View From The Tower

30th September 2012 

2.00pm @ Vortex Jazz Club

View From the Tower is a new series of performances focusing on British composition and its multiple influences. Marking the opening of the residency is a septet consisting of: Rory Simmons (trumpet), Tori Freestone (flute), Trish Clowes (tenor sax), Ivo Neame (piano), Dave Mannington (bass), Tim Giles (drums) and Dan Messore (guitar). 

Rory Simmons

I am a trumpet player/ composer living in London since 2000. Have several projects on the go, 4tet (music featured on this page) feat Ivo Neame-piano, Tom Mason-bass, Dave Smith-drums. Also formed chordless quintet CURVE with trumpet, tenor/clt, bari sax/bass clt with bass drums. Quite free with loads of densely composed stuff-and odd meters. Just started a new project, large emsemble playing music influenced by Dave Douglas's Parrallel Worlds, Stravinsky, Julian Arguelles Octet, Aka Moon, Bloodcount, Messian etc. Featuring 2 strings, 3 woodwind, 3 rythm section, percussion and me. All original stuff; quite atonal in places, folky in places, heavily composed in places and free in places! CURVE and my quartet are part of the Loop collective. Currently in the middle of a world tour with singer/pianist Jamie Cullum.

Tori Freestone

I've played saxes/flutes/violins with a wide variety of bands in a variety of styles including NYJO (1990-94), the Creative Jazz Orchestra, 'Orquesta La Timbala', and country legend Lee Hazlewood. More recently I've been working with Andy Sheppard, Rory Simmons' 'Fringe Magnetic' (two albums available on the loop label), pianist and composer Naadia Sheriff, Neil Yates and the N-Circle Jazz Orchestra, the E17 Large Ensemble, the Jamil Sheriff Big Band, 'Solstice' (a sextet featuring John Turville, Brigitte Beraha, Jez Franks etc), 'Compassionate Dictatorship' and my own trio.

Trish Clowes

I started having piano lessons when I was 4 and I quite often made up little tunes rather than practicing what I was supposed to be working on. 

I continued to do this right through my childhood and it was when I started playing jazz and improvising that it became more of a passion. I

t was my own love of composing and improvising that made me choose to make a career out of music, but in terms of mentoring, it has generally been the saxophonist/composer Iain Ballamy who has guided me along the way.

Ivo Neame

Neame attended The King's School, Canterbury, and studied jazz saxophone at the Royal Academy of Music in a year group that included pianist Gwilym Simcock. He was mentored by Martin Speake and Steve Buckley, as well as F-IRE Collective founder Barack Schmool. Neame has recorded and performed on piano and saxophone with leading jazz artists around world establishing himself as one of the leading composers and pianists on the British scene.

Dave Mannington

Mannington's dynamic quintet Rif Raff plays original music written by him. The starting point for the music is collective improvisation but compositionally it draws on as wide a range of styles including folk, electronic music, “classical” as well as contemporary modern jazz. He says that, the most important thing for us is to develop a band sound and understanding so each time we play the music can be re-invented together, often quite radically.

Tim Giles

Giles is a jazz drummer who won the Daily Telegraph Young Composer of the Year Award in 1992 at the age of 12 and has gone on to perform with a variety of jazz musicians. Giles was a member of Richard Fairhurst's Hungry Ants, and later formed his own group, Fraud, with James Allsopp who he met at the Royal Academy for Music. Both are members of the north London-based Loop Collective. 

Dan Messore

Messore has been described by Iain Bellamy as "a mature and confident musician with an individual approach to writing and playing.”  As someone who has inherited a diverse range of musical influences, it has undoubtedly formed part of his musical identity. Messore even cites the Brazilian Santa claus look-alike Hermeto Pascoal as an influence.  Messore's first album Indigo Kid released this year is an inspired piece of work mixing styles but at the same time succeeds in maintaining a coherence. 

Check out Babel Label http://babel-label.bandcamp.com/