Before we announce the absolutely stellar line-up we have in store for you this month, we’d like to extend a huge thank you to all who came out to support Jazz at the Parakeet in February. Since we took over we’ve been really touched by the atmosphere and sense of community in the room each and every Monday night – and we know how much this means to the bands who come down to play!

Speaking of… an even bigger thanks to @nickcostleywhite, @stanbrunt, @adamosmianski, @reubengoldmark, and their bands for providing us with insanely enjoyable sets of such high-quality music.

So here’s to March, and long may the seriously high-quality music continue!

As usual, we appreciate any support you can give us by getting the word out about our gigs. We’re on Facebook and Instagram as @jazzattheparakeet; please share and tag us in all of your photos and videos! It also makes a really big difference to us when you prebook the tickets for the gig so we can get an idea of numbers on the night.

P.S. WeGotTicket sales will show as “Sold Out” a few hours before kick-off but please still come down as there will most likely be more tickets available on the door!

Monday 4th March – George Crowley Quartet

www.wegottickets.com/event/611462/

Alex Bonney – trumpet

Olie Brice – bass

George Crowley – reeds

Will Glaser – drums

This collaborative quartet formed in 2020’s first lockdown as a means of sonic therapy, deciding –  when gigs, audiences and open venues and were a remote prospect – to learn and explore music by Ornette Coleman. 

In the intervening years the repertoire has expanded to include other luminaries of the avant-garde – Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Albert Ayler, Arthur Blythe and more – explored in freewheeling and conversational style by 4 improvisers with distinctive voices.

Monday 11th March – The Alex Merritt/ Antonio Fusco Quartet

www.wegottickets.com/event/611464/

Alex Merritt – saxophone

Antonio Fusco – drums

Bruno Heinen – piano

Henrik Jensen – bass

The Alex Merritt/ Antonio Fusco Quartet reunites friends and musical compatriots Alex and Antonio with pianist Bruno Heinen and bassist Henrik Jensen. Building on a history of collaboration that spans performances in London and Beijing, Antonio and Alex have chosen original music for this tour, including some brand new compositions and arrangements, that highlight and bring out the distinctive approaches and musical personalities of each member of this band.

Contemporary straight-ahead influences sit side-by-side with inspiration from modern classical music leading to an engaging, fresh sound and approach to group interplay. The harmonic/ melodic worlds of Olivier Messiaen, Scriabin and Ravel combine with jazz influence from John Coltrane, Joe Henderson and others in Alex’s approach to writing. The pairing here with Bruno Heinen, whose roots are in both jazz and impressionistic classical music, is a natural one; a combination that brings fruitful musical rewards when joined by the powerhouse rhythm section of Fusco and Jensen.

Monday 18th March – Arbenz X Neame /Hart / Pursglove: “Conversation”

www.wegottickets.com/event/611467/

Percy Pursglove – trumpet/flugelhorn

Ivo Neame – Fender / Keyboards

Jim Hart – vibraphone, percussion

Florian Arbenz – drums, percussion

“Jazz is supposed to be the most unselfish of art forms. In jazz, you give yourself completely to make somebody else play their best. You try to do something to make them, inspire them to do something. So it is a matter of sacrifice.” – Dizzy Gillespie

In this brand new European collaboration, acclaimed Swiss drummer Florian Arbenz joins the sensational British musicians Percy Pursglove on trumpet/flugelhorn, Ivo Neame on Keys and Jim Hart on vibraphone/percussion to launch the album ‘Conversation’.

Florian collaborated with Pursglove and Jim Hart different contexts, but this is their first project together with Ivo Neame!

Arbenz’s choices for Conversation were selected for their unmistakably unique voices on their respective instruments. Arbenz himself says, “it doesn’t happen so often that I immediately get captured by a musician by just hearing him/her on a record. And I think this is a big link for me to Jim, Ivo and Percy.” 

An improvised exploration of the realm between jazz and improvised music, the quartet’s sophisticated and open-minded sound is equally comfortable in either world. Strikingly vast in texture and feeling, the ensemble shifts rapidly between tight, syncopated grooves, flurries of virtuosic trumpet playing, passages melancholic openness, and powerfully dense harmonies. 

With a slew of awards and world-class collaborations under their belts, the ensemble’s collective international reputation cannot be understated. 

Monday 25th March – Osian Roberts

 www.wegottickets.com/event/611821/

Osian Roberts was born and raised in Cardiff and took up the alto saxophone aged nine. He soon switched to tenor, and after showing early promise on the Welsh jazz scene, he won a scholarship to study jazz saxophone at The Royal Academy of Music in London, where he stayed after graduating. Whilst in London, he played with many of the UK’s leading jazz figures, including Dave Cliff, Mike Carr, Jim Mullen, Peter Ind, Iain Ballamy, Simon Woolf and Mark Nightingale. In addition to his work as a sideman, he formed a quintet with his Academy classmates Steve and Matt Fishwick, which recorded several albums on the Hard Bop Records label. After many years in London, Osian relocated to the Czech Republic, where he has since established himself as a valued member of the European jazz community.

more information soon..