Live Jazz in London

Thu, Jul 9, 7:45 PM

Rachael Cohen Quintet

Vortex Jazz Club / Dalston / Map

Doors 7:45 PM, Music 8:30 PM - 2 sets of music Line-up: Rachael Cohen - Alto saxophone Bruno Heinen - Piano Alex Hitchcock - Tenor saxophone Tom Farmer - Double bass Jason Brown - Drums About Rachael Cohen, a London-based alto saxophonist and composer, is one of the brightest emerging stars of her generation. Her skills as a composer and improviser have gained her a great deal of attention in the UK and beyond. The Guardian notes: “Cohen takes a softly devious approach reminiscent of Lee Konitz – but, as with the canny Cool School veteran, the quietness is deceptive and the subtlety is in the weighting of phrases and the hipness with which she plays off the rhythm section.” Originally hailing from the Shetland Islands, Rachael began her musical education on the piano at age 4. She picked up the saxophone five years later, and kindled an early passion for improvisation. When she was 12, Miss Cohen’s family moved south from the Shetland Islands to Edinburgh, and she enrolled in the acclaimed City of Edinburgh Music School. There she studied with some of the UK’s most admired musicians, including saxophonist Martin Kershaw and pianist Lynda Cochrane. As lead Alto for a number of years in both the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland and Tommy Smith’s Youth Jazz Orchestra, she cut her teeth early playing alongside great British and International artists and regularly frequenting venues top Jazz venues across the UK.

Doors 7:45 PM, Music 8:30 PM - 2 sets of music Line-up: Phillip Golub - Piano Alex Hitchcock - Tenor saxophone Andrew Lisle - Drum kit About New York and London improvising scenes collide as Phillip Golub, Alex Hitchcock and Andrew Lisle explore new settings of their own music as well as Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton and Paul Motian. Phillip Golub, "a musician in fast ascent" (Wall Street Journal) and "a brilliant improviser" (JazzTimes), is a pianist, improviser, and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Los Angeles, he creates highly original and expressive music, grounded in but not constrained by his engaged practice in jazz, creative music, and new music. Technically audacious, Golub sublates distant sound worlds, negating conventions, yet building on traditions. Golub has been described by critics as "a polymath who elides any divide between improvised and composed music, or jazz and contemporary approaches whose practice can't be contained by genre or discipline" (The Wire Magazine) and as an artist with "seemingly boundless creativity" (Downbeat). His recordings have been praised as “cutting edge” (Sequence 21), while containing “a profound concept triumphant fascinating” (Pop Matters). As a player, he has been noted for bringing “assurance, charisma, and infectious enthusiasm” (Steve Smith) to his performances and manifesting “exhilarating energy, charisma, and a canny ability to transform the complex and even inscrutable into sophisticated yet joyful noise” (Allmusic.com). Golub is in demand as a pianist on New York’s jazz, creative music, and world music stages, performing and recording with a wide variety of artists such as Layale Chaker, DoYeon Kim, Lesley Mok, Anna Webber, Amir ElSaffar, Brad Shepik, Aynur Doğan, and Seajun Kwon. He has performed across the world at venues and festivals in Europe, North America, and Asia.