TIME: 8.00 – 11.00PM

TICKETS: £14

PERSONNEL

Helena Kay Saxophone
Kieran McLeod Trombone
Tom Cawley Piano
David Ingamells Drums
Calum Gourlay Bass and Compositions

Calum Gourlay was born in Glasgow and grew up playing in Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra, The National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland and Tommy Smith’s Youth Jazz Orchestra, in which he was the very first bassist selected from across Scotland at the age of 16.

In 2004 he was the only bassist enrolled that year for the B.Mus.Jazz course at The Royal Academy of Music. He graduated with first class honours in 2008.

He has since gone on to establish two residencies at the Vortex Jazz Club, London – Thelonious from 2015 to 2017 presenting the entire catalogue of Thelonious Monk with Martin Speake and Hans Koller; and a monthly big band residency playing his own music starting in February 2017.

As a sideman, he has performed with many leading jazz musicians from across the UK, and the world. Gourlay has held the acoustic bass chair with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Tommy Smith, since 2006. He has also featured prominently with Tommy Smith’s own quartet.

Since 2018 Calum has been a professor of Jazz Bass at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance. He has also taught one to one at the Royal Academy of Music and presented his own big band music with The Guildhall Big Band.

His debut album ‘Live at The Ridgeway’ (2015) received rave reviews from the UK jazz press, not least because of its confident format – a solo, live recording in front of an intimate audience.

In 2019 Calum released his first quartet album ‘New Ears’ on Ubuntu records. In 2020 the album was nominated for both a Scottish Jazz Award and an Ivor Novello Composer Award.

For this gig he has expanded his quartet to a quintet with the addition of renowned pianist Tom Cawley.

Tom Cawley

Since winning the Young Jazz Musician of the Year award in 1998 he has played all over the world and led bands in residencies at the Blue Note club (New York) and Ronnie Scott’s (London).

He has been instrumental in shaping the unique sound of the genre-bending iconoclasts Acoustic Ladyland, as well as writing and arranging songs with Gwyneth Herbert for her Blue Note debut album Between Me And The Wardrobe.
2007 saw the debut of his much-acclaimed group Curios, a vehicle for Tom’s original music. The album Hidden, made a startling impact on the jazz scene, winning a nomination as Best Album in the BBC Jazz Awards and reaching the top five in both the HMV and Radio 3 Jazz Charts. MOJO described the record as ‘an extraordinary collection of deeply personal, highly evolved music’; the Independent made Hidden ‘Album Of The Week’ and called it ‘never less than spellbinding’, and Musician magazine declared Curios ‘a shining light for British jazz’.

Tom is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music

Helena Kay 

Award-winning tenor saxophonist Helena Kay is quickly becoming renowned as one of the UK’s most creative and virtuosic jazz artists, with two critically acclaimed albums, four UK tours and performances at the UK’s most esteemed jazz venues such as Ronnie Scott’s, The Royal Albert Hall and The Vortex.

Bobby Wellins would have heard a kindred spirit in the unhurried gracefulness of Kay’s improvising… the marvellously self-possessed Kay’s sheer musicality, sure tone and beautifully expressed flow of ideas that stood out above all in a literally winning performance.‘Kay produces a beautiful tone on tenor… The improvisations are superbly well constructed, always keeping the original theme within touching distance, and the use of pauses and space adds both to the overall beguiling effect and the sense of genuine instant composition’  – Rob Adams

Kieran McLeod

(b: 1990) Originally from Aberdeen, Kieran McLeod is an award-winning jazz trombonist and a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music. He has toured with artists of international fame such as Charlie Hunter, London Electricity and the late Keith Tippett. As a member of the Julian Argüelles Septet, Iain Ballamy’s Anorak XL, Riot Jazz Brass Band, Young Pilgrims, WorldService Project and Space Ghetto

David Ingamells

Based in London, David Ingamells has established himself as one of the most versatile jazz drummers of his generation. He performs regularly at all the major jazz clubs and venues in the UK, such as Ronnie Scott’s, the Vortex, the 606, the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall, Café Posk, and PizzaExpress Live. On the international scene, he has made appearances at Tauberphilharmonie Weikersheim, Germany (Julian Bliss Septet, 2019), Belgrade Jazz Festival, Serbia (Henry Spencer and Juncture, 2019), Riverboat Jazz Festival in Silkeborg, Denmark (The Dixie Ticklers, 2018), Cork Jazz Festival (Jon Shenoy, 2018), in Seville (The Dixie Ticklers, 2016), and at WOMAD (Khiyo, 2022). Equally at home in large and small ensembles, he is the drummer for Kate Williams’ Four Plus Three, Helena Kay’s KIM Trio, and the Tobie Carpenter Organ Trio, and he performs frequently with the London City Big Band, the Andrew Linham Orchestra, and the London Jazz Orchestra.