Art Themen.

Double header with Art Themen and FILO Allstars starts new year in style for Jazz Hastings

Jazz Hastings is starting off the New Year in style next Tuesday, January 10, with a special benefit performance at the East Hastings Sea Angling Association on the Stade. It will feature a double bill with the ever-popular Art Themen Quartet and an exciting new local band, the FILO Allstars. The club’s Julian Norridge previews the evening.

Some of the finest jazz musicians around are generously donating their time to raise money for Jazz Hastings, which is now in its 12th year. The club is run on a not-for-profit basis entirely by volunteers and aims to bring both established and emerging national and international jazz musicians to Hastings.

The evening will begin at 8.30 with a session from the Art Themen Quartet.
Themen, formerly an orthopaedic surgeon, is well-known to audiences in Hastings, and has played and recorded with many US and British jazz giants.

One of his central musical relationships was with legendary British pianist and composer Stan Tracey. Themen, whose early influences were Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins, was in all of Tracey’s groups, touring with him all over the world and all around the UK.

Themen will be accompanied by the Jazz Hastings Trio. Pianist John Donaldson, local resident and a driving force behind the club, has worked in both California and the UK with many leading American and British musicians.

Simon Thorpe is one of the most popular bass players in Britain and also leads a number of bands across a wide range of musical genres. Drummer Spike Wells has been a feature of the British jazz scene since the late ‘60s, when he joined the incomparable Tubby Hayes Quartet. He also spent a year with Humphrey Lyttelton’s band.

After the interval…

The second half of the evening will feature the FILO Allstars, named after the Old Town pub First In Last Out where they play regularly. Their internationally recognized saxophonist Jason Yarde is also a producer, musical director, arranger and composer who works across a number of musical styles.

His flugelhorn concerto All Souls Seek Joy was premiered by Hugh Masekela and the London Symphony Orchestra in 2007 and his BBC Proms compositional debut, Rhythm and Other Fascinations for piano trio and the BBC Concert Orchestra, won the inaugural BASCA – British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors – award for contemporary jazz composition in 2009.

New Zealand-born tenor saxophonist Greg Heath, resident in the UK since 1989, has worked with a wide range of jazz and popular musicians, including Dr John, Mica Paris, Van Morrison and Joan Armatrading. He too is also a composer and has extensive experience writing for film, television and interactive media.

The grammy-award winning trumpeter and producer James McMillan is well-known in Hastings for his appearances with Liane Carroll. He has produced a number of her successful albums as well as releasing five albums under his own name.

This impressive line-up is completed by drummer Tristan Banks, who has played with a wide variety of musicians across the UK and Europe. He is a specialist at Afro-Brazilian rhythms and has taught drum technique at a number of London music schools.

Jazz Hastings Double Bill With the Art Themen Quartet and the FILO Allstars.
Tuesday 10 January at East Hastings Sea Angling Association, beside the Lifeboat Station on the Stade, Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings TN34 3FJ. Doors open 7.45pm for an 8.30pm start. Tickets £10 on the door.

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