Norwegian jazz, Tony Dudley-Evans writes…

4 months
3 weeks ago

Update: Artistic Director of the Barclays Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Tony Dudley-Evans, has been nominated for the Parliamentary Jazz Awards in the Services to Jazz category. Tony Dudley-Evans has been involved with Cheltenham Jazz Festival since its launch in 1996 and became the artistic director in 2002.

From Tony Dudley-Evans
Jazz Festival Artistic Director

Norway has a population of less than five million, but as a result of very strong government support for the general music scene and also for the many Norwegian jazz festivals (Bergen, Molde, Stavanger, Osloand many others) it has developed a very strong distinctive jazz scene.

“The emergence and increased exposure for Norwegian jazz is an amazing and heart warming phenomenon for a small relatively remote country”

Jazz has of course developed its own language and discourse in Europe different from the original American models and within Europe I think we can claim that there is a distinctive Scandinavian sound and taking to the next stage Norway is probably the strongest and most interesting scene in Scandinavia.

more Norwegian jazz, find out who’s coming...

We’ve tagged this post with Beady Belle, Birmingham Conservatoire, Farmers Market, Food, jazz, norway, Tony Dudley-Evans, Trondheim on Tuesday 13 April 2010.

Video interview with Dave Holland and Tony Dudley-Evans

5 months ago

Recently our Jazz Festival Artistic Director, Tony Dudley-Evans, caught up with jazz legend Dave Holland to talk about his new collaboration with flamenco maestro Pepe Habichuela — and the project’s first performance outside Spain at the 2010 Jazz Festival.

Buy tickets for this exciting collaboration

“When it’s a good festival like Cheltenham, it gives [the audience] a good range of experiences so they can really see the expanse of the music…”

Dave Holland

We’ve tagged this post with collaboration, Dave Holland, flamenco, interview, jazz, Pepe Habichuela, spain, Tony Dudley-Evans, video on Wednesday 31 March 2010.

Jazz and composition, Tony Dudley-Evans reflects on Cheltenham’s exciting line-up

5 months
1 week ago

From Tony Dudley-Evans
Jazz Festival Artistic Director

At Cheltenham we have always taken pride in commissioning a new piece from a bandleader/composer. In previous years we have had, for example, Denys Baptiste’s Let Freedom Ring and Abram Wilson’s Ride! with Ferris Wheel To The Modern Day Delta. This year we present the premiere of Nikki Yeoh’s newly commissioned piece written especially for saxophonist John Surman and Nikki’s Infinitum Trio; this was, in fact, written for last year’s festival, but it could not be performed because of the power cut in the Everyman Theatre. We heard one piece the day after and this tune written for just John on saxophone and Nikki on piano was a stunningly beautiful piece. I look forward to hearing the whole commission, which will be performed in Cheltenham Town Hall at 1.30pm on Saturday 1 May.

“In much of the most exciting, happening jazz today there is constant movement between the written parts and the improvisation”

…continue reading →

We’ve tagged this post with Carla Bley, Dave Holland, Jamie Cullum, jazz, Nikki Yeoh, Rory Simmons, Seb Rochford, Stu Brown, Tony Dudley-Evans on Wednesday 24 March 2010.

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

6 months 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.

…continue reading →

We’ve tagged this post with jazz, Tony Dudley-Evans on Monday 1 March 2010.

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

6 months
2 weeks 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.

…continue reading →

We’ve tagged this post with jazz, Tony Dudley-Evans on Tuesday 16 February 2010.

Exclusive video preview: Festival Directors’ Picks

7 months
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

Music Directors’ Picks

…continue reading →

We’ve tagged this post with Jamie Cullum, jazz, membership, Meurig Bowen, music, science, Steven Isserlis, Tony Dudley-Evans on Tuesday 19 January 2010.

Stewart Lee and free-jazz

8 months ago

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 comedy, jazz, Stewart Lee, Tony Dudley-Evans on Tuesday 5 January 2010.

Tony Dudley Evans, Jamie Cullum and Jazz 2010

10 months
3 weeks ago

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 guest director, Jamie Cullum, jazz, Tony Dudley-Evans on Thursday 15 October 2009.

Golden Age of Steam on Radio 3

11 months
3 weeks ago

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

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 BBC Radio 3, jazz, Tony Dudley-Evans on Monday 14 September 2009.

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

1 year
4 months ago

Tony Dudley-Evans
Artistic Director, Budvar Cheltenham Jazz Festival

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.

…continue reading →

We’ve tagged this post with jazz, Tony Dudley-Evans on Thursday 23 April 2009.

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