Jazz Market Announced at Barbican International Jazz and
Blues Festival

The Barbican
International Jazz and Blues Festival have just announced a new Jazz
Market to be held in the Barbican for the first time during the festival
weekends in May.

(PRWeb UK/PRWEB
) April 28, 2010 — The Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival
have just announced a new Jazz Market to be held in the Barbican for the
first time during the festival weekends in May.

The Jazz Market will showcase designer-makers and artists from the West
Country, with a scattering of food stalls – from West Country pickles
and preserves to world foods like crepes and Barbican seafood Thai
curries for festival go-ers to sample while they chill to the jazz music
on the waterfront.

‘We wanted to hold an event on the Waterfront which will attract people
to the Barbican all weekend, and encourage them to explore the music and
the Barbican’s fantastic mix of shops and culture,” said Festival
Director, Katie Thompson. “There’ll be an opportunity for Festival goers
to browse on the Barbican and stay here all day.”

The Jazz Market will be open from 10am to 6pm Saturday, Sunday and Bank
Holiday Monday, May 1, 2 & 3 and also on Saturday and Sunday May 8
& 9.

w: www.barbicanjazzandbluesfestival.com

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Journalists Notes:

Festival Headliners:
Empirical will open the Festival on Saturday May 1 at the Barbican
Theatre, and Dennis Rollins and Badbone will play the same venue on
Sunday May 2. Claire Martin and Ian Shaw will perform at the Sherwell
Centre, on Friday May 7 in a headlining performance staged in
conjunction with the University of Plymouth’s Peninsula Arts.

Bank Holiday Monday
The Festival begins on Saturday May 1, runs until May 9 and encompasses
the May Day Bank Holiday Monday. So organisers will be pulling out the
stops to put on a fantastic, free day of music, street entertainment and
the glorious Grand Festival Jazz Parade – complete with jazz umbrella
waving.

Swing Sunday
Swing Sunday is a new Festival tradition, begun just last year, where we
pay homage to that section of jazz known as swing.

Swing music continues to appear in today’s charts – think Michael Buble,
Robbie Williams, Jamie Cullum – and we devote the final Sunday to this
infectious genre.

Watch out for swing bands, swing dancing in the street, colourful
costumes and singalong tunes. We’ve teamed up with Plymouth swing dance
teaching outfit Mad About Swing to bring workshops and dance action to
the Festival.

Swing bands and performers are being programmed throughout the day, in
the area surrounding Plymouth’s Mayflower Steps – from where the Pilgrim
Fathers set out for the New World in 1620.

Now the Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival is importing US
art-forms blues and jazz to sound around this historic point of
disembarkation. Everyone will be doing the Mayflower Step by the time
Swing Sunday ends!

Headliner biographies

Claire Martin
Britain’s leading female jazz singer, Claire Martin, released her new
album, ‘A Modern Art’, earlier this year to glowing reviews. The
Scotsman said “she is still a cut about the competition” whilst Time Out
called it “her finest album to date”. Praise indeed for, as the Sunday
Times called her, “the most gifted jazz singer this country has produced
in 20 years”.

Claire Martin won Best Vocalist at the British Jazz Awards 2009,
ultimately decided by public vote – magazine readers, gig goers, radio
listeners and musicians all contributed.

She has performed onstage and in the studio with international artists
such as Noel Gallagher, Mark Murphy, Curtis Stigers, Jamie Cullum and
Kurt Elling, and supported legendary figures including James Brown and
Tony Bennett, who lists her as one of his favourite singers.

Since 2000 Claire has presented ‘Jazz Line-up’ on BBC3 where she
regularly interviews jazz greats.

“A class act” Jazz UK magazine

“A voice of pure quality” The Sunday Times
“In an era when young jazz singers tend to sound far too much like their
idols, there is no
mistaking the voice of Claire Martin who combines a cool, burnished tone
with the ear of a born
musician” The New York Times

Ian Shaw

Best Jazz Vocalist at the BBC Jazz Awards in 2007 and 2004, Ian Shaw has
already amassed a number of highly acclaimed albums and is a popular
performer both in the UK and the US. An incredibly colourful character,
he has been cited, along with Mark Murphy and Kurt Elling, as one of the
world’s finest male jazz vocalists.

Collaborators over the years have been many and include Quincy Jones,
Abudullah Ibrahim, Guy Barker, Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Iain Ballamy,
Mornington Lockett, Barb Jungr, Cleo Laine, John Dankworth, Cedar
Walton, Joe Lovano and Joe Beck. Shaw’s ongoing and highly popular
collaboration is a celebrated duet show with Claire Martin, the UK’s
finest female jazz singer

“Our finest jazz singer. Marvellous” – Time Out

“He has few rivals” – Sunday Times
“One of the contemporary scene’s class acts” – The Guardian

Empirical
Empirical have won UK and European jazz awards for their work which has
put them at the forefront of new jazz.

They’re utterly contemporary, yet discernibly influenced both by the
classic jazz of the 1950s and ’60s (Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane,
Pharoah Sanders, Ornette Coleman). They opened the London Jazz Festival
last year, performed at the famous Newport Jazz Festival in the States
and feature regularly in national music media.

Their eponymous debut album was produced by Courtney Pine and showcases
the band’s neat, smart sound perfectly. Their second album Out’n’In is a
homage to free jazz alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy and has won them
plaudits including being listed No 3 in Mojo Magazine’s Jazz Albums of
2009.

Empirical are:
Nathaniel Facey – Alto Sax; Tom ‘Tillah’ Farmer – Double Bass; Shaney
Forbes – Drums; Lewis Wright – Vibraphone; George Fogel – Piano

Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2008 – BEST ENSEMBLE
EBU/European Jazz Competition – WINNER 2007
Peter Whittingham Award – WINNER December 2007
Jazzwise – ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2007
Mojo – JAZZ ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2007

“Empirical could turn out to be one of the most important bands in UK
jazz history.” Jazzwise Magazine

Dennis Rollins & Badbone

Multi-award winning British jazz star, Dennis Rollins is an acclaimed
musician, composer and educator, well-known on the British and
international jazz scene, and celebrated for his versatility and unique
approach to the underrated trombone, to which he brings a unique and
exciting approach. His mighty sound can be heard to full effect in his
award winning band Badbone & Co’s repertoire of groove-based, funky
dance music with jazz overtones.

This British jazz trombonist has worked with Roy Ayers, The Roots,
Dionne Warwick, Jamiroquai, Cyprus Hill, Hermeto Pascoal, Brand New
Heavies, George Clinton, Lonnie Liston Smith, Blur, US3, Tom Jones,
Erykah Badu, Marcus Miller, Courtney Pine, Sting, Percy Sledge, Gorillaz
and more.

Editor’s notes

High resolution imagery is available on request or for download from the
PR section of the Festival website

Longer artiste biographies are available on request

Tickets are not yet on sale for these gigs Tickets are on sale for these
gigs online from our website

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