Happy 2015 everyone! We’re looking forward to starting our year of gigs at Long White Cloud and the Vortex. In fact, the first week of the year is a double LUME week….

5th February @ Long White Cloud: Andrew Woolf Quintet & Sans Domicile Fixe

For our first week back at Long White Cloud, we’re happy to welcome two bandleaders with connections to F-IRE Collective, Zac Gvi and Andrew Woolf.

Andrew Woolf Quintet

Andrew Woolf grew up playing classical music before discovering jazz in his teens. Since then, his musical palette has continued to broaden, so that he is now known for his diversity across many musical settings. As well as playing with a variety of modern jazz ensembles (Button Band, Madwort Sax Quartet), he is also a leading exponent in the UK of Brazilan choro (a style with parallels to ragtime and folk), sings with the London Vocal Project (Kenny Wheeler, Bobby McFerrin) and performs regularly on the London Afrobeat scene.

This variety of experience and interest finds a unity of expression in his output as an improviser and writer, simultaneously accessible and surprising, moving and uplifting. His quintet places an emphasis on lyricism, atmosphere, sonority and playfulness, in which his soulful, warm and melancholy-tinged sound expresses a depth, clarity and honesty of emotion and feeling.

“… warm-toned mellifluous tenor saxophone… with elegant phrasing” – LondonJazz

Andrew Woolf tenor saxophone and clarinet
Robbie Robson trumpet
Ryan Williams guitar
Dave O’Brien double bass
Corrie Dick drums

Sans Domicile Fixe

Drawing their inspiration from Beat Poetry, SDF is a new group that brings together spoken word and groove music in a way that eschews the obvious hip hop connotations and searches for more free form and dynamic inter-relationships between the two. Taking the poems of Alistair Cartwright and others as a starting point, the rhythm section combines to create a form that’s part writing, part song.

Alistair Cartwright vocals
Zac Gvi keys
Ed Hiller drums
Plus guests to be announced….

As usual it’s doors 8pm, music at 8.30pm. £5 entry. See you there!

8th February: ‘LUME Presents…’ @ The Vortex

We’ve put together an exciting second season of our ‘LUME Presents…’ series at the Vortex Jazz Club. To start things off, we’re looking forward to welcoming a fantastic tentet and trio!

Roland Ramanan Tentet

This tentet comprises some of the most exciting musicians to emerge from the European free jazz/improvised music scene. Inspired by playing with the Peter Brotzmann tentet, the group combines original compositions with free and conducted improvised music to wildly sensual effect.

‘Throws a bomb under the usual carve-up between composition and improvisation’ (The Wire)

Roland Ramanan trumpet
Nick Malcolm trumpet
Ed Lucas trombone
Adrian Northover soprano saxophone
Ricardo Tejero alto saxophone
Rachel Musson tenor saxophone
Roberto Sassi electric guitar
Dominic Lash bass
Mark Sanders drums
Andrew Lisle drums

Andreae/Birchall/Cheetham with Javier Saso

A trio of Manchester’s finest improvisers, joined by a special guest. Tenor player Sam Andreae is known for his collaborations with Scandinavian musicians in the critically- acclaimed bands Trio Riot and Silence Blossoms, as well as countless other projects. Birchall and Cheetham’s duo was described by Mojo as ‘a psychedelic maelstrom of sound that threatens to atomise your walls’. The trio toured Scandinavia in 2013 and have performed widely around the UK and further afield. With their debut release newly out on the Tombed Visions label, they are joined tonight by Madrid experimental musician Javier Saso.

Sam Andreae tenor saxophone
David Birchall guitar
Andrew Cheetham drums
Javier Saso amplified objects, machines obsolètes, pickups, radios

Tickets are £8 in advance from the Vortex website, or £10 on the door. Join us for a night of improv explorations! Doors 7.30pm, music 8pm…