Andrew McCormack featuring Kyle Eastwood
@ the Love Supreme Jazz Festival
7 July 2024

Musicicans: Andrew McCormack – piano, Kyle Eastwood – bass
& Rod Young - drums

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Musical micro dynamics and melodies to satisfy and soothe any jazz aficionado… I had to leave this hardworking trio to photograph Chaka Khan on the North Downs stage, but I rushed back as soon as my first three song quota was up to absorb more of what this trio had to offer and I was so glad I did!

Andrew McCormack biography

Pianist and composer Andrew McCormack has built a diverse international career with many appearances at major festivals and concert halls all over the world.

As a leader, Telescope, his debut album in 2005, was universally well received and earned him a BBC jazz award for rising star the following year. The pianist returned later to the trio format and released a series of other critically acclaimed albums that included Live in London in 2012 and First Light in 2014. The latter featured a New York rhythm section as a document to his having lived in the city for three years.

Andrew also teamed up with composer/saxophonist Jason Yarde to form the McCormack & Yarde Duo, with their first album release together, MY DUO, in 2009. The Duo has since gone on to firmly establish itself with international tours and further album releases that have garnering widespread critical recognition for their developments in the jazz music genre. “Places and Other Spaces” was released in 2011 and they followed up in 2013 to feature the Elysian String Quartet on the eclectic album, “Juntos.”

McCormack also has a keen interest in classical composition. Having studied with British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, he has gone on to receive commissions from various ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra. Andrew’s eight-minute overture, Incentive, was premiered by the orchestra at the Barbican in London and included on their Panufnik Legacies release in 2013.

In 2017, Andrew launched Graviton, a new band project which saw him in a more groove-based setting, including vocals and a wider sound world closer to what might be described as ‘Prog-Jazz’. Andrew produced an album from this project, Graviton: The Calling, which was released in June 2019 and is a fully conceived work that follows the classic hero’s journey. The album has won great praise from jazz critics and DJs.

The pianist has also been an invaluable sideman to many major international artists but is perhaps best known for his continued collaborations with the Kyle Eastwood Band for well over a decade.

Andrew has also toured as a solo pianist, performing concerts at various venues across the UK and, most notably, a sold out Kings Place/HallOne concert in London, opening for Michael Wollny in 2017.

With a new recording scheduled for release in 2020, the versatile pianist will deliver yet another offering to his already diverse portfolio.

Whatever the genre, throughout his body of work, Andrew McCormack has managed to consistently demonstrate a compelling setting for his musical ideas, a platform for virtuosic improvisation and a constant revivifying and adaptive embodiment of the jazz tradition.