UPDATE: GIG CANCELLED
Owing to serious family illness Centre-Line have had to cancel this gig. Having taken into consideration the forecasts of poor weather and driving conditions on Sunday we have, with regret, decided not to find a replacement act.
There is no Milestones gig this month.

Centre-Line

Fresh and vibrant contemporary jazz. A powerful quartet featuring some of the UK’s most exciting musicians using a huge palette of colours and the influences of Michael Brecker, John Coltrane, John Scofield and Weather Report, playing original material with startling spontaneity and energy. With the great Russell van den Berg (tenor sax / Ewi), Jez Franks (guitar), Jon Harvey (bass guitar) and Darren Altman (drums). Listen to the music of Centre-Line here and here and watch YouTube footage of Centre-Line here

‘Classy contemporary jazz with a personal stamp’
The Guardian

‘A group that deserves to be heard. I am very impressed by the writing and musicianship as evidenced on their new CD recording’
Peter Erskine, jazz musician

‘Altman’s rhythmic bite perfectly complimenting Berg’s harmonic bark. Balanced by the wonderfully grooving rhythm section, Berg’s explosive chops that maintain a sense of drama and surprise through every twisting bar, this is a band to watch’
Jazzwise magazine

‘…full of sustained, great unique playing and writing. One can just feel the joy that these close friends must conjure up on the bandstand’
Randy Brecker, jazz musician

Part of a national Jazz Services tour

Admission - £7 / £6 (concession)

Don Weller
and The
Chris Ingham
Trio

Widely recognised as one of the most creative tenor saxophonists of the last forty years, Don Weller is an original. Initially inspired by Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins, his playing is characterised by an unfettered mix of commitment, enjoyment and quiet passion. A programme of standards given superb support by Chris Ingham (piano), Mick Hutton (double bass) and George Double (drums).

Listen to excerpts of Don's music here:

Watch YouTube footage of Don here

Read 'Onward Flows The Don', Jazz UK magazine's 2003 feature on Don Weller here

'Weller's characteristic, endlessly-flowing, molten-lava solos brought sheer grinning delight...’
Jazz UK

'All bruising honesty and rugged romance...alternately rousing, hummable and charmingly songful…’
The Penguin Guide to Jazz

'Like Sonny Rollins, Weller has always treated bar-lines as if they were invisible…his whooshing breathiness and restraint on ballads and the patience and tantalisingly bent notes with which he builds a solo’
The Guardian

Admission - £7 / £6 (concession)

DAGDA
featuring
Joe Wright

Tom Harrison (alto sax), Joe Wright (tenor/soprano sax), Billy Adamson (guitar), Tom West (bass) and Mike Clowes (drums).

Full details to follow.

Listen to Dagda here and watch YouTube footage of Dagda here.

Part of a national Jazz Services tour

Admission - £7 / £6 (concession)

*PLEASE NOTE*: details of concerts and musicians appearing are correct at the time of writing although changes are sometimes necessary. Please feel free to check with us before attending.

Somebody who decides to play jazz for a living knows he will struggle for the rest of his life, unless he opts for predictable and soothing compromise. Honest jazz involves public exploration. It takes guts to make mistakes in public, and mistakes are inherent. If there are no mistakes, it's a mistake. In Keith Jarrett's solo improvisations you can hear him hesitate, turn in circles for a while, struggle to find the next idea. Bird used to start a phrase two or three times before figuring out how to continue it. The heart and soul of improvisation is turning mistakes into discovery. On the spot. Now. No second draft. It can take a toll night after night in front of an audience that just might be considering you shallow.

From 'Close Enough For Jazz', Mike Zwerin (1983)

Now, divine air! Now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done.

From 'Much Ado About Nothing' (Act II, Scene iii), William Shakespeare (1600)

Onstage, he storms inwardly, glaring at his audience, wincing at his trumpet, stabbing and tugging at his ear. Often his solos degenerate into a curse blown again and again through his horn in four soft beats. But Miles can break hearts. Without attempting the strident showmanship of most trumpeters, he still creates a mood of terror suppressed - a lurking and highly exciting impression that he may some day blow his brains out playing.

Barry Farrell, writing in Time Magazine (February 28 1964)