Brighton Jazz Festival
Despite its deserved reputation as a creative hotspot and a magnet for the UK’s vibrant musical community, it’s been many years since Brighton had a jazz festival of its own.
Now the Palace Pier, New Generation Jazz and Latest Music’s PierFest have joined forces to create the jazz festival that the city deserves.
Over four consecutive nights from Thursday September 29th to Sunday October 2nd, Brighton Jazz Festival will be bringing some of the UK’s finest jazz talent to perform in the location that captures the spirit of Brighton in all its quirky fun-loving glory – the world famous Palace Pier.
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Thursday 29th September
Tony Kofi & NYJO Present: The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall
One of the most recorded jazz composers of all time, Thelonious Monk needs no introduction. Making numerous contributions to the standards cannon, ‘Straight No Chaser’, ‘Round Midnight’, ‘Blue Monk’, to name a few, it’s hard to overstate Monk’s importance to jazz history. A formative influence on Bebop, Monk’s unorthodox approach to composition and improvisation with its characteristic dissonances, angular melodic twists, switched key releases, percussive stabs and abrupt, dramatic use of silence remains thrilling for performers and audiences alike. Recording volumes for Blue Note & Columbia Records, his list of collaborators is a who’s who of jazz iconoclasts: Art Blakey, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins. The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall is his seminal large ensemble recording, released in 1959. Under the direction of Tony Kofi, NYJO celebrates this groundbreaking work.
About Tony Kofi
Multi-instrumentalist, Tony Kofi is a UK Jazz icon. A player of the Alto, Baritone, Soprano,Tenor saxophones and flute; the award-winning artist has established himself as a totemic presence in British jazz as a musician, a composer, and educator. Known for his fluent and fiery hard-bop style, Tony remains one of the most in-demand players in the country. For those unfamiliar, you may have heard Tony’s contributions to a ream of projects alongside, The World Saxophone Quartet, Courtney Pine, Donald Byrd, Eddie Henderson, The David Murray Big Band, Sam Rivers Rivbe Big Band, Andrew Hill Big Band, Abdullah Ibrahim, Macy Gray, Julian Joseph Big Band, Harry Connick JR, Byron Wallen’s Indigo, Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s Coltrane Configurations and Ornette Coleman. He currently leads his own bands including the Tony Kofi Quartet, Tony Kofi Sphinx Trio, Future Passed Trio, and is also the co-founder of the Monk Liberation Front. ‘The music of Thelonious Sphere Monk is like a journey into the past, present and future all at the same time’ – Tony Kofi.
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Friday 30th September
New Generation Jazz Present: IFE OGUNJOBI + PYJAEN
New Generation Jazz has been promoting emerging artists on the UK Jazz scene since 2015. Tonight they bring some of the most exciting current voices to the coast for the Brighton Jazz Festival. Featuring band of brothers the mighty PYJAEN and more to be announced.
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Saturday 1st October
Tomorrows Warriors Present: Gary Crosby’s ‘Mingus Moves’ + Keyon Harrold
Bassist, band leader and co-founder of Tomorrow’s Warriors, Gary Crosby OBE brings together his sextet for a night celebrating the legendary jazz innovator and composer Charles Mingus, marking what would have been Mingus’ centenary year. An instantly recognisable figure as he played double bass, Mingus was an imposing physical presence on stage. For this special celebration Crosby will lead his sextet through his personal favourite from the Mingus catalogue – Mingus Moves, recorded in 1973 and possibly his last great album. There will also be some classic Mingus tracks including Goodbye Pork Pie Hat and II BS.
Keyon Harrold was born and raised in Ferguson, MO, the St. Louis suburb that tore into America’s national consciousness in 2014 with the police shooting of Michael Brown and the bitter protests and riots that followed. While Ferguson looms large in Harrold’s album The Mugician, it examines our troubled times through a far wider lens than any one tragedy. Sweeping and cinematic, the music draws on elements of jazz, classicval, rock, blues, and hip hop to create something uniquely modern, unmistakably American. Guests including Pharoahe Monch, Gary Clark, Jr., Big K.R.I.T., Guy Torry, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Robert Glasper add to the record’s eclectic nature, but it ultimately triumphs as a unified, cohesive whole both because of Harrold’s virtuosic skill as a trumpeter and songwriter and because of his relentlessly optimistic belief in brighter days to come.
Keyon Harrold kicks off his world tour in the UK at the Brighton Jazz Festival on October 1st 2022.
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Sunday 2nd October
Chelsea Carmichael + Binker Golding
8pm – Binker Golding Band
Internationally renowned saxophonist/composer brings all-star band to play his new album pulling together an unmissable world class fusion of jazz and americana.
9.30pm – Chelsea Carmichael
Saxophonist, composer and arranger Chelsea Carmichael is an understated innovator and educator, quietly adding her own contribution to the iteration of jazz that has evolved on these islands. She’s a warm and hypnotic player, who brings subtle and considered improvisation to everything she does. She’s already been part of a Mercury-nominated band – she played on SEED Ensemble’s 2019 ‘Driftglass’ – and currently plays with Theon Cross and the hyper-popular Outlook Orchestra who play for huge audiences at major venues and festivals. She also writes and arranges for her own ensemble.
