Margate Jazzzz Festival

JAZZ IN THE SUNSET

It's happened. It was great. It'll happen again in 2006 14-16 July, including more free jazz in the Piazza and at least one concert in Winter Gardens.

An open air jazz festival by the sea presented by The Vortex Jazz Club, Babel Label, Margate Old Town Partnership. Supported by Arts Council England

July 3rd 3 p.m.

Admission FREE

Come and enjoy some of the best jazz musicians for free with the backdrop of one of Britain's finest sunsets - as immortalised by Turner.
Just 1 hr 40 minutes from London by train from Victoria. (Trains run every half hour.)

Stan Tracey trio
The 78 year old British pianist, the internationally-renowned Godfather of British jazz, is still at the peak of his playing. As both a modernist and innovator, his 1965 classic recording Under Milk Wood with saxophonist Bobby Wellins has also resonated recently with a younger generation following its release on Gilles Peterson's compilation Impressed and as a focal point in the recent Jazz Brittania series on BBC4. Finding himself accompanied by Stan during a season at Ronnie Scott's, at which he was the house pianist from 1960-7, Sonny Rollins asked the British music press: "Does anybody here know how good he really is?" Stan is accompanied by his top class regular trio featuring double bassist Andrew Cleyndert and drumming son Clark Tracey.

Ingrid Laubrock/ Monica Vasconcelos Quartet
Ingrid Laubrock is now recognised as one of this country's leading young saxophonists, and has been nominated for a 2005 BBC Jazz Award. She, along with Brazilian vocalist Monica Vasconcelos, are integral members of the band Nois 4 and serve a delicious blend of Brazilian sounds and contemporary jazz.

Carol Grimes
Carol has been at the forefront of British jazz for many years, and is the model on which all singers should be based - passion, style and love of the music. She also is a member of the Shout ensemble and her CD Mother was released to great acclaim last year.

Ian Shaw
With his tender passion and huge vocal stretch and dynamic range, The Welsh Born supremely soulful jazz vocalist is a respected international artist, and one of the few British jazz singers to have kudos in America. A distinctive soulful blend of jazz standards and singer songwriter material, Shaw has been described in the New York Times as having "complete emotional control of the classic jazz-idiom standards," Ian lives in Hythe.

Liane Carroll
Lianne has been one of the great undersung vocalists in the UK for many years now but finally things are being addressed with her recent 2005 nomination for Best Singer in the BBC Jazz Awards. Her passionate R&B/jazz vocal, excellent jazz-blues piano and dynamic stage charisma and patter have made her one of the most sought after live acts on the UK jazz circuit with a recent headline spot at Ronnie Scotts proving a sell out.

Christine Tobin
Nominated in 2004 for a BBC Jazz Award for Best Vocalist, Christine is one of the country's most innovative jazz singer/songwriters and arrangers. Christine holds a unique place in and beyond the world of jazz as both a songwriter and interpreter always looking to find fresh angles and break new boundaries with her lyrically-incisive originals, and on her own unsentimental arrangements of material that covers Brazilian classics, singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan and John Martyn, standards and classic blues in Bessie Smith. Following a recent performance, John Fordham from The Guardian was moved to describe her as a “blues preacher of stately power”.Tobin reaches beyond original jazz principles into intensely soulful singer songwriter territory with her “24-carat voice” (according to critic John L Walters) sounding better than ever.

Partisans
One of the most exciting live improvising bands on the circuit, Partisans, co-led by top UK jazz improvisers: guitarist Phil Robson and saxophonist Julian Siegel, have been thrilling audiences since its formation in 1996, with its tightly knit themes and great freedom coming from the years of playing and gigging together. Their succesful collaboration with US Guitarist Wayne Krantz at the Cheltenham Jazz festival in 2003 went down a storm with the Guardian saying 'Partisans were the highlight of the festival, jazz that makes you blink in its glare' . Since then they have since gone from strength to strength, with a recent critically acclaimed album Max and long tour presenting a fresh, crisp and edgy contemporary jazz-rock sound. With bassist Thad Kelly and powerhouse drummer Gene Calderazzo they are sure to "whip up an incendiary heat"(Jazzwise)|

John Etheridge and Zappatistas
John Etheridge used to come regularly on holiday to Birchington, before reaching the dizzy heights of fame with Soft Machine and with Stephane Grappelli. He is regularly sought out by the likes of Nigel Kennedy and John Williams. The Zappatistas project takes the music of Frank Zappa into the 21st century and includes amazing musicians such as Annie Whitehead.

Vortex Foundation Big Band
"Much more than a right-on gesture, this is a new British big band with a future." said John Fordham oin The Guardian. Emerging in 2002 under the patronage of the Vortex Jazz Club in Stoke Newington, London, the all-female 11-piece contemporary big band, under the direction of esteemed trombonist Annie Whitehead, was specially formed for that year's London Jazz Festival and is a showcase for jazz writers as well as players. The Babel Label released a live recording from this charismatic band in March 2003 at the Vortex featuring material that highlights the varied experiences of many of the talented writers and performers in the band and capturing a live feel-good, vivacious spirit that crosses the borders of soul, contemporary big band jazz, latin fusion, funk, Soca, and African music.

Bidgie Reef and the Gas
Fronted by 66-year-old Roger Winslet (father of Kate) the band revel in the freedom of jazz, the diversity of global sounds, the romanticism of classicism, the power of pop, the energy and ethos of punk and the urgency of the beat generation.
‘An arty hybrid of early English punk and r&b alterno-pop’. Time Out.

In case of bad weather, the event will be held in the Winter Gardens.

More information contact info@babellabel.co.uk

If you want to come down from London by coach from the Vortex, let us know - we are looking to hire one for the day.