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mjf2023 piano trail walking tour with FMWT

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Victoria Train Station

A first for Manchester: a walking tour accompanied by a live pianist!

Free Manchester Walking Tours are going to follow manchester jazz festival’s famous piano trail across the city centre; exploring the fabulous interiors of Manchester’s theatres, art galleries and music venues, as well as uncovering secret street art and learning about the origins of a famous Manchester fruit drink. There are two piano trail walking tours – one on Saturday 13 May and one on Saturday 27 May from 12-2pm.

Expect to hear Manchester hits with a jazz twist, as we discover Manchester’s art scene and cultural history!

WHERE TO MEET AND WHEN

Meet Josh at the entrance to Victoria Train Station . The tour will start promptly at 12pm and last approximately for 2 hours. Wear comfortable shoes!

FREE MANCHESTER WALKING TOURS:

Free Manchester Walking Tours (www.fmwt.co.uk) was set up nearly a decade ago, by storyteller, History MA graduate and Mancunian Josh! They’ve since grown into a small team dedicated to sharing Manchester’s story with the world. They run a tour every day at 11am from the Alan Turing Memorial, as well as offering specialised LGBT+ and also Northern Quarter walking tours.

QUESTIONS

Email Josh at josh@fmwt.co.uk

Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Price: £10 adults, £5 under-18s

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Nguvu

Band on the Wall (bar stage)

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Jamal Lewis-Service drums / Lila Hutchinson, Tayo Weekes vocals / Helena Summerfield alto saxophone / Ejaz Ibrahim electric guitar / Wayne Brown keyboards / Laetitia Alexandratos bass guitar 

Manchester-based Nguvu return to manchester jazz festival, bringing their unmissable blend of jazz fusion, neo-soul, hip-hop, rock and afro-inspired funk to the Band on the Wall bar stage! 

NGUVU is a Swahili term that translates to power, force and energy. But here in the UK, NGUVU is what happens when you blend nasty baselines, dreamy chords, powerful vocals, sexy sax and godly grooves into one phenomenally phat and funky sound.  

Being the musical brainchild of drummer, Jamal Lewis-Service, NGUVU merges beautiful blends of world music, jazz-fusion, neo soul, hip hop, rock and afro-inspired funk, which this band uses to leave you flying high on pure groove. 

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Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Price: Free

Emily Mercer

Band on the Wall (bar stage)

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Emily Mercer vocals, piano / Tom Welsh electric guitar  

Emily Mercer is a Manchester-based singer-songwriter creating rich, piano-driven arrangements. Her music is a genre-bending fusion of her jazz, pop, folk and R&B influences, full of striking harmony, soaring melody and punchy grooves. Mercer’s songs have a flair for the dramatic and an ongoing theme of truth: millennial angst, self-sabotage, confronting personal agendas – each song acts as a call for an end to our self-limiting beliefs. 

As co-runner of Manchester Women Songwriters, a community of female identifying musicians, Emily is motivated by connection and collaboration, demonstrated by the host of Manchester talent involved in her solo project.  

Her jazzy, quirk-pop creations are full of surprising twists and turns, as packed with charming idiosyncrasies as they are big, hummable tunes.” – Manchester Evening News 

Free admission, no ticket required 

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Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Price: Free

Deadbeat Brass

Matt and Phreds

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Gavin Brown sousaphone / John Needham-Pearmain tenor saxophone / TBC – baritone saxophone / Alex Browne, James Duckworth, Peter Clark trumpets / Tim Mansfield, Barrie-Jon Knight trombones / Lloyd Brown bass trombone / Tim Bradshaw drums

Deadbeat Brass is made up of 10 of the North’s finest horn and percussion players to bring you their big brass sound, a fusion of New Orleans jazz, funk, grunge and latin grooves to every live experience. Huddersfield’s own funky horn juggernaut brings you a mix of hard hitting unique take on covers and their own brand of riot-prog to packed out shows throughout the UK.

A hit with festival crowds across the country, the band have played at festivals including Kendal Calling, Beat-herder, London Remixed, Moovin Festival & Balter festival. Their unique sounds and high energy performances have seen them support artists such as The Apples, Hot 8 Brass Band and Craig Charles. Releasing their debut album in 2017, Charge, the band has most recently released a live EP from tracks taken from their appearance at London Remixed Festival with their second album to debut in 2023.

This evening, Deadbeat Brass will be playing a mixture of their own brand of ‘Riot-Prog Jazz’ originals, pop and rock covers ranging from Britney Spears to Linkin Park to Sean Paul as well as jazz & Nola songs thrown in.

Doors 5pm
Gig 9.30pm – 12.30am
£7 entry – to reserve a table, call 0161 273 5495

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Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 9:30 pm - 12:30 am

Price: £7, pay on the door

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Marcus Joseph + Romarna Campbell Trio + Robocobra Quartet

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Band on the Wall (main venue)

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A triple bill of the freshest jazz talent from across the UK regions, with a late-night DJ set from Dance Regular with EVM 128 & Szajna + Black Vudu Dance Crew

Marcus Joseph

Marcus Joseph alto saxophone / Lorenze Okello Osenger keyboards / James Wade-Sired trombone / Wayne Matthews bass / Edward Wakili Hick drums

For those that haven’t experienced a Marcus Joseph live performance, get ready for energy! Marcus, a talented alto saxophonist, has created a heavy groove-driven show that is loaded with funky breaks and wicked rhythm sections that make you wanna get up and dance. His jazz takes influences from his Jamaican heritage and connects with the audience through hip-hop and spoken word affirmations that Marcus weaves through the music, making it a seriously engaging show for the audience. A celebrated young performer with lots of talent and creative energy.

Marcus, with roots in Leicester and the East Midlands, was recently part of the 2022 Take 5 programme with Serious. He is also part of the Jerwood Jazz Encounters programme for 2023, which sees him exploring the limitless possibilities of XR technologies within music, presenting his Jazz Maze project at Sage Gateshead in September 2023. Alongside showcasing at SXSW in Austin Texas, it’s going to be one busy year for this talented young artist.

Romarna Campbell Trio

Romarna Campbell drums / Cenk Esen piano / Mutale Chashi bass

Drummer, producer and composer Romarna Campbell performs music from her highly anticipated new album, set for release in 2023.

Romarna’s storytelling begins with the drums. The nomadic spirit of this exciting artist from Birmingham’s bustling jazz scene lives in her jazz and hip hop-infused music. Her irrepressible energy can be heard on Inherently Political, a super-charged sonic assault on racism that immediately won favour with Jazz FM’s Deb Grant and Tony Minvielle and had her crowned by Jamz Supernova as ‘New Name of the Week’.

Her independently-released kaleidoscopic debut 25 Songs For My 25th Birthday features Soweto Kinch, Tomeka Reid, Sumi Tonooka and Lady Sanity and takes us deeper into her world of resonant frequencies and conscious vibrations. Having honed her craft with Berklee College of Music, Tomorrow’s Warriors and the Notebenders, Romarna stands on the shoulders of giants and is drawing inspiration from the view as she beats a path forward that is very much her own.

Robocobra Quartet

Chris Ryan drums, vocals / Tom Taboroi soprano saxophone / Peter Howard alto & tenor saxophone / Nathan Rodgers bass guitar

A collective of musicians from Belfast inspired by Stravinsky and Dead Kennedys in equal measures. Meticulous arrangements and on-the-spot improvisations hang on every sung, spoken or shouted word, propelling the music forward and concocting a sound that is groove-driven but cerebral, invoking the likes of Fugazi, Talking Heads and contemporaries such as Black Midi, Squid and BadBadNotGood.

Robocobra Quartet’s unmatched live performances channel-hop from moments of joy and playfulness to periods of intense fury, earning them invitations to festivals across the world, including Montreux Jazz Festival, SXSW and Latitude Festival.

Their self-produced Northern Ireland Music Prize-nominated album Plays Hard To Get pulls the audience like a rag doll through its nine tracks of improvisation-soaked post-punk. Featuring oblique production nods to influences as disparate as modern classical music and 60s pop, the album track Short Stretch of Day was used in the HBO documentary Game of Thrones: The Last Watch.

 

Bar stage from 10.00pm (free entry):

Dance Regular with EVM 128 & Szajna + Black Vudu Dance Crew

London’s brand new Sunday night jam by EVM128, featuring various Dj’s from the UK house and Brokenbeat scene, comes to Manchester. EVM128 is a producer and DJ, originally from Bristol but rooted in London, who has DJ’d alongside Gilles Peterson, Ross Allen, Don Letts, Norman Jay, Greg Wilson, IG Culture, Afronaut, Henry Wu, K 15, Neneh Cherry, DJ Vadim, Roots Manuva, LV, Artwork (Magneticman), Afrika Hi-tek, Silkie and Flako. His Dj’ing is eclectic, with influences ranging from 80’s Boogie, Soul, Electro, Broken Beat, Afro, House and Disco to HipHop, Ragga, Jungle, Garage and Bass genres.

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Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 9:00 pm - 11:45 pm

Time: 10:00 pm - 3:00 am

Price: £10

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Hot 8 Brass Band

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Albert Hall

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Doors 7pm
Support by DJ Jamie Groovement

New Orleans’ Grammy-nominated Hot 8 Brass Band will be returning to stages across the UK and US in May 2023 following the success of their Mardi Gras (2020) and Take Cover (2019) tour, which boasted sell-out dates across the UK including London’s Roundhouse and the Dome, Brighton. The recent passing of Bennie Pete, the beloved co-founder and sousaphone player for the outfit, will be honoured in true New Orleans fashion with The Bossman Tour 2023, paying tribute to his “galvanizing force” as a “leader, teacher and mentor”. Fellow bandmates add that “Bennie was an inspiration to [the] band and to many other musicians, and the entire musical and cultural community.” The dates will celebrate the late Bennie’s “greatest wish.. that New Orleans culture lives on for future generations”. As always, Hot 8 will channel the unique, undiluted energy of the Second Line parades to commemorate their loss.

The New Orleans-based Hot 8 Brass Band draw on the traditional jazz heritage of their hometown, alongside more modern styles, including elements of funk, hip hop, rap, and its local variation, “bounce.” The collective earned a win in the 64th Annual Grammy Awards 2022 for their feature on John Batiste’s ‘Album of The Year’, following the nomination of ‘The Life & Times Of…’ for ‘Best Regional Roots Album’ in 2013.

Transcending genres and trends, Hot 8 have performed and collaborated with the likes of Jon Batiste, Blind Boys of Alabama, Basement Jaxx and Alice Russell, and provided live support for Mos Def, Lauryn Hill and Mary J Blige. Since forming they have established a decade-long affiliation with actor/BBC 6Music DJ Craig Charles, among other tastemakers, DJs and journalists worldwide. After a festive appearance Live at Maida Vale for Lauren Laverne (BBC 6 Music), the Hot 8 Brass Band performed for Jools Holland’s annual Hootenanny on BBC Two to welcome in 2019. Later that year, after taking to the stage at the BRIT awards in February, Hot 8 Brass Band were invited on the European leg of George Ezra’s tour.

This event is promoted by manchester jazz festival and Band on the Wall and is part of mjf2023

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Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Price: £25

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Rosie Frater-Taylor

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Band on the Wall (main venue)

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Doors 3pm

With a clear sense of purpose, 23-year-old singer, songwriter & guitarist Rosie Frater-Taylor blurs the lines between jazz, folk, pop & soul. Think Joni Mitchell meets George Benson, Lewis Taylor teams up with Emily King or a female version of John Mayer!

Rosie’s critically-acclaimed 2nd album Bloom (2021) was nominated at Gilles Peterson’s WorldWide Awards, named Jazz FM ‘Album Of The Week’ and made KCRW’s ‘Albums Of The Year’ list. Bloom accumulated over 2m streams, catching the attention of the likes of Jamie Cullum, Gilles Peterson, Jordan Rakei, Nitin Sawhney, Snarky Puppy’s Michael League, Blue Note’s Don Was, with Complex Magazine, Bandcamp, Jazz re:freshed and global platform Pickup Music championing the young musician too.

In 2022, Rosie played over 60 shows across Europe, including opening for legendary singer Kurt Elling and playing Gilles Peterson’s WorldWide Awards and We Out Here on the main stage.”An artist I’ve fallen in love with, musically‘ Gilles Peterson – BBC6 MusicThe native Londoner started playing drums at the age of 8, picking up the guitar and ukulele soon after. She spent her early teens discovering her musician parents’ record collection, an eclectic mix of artists: Zero 7, Tania Maria, Seal, Pat Metheny and more. She began exploring her own love of songwriting, jazz and alternative harmony studying at both the Roundhouse and Royal Academy Of Music.

Partial to a DIY-slant, Rosie set off laying out multi-layered guitar-based demos on Cubase at the age of 16. These would eventually become her self-produced debut album On My Mind (2018), a unique collection of songs which garnered praise from BBC 6 Music’s Tom Robinson, BBC Radio 1’s Abbie McCarthy, Becca Stevens “badass”, with Jazzwise Magazine hailing her “one to watch”.

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Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Price: £15

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Dan Burnett

Matt and Phreds

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Dan Burnett  piano, vocals

Dan Burnett is a singer, songwriter, and freelance multi-instrumentalist musician based in the UK. With influences stemming from the soul, acoustic, and blues genres, Dan’s songs will take you on emotional journeys about life, love, and heartbreak.

Playing regularly throughout the year, Dan is also a library music composer for film and TV. He has co-written and recorded music which featured on Stolen (Nicolas Cage), and Supernatural (USA TV series), among many others. Since 2014, Dan has been an international endorser of Kawai Pianos.

Expect to hear Dan’s favourites from his musical upbringing in Soul, Blues and Funk. On top of this, you’ll get to hear some of Dan’s absolutely mesmerising original material which we at M&P’s are in love with.

Doors 5pm
Gig: 5.30pm – 6.30pm
Free entry – tables are first come, first served on the evening

Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

Price: Free

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un.procedure / Themory

International Anthony Burgess Foundation

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Music & Sound Design by un.procedure: Piera Onacko keyboards / Cassie Kinoshi saxophone / Nathan England-Jones drums 

Guri Bosh visual art / Vlad-Cristian Costache build

Themory is an immersive audiovisual installation, drawing from the subjective and fluid forces of family and history, place and time. 

Incorporating spatialised sound and video collage, Themory tells a collective story through cutting and layering to create new compositions, heard and seen. Audiences will be propelled through a thematic narrative, bound together by a backdrop of past and present Manchester, inviting discussion as to how and why memories and history become a part of our lives.  

What will happen and when?

The installation will run on a 30-minute cycle, with the first 15 minutes of each cycle allowing you, the audience, time to arrive and acquaint yourselves with the space before the performance begins. The performances on Friday 26 May will be pre-recorded and on Saturday 27 May, there will be a live performance by un.procedure accompanying the installation, full details here:

Friday 26 May

12pm – 8pm – installation only, starting on the hour and half-hour.

Tickets: Free admission, no ticket required. Access is on a first-come-first-served basis and subject to capacity on the day. 

Saturday 27 May

12pm – 8pm – installation + live performance, starting on the hour (*the live performance will begin 15 minutes after the start of the first session of the hour e.g. 12.15pm, 1.15pm, 2.15pm etc).

Tickets: Free admission, no ticket required. Access is on a first-come-first-served basis and subject to capacity on the day.

Where is it happening?

It’s taking place at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, click here for a map and more information.

This work is supported through the Cheltenham Festival Jerwood Jazz Encounters programme, co-commissioned by Manchester Jazz Festival and supported by Jerwood Arts and Sound UK. 

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Date: saturday 27 may

Time: 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Price: Free