Now in its fifth year, for the first time much of Abergavenny’s wall2wall Jazz Festival will be live streamed, making the programme available to jazz fans far and wide.
The Shez Raja Collective will perform on Saturday night
The event starts on Thursday 31st August with the Festival Dinner at the Angel Hotel, with Moscow Drug Club providing the after-eats music. The fine food/great music combination has proved popular, with only a handful of tickets left.
The live streamed programme is at the 70-seat Melville Theatre, starting on the Friday with a double-set tribute to the past titled ‘1910 & All That Jazz’. Top-of-the-bill names taking part include pianist Liam Dunachie, David Ingamells on drums, on double bass Misha Mullov-Abbado, Jonny Bruce on trumpet and sax player Ben Waghorn, with Megan Thomas and Debs Hancock providing the vocals. Hopefully, it will not be just those on stage ‘looking the part’ – quite a few are threatening to come wearing their best 1920s outfits.
Saturday at the Melville includes a widely varying programme, starting with the exciting young look of the Ollie West Band & String Quartet. The afternoon also sees the amazing Africa Entsha take to the stage, with their slick a cappella performance that reached a global audience when they performed at the 2010 World Cup opening ceremony.
The ‘tea time’ programme welcomes Ian Shaw, who was awarded ‘Best Jazz Vocalist’ at both the 2004 and 2007 BBC ‘Jazz Awards’. He is joined by pianist Barry Green, who is in constant demand at many of the UK’s top jazz clubs.
Early evening on stage is the ever-popular Gilad Atzmon with the Orient House Ensemble, which has toured extensively around the world and so far produced six albums.
The Saturday closes with the world-class Shez Raja Collective, which has headlined at major international jazz festivals from Moscow to New Zealand. To add cream on to cream, the band will be joined by award-winning trombonist Dennis Rollins as special guest.
On the Sunday, the festival moves to Abergavenny’s Market Hall for its established free-access Jazz Alley. This year, the headline act will be the Budapest Ragtime Band, with much more music in support – including an opening-performance by Samba Galez.
The festival bar and great food will be available during the afternoon and that will be continued into the evening Boogie Party, which welcomes back the Red Stripe Band, which was so much enjoyed last year. A great way to bring wall2wall’s four day festival to an end.
The full festival programme, with many video clips and an online box office, are on the website at www.wall2walljazz.co.uk.
Mike Skilton
