting and unpredictable ways.

Jazz on 3 →
listen to the broadcast tonight at 11.15pm on BBC Radio 3

We’ve tagged this post with , , on Monday 14 September 2009.


Tony Dudley-Evans — Jack DeJohnette and the Jerwood all stars

10 months
3 weeks ago

Tony Dudley-Evans
Artistic Director, Budvar Cheltenham Jazz Festival

Jack DeJohnette

A particularly unique part of the Jazz Festival programme this year is the creation of a special band led by Jack DeJohnette featuring young British players who have all had an association with the Jerwood Rising Stars and Jerwood Jazz Generation and Take 5 schemes.

The project was first discussed at the 2008 Cheltenham Jazz Festival when Jack DeJohnette performed a solo drum concert (actually it turned out to be a duo with Ravi Coltrane for much of the set) and gave a drum master class in which he talked at length about his career in music. Jack expressed an interest in working with young British players and a series of discussions with Jack, John Cumming of Serious and myself has led to this unique project.

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We’ve tagged this post with , on Thursday 23 April 2009.


Tony Dudley-Evans — Dave Douglas: My gig of the festival

11 months ago

Tony Dudley-Evans
Artistic Director, Budvar Cheltenham Jazz Festival

I have always been a great fan of Dave Douglas (Dave Douglas Quintet, Sunday 3 May), having heard him on a trip to New York back in the early 90s and having been the first jazz promoter to bring him over to UK in the late 90s. I particularly admire the breadth of his music and his willingness to engage with other styles of music. But it is first of all as a trumpeter that he commands our respect; he has a wonderfully expressive tone on the instrument and a technique that means he can accomplish anything that his great imagination leads him to. But this does not mean that he is just a great technician blowing lots of notes; just the opposite, he is a warm, reflective player who combines the creativity of Miles Davis with the technical ability and range of the finest players. But my liking of his music comes even more from his qualities as a jazz composer and, above all, as a visionary force within the music.

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We’ve tagged this post with , on Thursday 9 April 2009.


Tony Dudley-Evans — looking forward to Don Byron

11 months
3 weeks ago

Tony Dudley-Evans
Artistic Director, Budvar Cheltenham Jazz Festival

In the next few weeks I intend to talk about certain parts of the Cheltenham Jazz Festival programme and about why I am keen to present certain artists.

I will start with Don Byron, who appears on the festival Sunday at 10.30 in the Everyman Theatre. For me Don Byron is a particular favourite who is always developing new and interesting projects. He is just about the only contemporary jazz player to have the clarinet as his main instrument and he has managed to create a distinctive voice on that instrument that is both quite different in sound and approach from the more traditional styles the instrument is usually associated with, and a style that contrasts interestingly with saxophone approaches that dominate so much of contemporary jazz.

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We’ve tagged this post with , on Friday 20 March 2009.