Ferg's Imaginary Big Band, Ferg's Imaginary Big Band, Tight Lines ***

Super sized up from the trio, last heard just a few months ago from super busy bassist Fergus Quill, it's raucous stuff and fairly rough around the edges in places but certainly full of a Zornian spirit and a certain excellent anarchy in the …

Published: 16 Feb 2023. Updated: 13 months.

Super sized up from the trio, last heard just a few months ago from super busy bassist Fergus Quill, it's raucous stuff and fairly rough around the edges in places but certainly full of a Zornian spirit and a certain excellent anarchy in the thinking. This Leeds lot recall Loose Tubes more directly than the other UK big band around - there must be something in the water for big band in the north west these last years - and even closer: big brothers from above the Watford Gap, Beats & Pieces. Personnel include saxophonists Tom Richards, Hannah Mae Birtwell, Harry Fowler, Will Gibbon, Bess Shooter, Alex Fisher, Hamish ‘Sonic’ Dixon, reedist/flautist Joel Stedman brass players Felix Burling, Emyr Penry Dance, Sam Ehret’Pickett, Adam Wilkin, Aiden Ruffle, Oli Smedley, vocalists Amy Clark, Rebecca Herrington, Sunday Lendis, Rosie Miles, bass Fergus Quill, Chris Williams, guitarists Ed Allen, Will Lakin pianists Nico Widdowson, George MacDonald, Tim Malkin drummers/percussionists Josh Ketch, Theo Goss, Jon Lodder, Richard Molton and spoken word poets Lubomir Jovanovic and Tallulah Howarth. While it can be a bit exhausting overall their bull at a gate super charged sense of propulsion and adventurous tinkering with the supposed norms are far more preferable than the usual tuxedoed-up retro swing big bands out there coasting to Charlie Barnet or even the fairly orthodox but more progressive Scottish National Jazz Orchestra that has nevertheless de facto been the best jazz big band from anywhere in these islands for years. Slim the Quill a bit and then they all will be sucking diesel even more as a lot of the detail gets lost in the sheer oomph and derring do of it all right now. And yet Quill and whoever the quorum he has with him at a particular time are where it's at for big band right now beamed down from the no nonsense north of England as much as planet Ra. Out on 24 February. 'Gutterball' is streaming

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Stepping out - gig choice coming up

Fergus McCreadie trio Peggy's Skylight, Nottingham Wed 15 Feb Tim Knowles quartet The Cask Inn, Scarborough Wed 15 Feb Corrie Dick Band The Blue Lamp, Aberdeen Thurs 16 Feb David Angol quartet The Verdict, Brighton Fri 17 Feb James Allsopp Quartet …

Published: 15 Feb 2023. Updated: 13 months.

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Fergus McCreadie trio Peggy's Skylight, Nottingham Wed 15 Feb

Tim Knowles quartet The Cask Inn, Scarborough Wed 15 Feb

Corrie Dick Band The Blue Lamp, Aberdeen Thurs 16 Feb

David Angol quartet The Verdict, Brighton Fri 17 Feb

James Allsopp Quartet 1000 Trades, Birmingham Fri 17 Feb

Xhosa Cole Newhampton Arts Centre, Wolverhampton Sat 18 Feb

Lulu Pierre and the Alex Webb Trio feat. Tony Kofi The Bear, Luton Sat 18 Feb

GIG OF THE WEEK

Ezra Collective O2 Academy, Bristol Sat 18 Feb

Ezra Collective pictured top reach parts of a wider non-jazz consciousness quite credibly that few UK jazz acts can dream of. It isn't hard to understand why given the reach of what they do. Now signed beyond the bedrock of the jazz village to the Fontaines DC and Beth Orton-rostered label Partisan Records the London band borne out of Tomorrow's Warriors are led by drummer Femi Koleoso with TJ Koleoso on bass, Joe Armon-Jones on keys, Ife Ogunjobi on trumpet and James Mollison on tenor saxophone.