On 24th October, the John Warren Nonet is playing at the Vortex in Dalston. The evening is being presented by Jazz Nursery, which is a monthly night that I help run. JN normally puts on gigs on the last Thursday of the month in the Southbank area, but this is our first collaboration with the Vortex, one of London’s best jazz clubs.
John Warren is a great composer and arranger who has worked extensively with John Surman and many other greats of British jazz. His Tales of the Algonquin is a classic British big band album from the early 1970s, and his and Surman’s Brass Project was released by ECM. He did two more recent nonet albums that feature the likes of Gwilym Simcock, Stan Sulzmann, Jim Hart and Phil Donkin.
I wrote a blog for for the Vortex’s website that features some examples of John’s work and which you can read here.
Jazz Nursery commissioned John to write a new work in January this year. You can watch that performance here. This gig at the Vortex will be only the second performance of the suite, which is inspired by Algonquin folk tales from John’s native Canada.
The band features:
Steve Fishwick – trumpet
Sam Braysher – alto saxophone
James Allsopp – tenor saxophone
Owen Dawson – trombone
Sam Rapley – bass clarinet
Nick Costley-White – guitar
Alcyona Mick – piano
Oli Hayhurst – double bass
Dave Hamblett – drums
The gig is at 8pm on Monday 24th October. Tickets/more info here.