Northern Jazz well represented on Live at LUME vol. 3

Cath Roberts and Dee Byrne, with their seemingly infinite amount of energy, have released volume 3 of their Live at LUME series, a selection of recordings taken from live LUME gigs. This one contains many names familiar to jazz audiences in the North. These recordings come from the series of gigs entitled LUME labs, which saw three musicians commissioned to bring together groups of musicians and develop new work.

The album can be bought on the LUME bandcamp page.

The album, at £5 for a physical copy and £3 for digital, is used to fundraise for future LUME activities.

The three ensembles featured are:

Julie Kjaer (flute/bass clarinet)
Olie Brice, Seth Bennett, tim Fairhall & Thordoris Ziarkis (double bass)


Anton Hunter's Labrats

Anton Hunter (guitar)
Kim Macari (trumpet)
Cath Roberts (baritone sax)
Dee Byrne (alto sax)
Rachel Musson (tenor sax)
Tullis Rennie (trombone)
Andrew Lisle (drums)
Tim Fairhall (double bass)

Craig Scott's Gastric Band

Craig Scott (guitar)
Oliver Dover (saxes/clarinet)
Johnny Richards (keyboards)
Michael Bardon (double bass)
Joost Hendrickx (drums)

Sloth Racket 'Shapeshifters' tour comes to Leeds, June 26th

Sloth Racket release their second album, Shapeshifters, on 12th June on the Luminous label. To accompany this release, the band are embarking on a 6 date tour of the UK including a gig at Sproggits, the jazz and improvised music night run at Wharf Chambers in Leeds.

Sloth Racket are -

Cath Roberts - baritone saxophone, composition
Sam Andreae - tenor saxophone
Anton Hunter - guitar
Seth Bennett - double bass
Johnny Hunter - drums

From Cath's website...

To launch the album we’re heading out on tour at the end of June, with support from Arts Council England. The tour takes us to some new places, perhaps the most exciting of which is the first ever edition of Listen! in Cambridge. Listen! is being set up by dedicated London jazz scene supporters Carol Garrison and Graham Lee, who have relocated to Cambridge and decided to get their hands dirty setting up a new outpost for adventurous music there. As well as Cambridge we’ll be playing in Bristol and Norwich for the first time, plus returning to Leeds and Brighton to play at Wharf Chambers and Safehouse. To start things off we’ll be doing a set on the Saturday of the second LUME Festival, which presumably you’ve already got your tickets for…

Here’s the tour itinerary, with links to more info on the gigs:

24th June London: IKLECTIK (LUME Festival)
26th June Leeds: Wharf Chambers (presented by Sproggits)
27th June Bristol: The Old England (presented by Pull The Strings)
28th June Brighton: The Verdict (presented by Safehouse)
29th June Norwich: York Tavern (presented by Plink Plonk)
30th June Cambridge: Unitarian Church (presented by Listen!)

Lancaster Jazz Festival 2016

The full line up for this year's Lancaster Jazz Festival has been announced so it's time to take a look at the programme and plan who you're going to see between 16th and 18th September.

This year, the headline artist & artist in residence is the extraordinary saxophonist, Cath Roberts. On Saturday 17th, Cath will perform a specially commissioned, one-off performance in The Round. She will be joined by a core ensemble of close musical collaborators (Anton Hunter, Sam Andreae, Johnny Hunter and Seth Bennett AKA Sloth Racket) and augmenting with a number of exciting improvisers from around Europe.

The rest of the programme is as diverse and exciting as ever, cementing Lancaster Jazz Festival's reputation as a true supporter of original and improvised music. On Friday, Dee Byrne's Entropi performs and saxophonist Phil Meadows makes two appearances; first as a guest soloist with the LRGS Big Band and then with his own trio, SKINT.

As well as Cath Roberts commission, Saturday sees a number of performances - Craig Scott's Lobotomy, Let Spin, Nodha and ensemble selected to be part of this year's Jazz North Introduces scheme (to be announced soon!).

Sunday sees internationally renowned trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard perform with the brand new Inner City Music ensemble as part of Band on the Wall's Jazz Director Series. You can also hear solo cellist and Jazz North Northern Line artist Maja Bugge, Archipelago and Cath Roberts' duo with Anton Hunter, Ripsaw Catfish.

There's much more on offer than what we've listed above; check out Lancaster Jazz Festival website to find out more and to book tickets.

Acts Announced for LUME Festival & Kickstarter Launched

Earlier in the year, we reported on the plans for LUME festival, a day of music run by Dee Byrne and Cath Roberts in London. Committed to supporting original and improvised music, the musicians have worked tirelessly to promote live music in London in recent years. The festival marks their next step and after an open call for submissions, today they launched a Kickstarter to support the running of the event.

The North will be strongly represented with three out of the six groups hailing from Manchester and Leeds. Ant Traditions is a duo featuring pianist Adam Fairhall and David Birchall (Manchester), Hot Beef Three are from Leeds and feature Ollie Dover, Craig Scott and Andrew Lisle and guitarist Anton Hunter brings his large ensemble work Article XI, a previous recipient of the Manchester Jazz Festival commission.

These three Northern groups are joined by Birmingham's Little Church, Kjær/Musson/Marshall from London and Blueblut from Austria.

LUME has received some core funding from Arts Council England to support their work but their newly launched Kickstarter will raise funds to help with travel costs and artist fees to ensure they feature as much music as they can. Donors will receive a number of rewards depending on the amount they donate including Live at LUME cds, tickets to the festival, a special trip to London Aquarium with Cath and Dee and a special piece written for you and performed by Word of Moth.

For full information on the Kickstarter which runs until May 12th, visit the website.

Artist Submissions welcome for the first LUME Festival

Cath Roberts and Dee Byrne are champions of original, improvised music and their work with LUME has been praised across the country. Their programming is full of surprises and the team are at the forefront of the wave of musicians now involved in promoting jazz and improvised music.

This year, they have announced that they will round of their season of gigs with the first ever LUME Festival. The one day event will take place on 26th June at I’klectik Artlab near Waterloo in London and they have issued a call out for musicians and groups who want to be a part of it.

As part of programming this, we’re putting the call out for submissions. Bands, soloists, new collaborations: we’d like to hear from you. These are the things we’re looking for:

Original music. To us this means new music composed by the musicians who are playing.
Improvised music. We are also into spontaneous composition! Totally improvised music created in the moment. If your project fits into one or both of those categories then we want to know about it.

There is an online submission form for the interested musicians on the LUME website and submissions will be accepted until 5pm on February 12th.

Fusebox Returns!

                                                 Dee Byrne & Cath Roberts (Photo: Tom Ward)

Fusebox has been an important part of the improvised music scene in the North of England in recent years. Following the sad passing of founder Dave Hatfield in January, Fusebox has not been active but Bill Chatwin has announced that they are keeping their promise to Dave and running a full programme from now until the end of the year.

Their first gig will be on Friday 29th May and feature a LUME double bill of Dee Byrne's Entropi and Cath Roberts' Quadraceratops. This takes place at their regular venue, the Fox and Newt in Leeds.

Full details of the bands due to appear as well as information on venues can be found on the Fusebox website.

29th May - Entropi & Quadraceratops (Fox and Newt)
17th June - Alan Wilkinson's Akode (Fox and Newt)
3rd July - Taupe (Fox and Newt)
18th September - Dave Kane's Rabbit Project (Fox and Newt)
1st October - Engine Room Favourites (Seven Arts)
18th November - Metamorphic & Royst (Seven Arts)
26h November - Loz Speyer's Inner Space Music (Fox and Newt)
December - Christmas Special (Date TBC)