Saxophone Summit featuring:
Peter king, Mornington Lockett, Julian Siegal & Gábor
Bolla
@ the 606 Club
17 November 2008
Click an image to enlarge.
Peter King biography
Born 11 of August in Kingston upon Thames, during an air raid,
Peter King had a few lessons on piano and violin during his school
years. However it was not until he took up the clarinet at 15 that
he decided to make music his life. Only three months after getting
his first clarinet, King was offered a job with the local semi-pro
Dixieland band and got an early grounding in the history of jazz,
from King Oliver to Charlie Parker, who inspired him to change to
alto-sax.
When he was only eighteen King played the opening of London's famous
Ronnie Scott's Club and, for a while was the resident Quartet at
the club. He was also voted “New Star” 1959 in the Melody
Maker Jazz Poll and has been a major influence on the British Jazz
Scene ever since.
At only 21 years of age Peter King was invited by the great and
legendary genius Bud Powell to play with him at the Blue Note in
Paris. Even today this is one of his most memorable experiences
both musically and socially. As well as working with many Big Bands
including Maynard Ferguson, Tubby Hayes, StanTracey, Jonny Dankworth,
plus the great Ray Charles and the Brazilian legend Hermeto Pascoal,
King has accompanied many great show business stars. During his
long career he has worked with such people as James Brown, Tony
Bennet, Marlene Dietrich, Liberace, Lauren Bacall and countless
others.
During the mid-sixties, King had his quartet at Annie Ross’
club – Annie’s Room. He played regularly with great
singers such as Anita O’Day, Ernestine Anderson and Joe Williams.
During this time King gained an intimate knowledge of the Blues
and the real meaning of Soul which has never left him.After leaving
Annie's Room, King went on the road with Dakota Staton and Jon Hendricks,
both of whom had settled in the UK for a while. On one memorable
day he played on the steps of Saint Paul's Cathedral in front of
thousands of people at the memorial concert for Martin Luther King.
Sharing the honor were Jon Hendricks, Dakota Staton and Philly Joe
Jones.
With the arrival of the eighties King started to build his career
anew with the first of several albums under his own name. He also
started to tour extensively on the Continent, especially in France
where he acquired a lot of new fans. Over the years King has played
on many “Pop” sessions but the most long lived collaborations
have been with Ben Watt of “Everything But The Girl”
and with Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones. King is a member of
Charlie’s Quintet and apart from playing in Japan, Brazil
and the USA - including a sell-out week at the Blue Note in New
York - he has acted as musical director, composer, and arranger
on all of the quintet’s albums including Charlie’s “Tribute
To Charlie Parker” and the Billboard Chart topping “Warm
And Tender”. This coupled with his work with Charlie and composer
Michael Kamen on the film “Blue Ice” starring Michael
Caine, has added to his growing reputation as a writer.
King continues to keep abreast of new developments among the younger
generation of British musicians and really thrives on the challenge
of working with such phenomenal talents as Julian Josef and Mark
Mondesir.
Mornington Lockett biography
Tenor saxophonist Mornington Lockett studied at Dartington College
Of Arts before moving to London to attend the Guildhall School of
Music and Drama.As a member of the Ronnie Scott Sextet, Lockett
worked extensively in Britain and abroad. He has recorded albums
with Ronnie Scott, guitarist Jim Mullen, drummer Martin Drew, pianist
Stan Tracey, and jazz singers Sarah Jane Morris, Claire Martin,
Ian Shaw, and Lea Delaria. In 1995 Lockett performed at the Barbican
with Cuban trumpet supremo Arturo Sandoval and was subsequently
asked to appear with the group at the Cork Jazz Festival. Lockett
has also toured internationally with Oscar Peterson's long time
sidemen, drummer Martin Drew and bassist Niels Henning Ørsted
Pedersen, and toured Europe in the summer of 2004 with the legendary
hammond organist Jimmy Smith. In 2001 Lockett and Martin Drew formed
the group: Celebrating The Jazz Couriers, which recreated Tubby
Hayes and Ronnie Scott’s late 1950s group. The other featured
saxophonist in the band was the great Nigel Hitchcock, with Steve
Melling (piano), and Andrew Cleyndert (bass) completing the line-up.
Two CDs of this music are available now, Volume 1 and 2, both recorded
at live gigs in the UK.
In 2004 the ‘Celebrating’ group disbanded, and reformed
as The New Jazz Couriers with the phenomenal young vibes player
Jim Hart replacing the second sax, and Paul Morgan joining the band
on bass. The focus of the music has shifted slightly, taking in
the Tubby Hayes Quartet repertoire and also the compositions of
great British pianist and vibraphone player, Victor Feldman. There
is a new album “Azule Serapé”.
In 2006 Lockett joined up with British saxophone legends Don Weller
and Art Themen to form a popular group called the Three Jazz Tenors,
which is currently on tour in the UK.
In 2008 Lockett joined up with Sting/Wayne Shorter pianist Jason
Rebello, Black Crowes guitarist Paul Stacey, international drumming
star/producer Jeremy Stacey and bass icon Pino Palladino to form
a unique band called Actual Spoof. The group is affectionately revisiting
some classic 70s and 80s jazz-fusion and rock music, as well as
playing some distinctive new material.
Gábor Bolla biography
Gábor Bolla was born in 1988 in Budapest. He has played
the clarinet since the age of 10. In 2000 he won first prize in
the National Schools’ Clarinet Competition. Around that time
he also got his first taste of jazz and within a year he had begun
to play the soprano and tenor saxophones. In 2003 he got to the
semi-finals in the World Saxophone Competition at the Montreux Jazz
Festival. He has played at festivals in Bilbao, Bucharest, Delhi
and Bombay. At the end of 2004 Bolla won the Hans Koller Prize in
Vienna, he also received an invitation from the Vienna Art Orchestra
to play on their upcoming CD. The Gábor Bolla Quartet (with
Gábor Cseke on piano, Zoltán Oláh on bass,
and András Mohay on drums) was formed on the saxophonist’s
15th birthday. The debut record of the band includes tunes of Billie
Holiday, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, plus compositions
of the two Gábors. The latter match perfectly the pieces
written by the great masters. Despite their young age (the oldest
member, Cseke, is 33), all members of the band are already major
figures of the Hungarian Jazz scene.
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