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Venue: RNCM Theatre

John Helliwell’s Super Big Tramp Band

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RNCM Theatre

John Helliwell saxophone, clarinet / Rob Buckland (MD), Amy Roberts alto saxophones / Mike Hall, Andy Scott tenor saxophones / Carl Raven baritone saxophone / John Barber, Carol Jarvis, Ellie Smith trombones / Mark Frost bass trombone / Russell Bennett, Andy Greenwood, Richard Iles, Ryan Quigley trumpets / Josh Savage percussion / Paul Kilvington piano / Ollie Collins bass / Billy Buckley guitar / Steve Gilbert drums  

Join us for what will be a memorable night, in the company of the great John Helliwell, his classy, distinctive, cool saxophone playing and famously dry wit, a stunning big band and the unforgettable music of this legendary supergroup – possibly for the last time, as the eternally-young John celebrates his 80th year.  

John became interested in the clarinet at age 13, closely followed by the saxophone. After a spell as a computer programmer, he turned professional, playing with various bands in the ‘60s. He was asked to join Supertramp in 1973. After making the album Crime of the Century, they began their long climb to international success, moving to California in the process. Breakfast in America was the biggest selling album in the world in 1979!  

During a Supertramp hiatus in the ’90s, he moved back to England to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. John now plays music based on his many inspirations, including jazz, funk, blues, soul and rock. He has several jazz projects: Crème Anglaise, Ever Open Door (sextet with strings and Hammond organ) Don’t Ever Leave Me (a Dutch quartet) and a quartet with Pat Metheny drummer Paul Wertico, The Bari Session. 

The Super Big Tramp Band had its genesis in the RNCM in 2013, when Mike Hall, then the Director of Jazz Studies, persuaded several colleagues to create instrumental arrangements of Supertramp tunes for a concert with John and the student big band. A few years later, John formed the band again with Rob Buckland as director, and this time with professional players; concerts followed and an album was recorded in 2021 at The Stoller Hall, Manchester, released this year: John Helliwell’s Super Big Tramp Band. 

Set 1: 8-8.45 pm 

Set 2: 9 – 9.45 pm 

Date: saturday 24 may

Time: 8:00 pm - 9:45 pm

Price: £25

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Yazz Ahmed Quartet: A Paradise in the Hold

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RNCM Theatre

Yazz Ahmed trumpet & flugelhorn / Ralph Wyld vibraphone / Dave Manington bass / Josh Blackmore drums 

Through her music, British-Bahraini trumpet player Yazz Ahmed seeks to blur the lines between jazz and electronic sound design, bringing together the sounds of her mixed heritage in what has been described as ‘psychedelic Arabic jazz, intoxicating and compelling’.  

Her career is studded with high profile collaborations, which have seen her record and perform with Radiohead, Lee Scratch Perry, Transglobal Underground, Arturo O’Farrill, Natacha Atlas, and Obongjayar, including a world tour with These New Puritans.  

It was Yazz’s self-released debut album, Finding My Way Home (2011), that saw her first explorations of Arabic music and introduced her as an innovative performer and composer, leading Jazzwise magazine to mark her out as ‘one to watch’. However, it was her second album, La Saboteuse, (Naim Records, 2017), that made a global impact, clocking up multiple rave reviews and making many ‘best of 2017’ lists around the world, including Jazz Album of the Year in The Wire magazine, and achieving the number 18 spot in Bandcamp’s top 100 albums (all genres). 

Ahmed began A Paradise in the Hold’s creation back in 2014 on a research trip in Bahrain, during her Jazzlines Fellowship. She’d trawl local bookshops looking for poems and lyrical inspiration. Many came from wedding songs, which were “a lot about beauty and connecting beauty with nature,” she says. Deepening her connection to the tradition, her grandfather even sang her some songs from his own wedding day. At the same time, she became fascinated by the celebratory music of women’s drumming circles and how they contrasted with the work songs of the pearl divers. The latter dangerous pursuit has since ceased, though the divers’ sorrowful music – sung and clapped in a polyrhythmic style known as fijiri – lives on. 

“They were songs that encouraged the fishermen to stay in good spirits, or songs about missing your loved ones…it gave me an opportunity to connect on a deeper level with the music that I grew up with as a child but didn’t really embrace at the time.” – Yazz Ahmed on her newest album, A Paradise in the Hold.  

“Rich, powerful, colourful, exciting, and highly evocative. Ahmed’s most ambitious and most successful work to date has the feel of a ‘major statement’ about it.” –thejazzmann.com 

Photography Credit: Alex Bex 

 

Date: saturday 17 may

Time: 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm

Price: £20

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