Live Jazz: Jonathan Gee Trio SW

We’re very excited to present pianist Jonathan Gee, one of the UK’s finest players with an international reputation including many European tours and frequent trips to New York. He is perhaps best known to the Bristol audience for some of the most memorable nights at the legendary Albert Inn, where he appeared many times with saxophonist Ed Jones and trumpeter Damon Brown. He visits as part of a short SW tour facilitated by Devon based bass player and sculptor Marcus Vergette.

Jonathan is one the most prolific and imaginative composer-pianists operating today, with a succession of ever-enticing bands and projects with world class line-ups from Europe and the USA. Aside from his own bands with which he has recorded 8 albums, he has also worked closely with Bobby Wellins, Claire Martin and Tim Whitehead, Pharoah Sanders, Mark Murphy and Art Farmer. With Tony Kofi he co-founded the Monk Liberation Front, whose legendary performances of the complete Thelonious Monk catalogue have led to award-winning recordings.  He has performed in groups comprised of leading musicians from France, Finland and Italy, and a fantastic trio emerging from the hothouse of the New York jazz scene featuring Joseph Lepore and Nasheet Waits which has packed out Dizzy’s at Lincoln Centre.

Marcus Vergette, musician, bell-maker, sculptor, was born on the banks of the Mississippi river in Southern Illinois. He grew up in the UK. Much of his recent work involves making large bells (up to 3 metres high) in bronze, – his Time and Tide Bells. These are hung in specific locations around the coast and rung by the action of the sea at high tide. The first was installed at Appledore, Devon, in 2009. Subsequent sites range from Trinity Buoy Wharf, on the Thames, to the Outer Hebrides. Marcus is an accomplished double bass player and composer, and has played in projects led by UK jazz legend Mike Westbrook over the past two decades.