BopFest Jazz Festival: Steve Fishwick Nonet - McCoy Tyner's "Tender Moments"

Steve Fishwick - trumpet, composer
Paul Booth - tenor sax, flute
Sammy Mayne - alto sax, flute
Anna Drysdale - French horn
Trevor Mires - trombone
Callum Au - tuba
Michael Weiss - piano
Jeremy Brown - bass
Matt Fishwick - drums

This concert features music from the legendary 1967 McCoy Tyner Blue Note album "Tender Moments", and marks the premiere of new work by Steve Fishwick specially commissioned by BopFest for this year's EFG LJF, as a reflection on the original album, featuring NYC pianist Michael Weiss in the role of Tyner.

Tyner recorded this album soon after leaving the John Coltrane group and embarking on a solo career. The music is influenced by Coltrane, but the sound and style is unmistakably Tyner's, forging a music heavily modal but with a hard bop aesthetic, a style that Coltrane had long since abandoned.

This music is rarely performed live and the wide range in timbre and colours available from the instrumentation (similar to Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool band) combined with the energy and excellent musicianship of this stellar ensemble promises this to be a memorable concert.

Steve Fishwick is widely considered to be one of the best jazz trumpet players ever to come from the UK, and is rapidly gaining a global reputation thanks to his flawless technique and his beautifully flowing, harmonically rich improvisations. Steve has released seven albums and worked with many of the greats from the USA such as Cedar Walton, Peter Washington and Anita O' Day. In 2014 he performed in NYC as part of Dave Douglas' Festival of New Trumpet, the first band to appear at the festival that was led by a British musician.

"Steve has his own style. He plays from the bottom to the top of the horn whilst maintaining the integrity of the chords. I can't think of another trumpet player that can do what he does." Wynton Marsalis