Brandon Allen's Tribute To Gene Ammons

Brandon is an expat Australian saxophonist who has made quite an impression on the scene since taking up residence in London. A leading soloist in several jazz orchestras back home he also led his own successful group before decamping to Europe in 2002. His wonderfully fluent and incisive sax playing has been heard in prestigious venues all over Europe and at numerous festivals around the world, including the Womad World Music Festival, Reading Festival, Brecon Jazz Festival, The Vittoria and Terrassa Jazz Festivals in Spain, Manly Jazz Festival in Australia and the London Jazz Festival. In London alone he has performed with the likes of Eric Clapton, Mica Paris, Jools Holland, BBC Big Band and Omar, regularly hosts the Late Late Show at Ronnie Scott’s and is currently the featured saxophonist with the Kyle Eastwood Band, which gives you an idea of just how good he is. Tonight, for the first time, Brandon will be bringing his really exciting Gene Ammons Project to the Club. This is a quartet dedicated to the US master saxophonist Gene Ammons, one of the founders of the Chicago style of tenor sax playing and an artist whom Brandon holds in the highest of regard. From the early 1950's Ammons led his own bands, featuring artists such as John Coltrane, Donald Byrd and Kenny Burrell, but it was probably his two tenor sax "duels" with sax star Sonny Stitt that brought him to wider public attention. His broad and distinctive sound and strongly melodic, hard bop-influenced approach helped him to cross genres, and his unique use in the 1960's of the Hammond B3 organ in the trio format helped establish him as one of the founders of the "Soul/Jazz" style that was to become so prevalent in later years. The Project tonight will focus on music that he either wrote and/or recorded, spanning the whole of Ammons's career, from his early bebop beginnings in the late 1940's to the Groove tracks of the 1970's. In addition to Brandon on sax, the line-up for this 606 show features Arnie Somogyi on bass, Matt Home on drums and Brandon's Special Guest, the fantastic Dutch musician Bas Van Lier on piano/keyboards and, of course Hammond organ. Absolutely not to be missed, this one.

“Brandon Allen is arguably the most exciting tenor player in Britain today” Jazzwise; "His four-octave range and flawless command...offer something for fans of the entire history of the instrument" London Jazz News