The BILLY MARROWS BAND brings together several of the UK’s most exciting improvisers to explore Billy’s unique, boundary-pushing compositions. The listener is drawn into a musical world of light and dark, chaos and calm, joy and mystery, where events don’t always unfold as you might expect.
With a broad spectrum of influences including Wayne Krantz, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn, Henry Threadgill and Django Bates, the Billy Marrows Band’s vibrantly melodic, groovy and expressive music explores the relationship between improvised and composed music, generating a fertile playground for these highly creative musicians. Their music incorporates grooves from across the globe and takes inspiration from many genres, including jazz, funk, avant-garde jazz and classical.
Billy Marrows is a London-based guitarist and multi award-winning composer/arranger. He has recently toured the UK with the Tom Barford Group, Tom Ridout’s No Excuses Band and Patchwork Jazz Orchestra. Appearing on several albums, Billy was singled out as ‘one to watch’ in the Jazzwise review of Tom Barford’s album ‘Bloomer’, released on Edition records in 2018. Billy has won the 2019 Eddie Harvey Jazz Arranger of the Year Award as well as both the small ensemble and big band category of the Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition in 2016 and 2018 respectively. In 2018, Billy studied with Vince Mendoza at the Metropole Orkest Arrangers Workshop in Holland and his arrangement of Man in the Mirror was performed by the Metropole Orkest and New York based singer-songwriter Becca Stevens.
Line up:
Billy Marrows – Guitar (Tom Barford Group, Patchwork Jazz Orchestra)
Chris Williams – Alto Sax (Led Bib, Let Spin)
Huw V Williams – Bass (HON, Ivo Neame Quintet)
Jay Davis – Drums (Big Bad Wolf, Alex Hitchcock Quintet)
AuB is the London based quartet masterminded by two young saxophonists, Tom Barford and Alex Hitchcock, musicians who are making huge waves as part of the next generation of virtuosic instrumentalists intent on doing things their way. AuB refers to the meeting of two musical minds: instrumental sounds melded into one group resonance.
Tom Barford was the recipient of the prestigious Kenny Wheeler Prize in 2017 and released his debut album ‘Bloomer’ on Edition Records last year. Peter Whittingham Award-winning saxophonist Alex Hitchcock has led his quintet at Umbria Jazz Festival, Love Supreme and Ronnie Scott’s, releasing their debut album on Spanish label Fresh Sound New Talent in May 2019.
‘This is adventurous, risk-taking music. With no chordal instrument to tie them down, the twin front liners are free to roam at will, pushing hard against the shifting rhythmic and harmonic boundaries sketched out by the endlessly creative team of Fergus Ireland on bass and James Maddren on drums’ – Jazzwise
Tom Barford: ‘We are witnessing the birth of a new star in the jazz firmament’ –Evan Parker
Alex Hitchcock: ‘A fantastic talent… undoubtedly one of the stars of the future’ – Helen Mayhew, JazzFM
