With the end of a cold, cold January fast approaching 🥶, we’ve got an almighty line-up of burning bands to make you forget that it was winter at all! 🔥

See below for our listings this month and the links for purchasing tickets. We can’t wait to see you!

As usual, we’d like to extend a huge thank you for your continued support; we’d be nothing without our audiences, and the musicians really thrive when we manage to fill the room! So tell your friends and family, and share our posts far and wide to help us continue to bring our brand of high-level live creative music to our humble home above The Parakeet pub each and every Monday night.

We’re on Facebook and Instagram as @jazzattheparakeet; please share and tag us in all of your photos and videos!

 P.S. WeGotTicket sales will show as “Sold Out” a couple of hours before doors open at 8pm but please still come down as there will most likely be tickets available on the door.

Ashley and Kasper x

3/2 The Flame

wegottickets.com/event/646757/

Robert Mitchell – keys
Ollie Brice – bass
Andrew Lisle – drums

Robert Mitchell is an award-winning pianist, keyboard player, composer, songwriter, festival curator, poet, and author. He has recorded fourteen albums of his own projects, three poetry collections and participated in over 100 projects as a sideman and has performed in more than 40 countries. Apart from being a pianist, composer and innovator, he is a festival creator and curator as well as a highly respected educator. Robert also leads TRUE THINK, Epiphany3 and the Flame and is launching a new trio in 2025 with Laurie Lowe and Zayn Mohammed. He is a professor at Guildhall School Of Music And Drama (Jazz Piano), Royal Academy Of Music, Mentor/Task Force Member at Black Lives In Music, YMM teacher, Steinway Artist, EDI Lead at Music HE and recently taught/returned to the Paris Conservatoire and Pole Sup. Robert has won awards – BBC Jazz Awards (Innovation, as part of the F-ire Collective), Best Jazz Album (BBC DJ Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards), a Paul Hamlyn composition award and has been nominated for many more including 2017 British Jazz Composer Award. He is artst-in-residence at Morley College (2024/5).  This is a debut for the Flame at the Parakeet. The Flame hey have released two highly acclaimed live albums on the NYC based label 577 Records. 

 “Robert Mitchell is one of Britain’s finest and most versatile pianist-composer-improvisors” The Wire

Olie Brice is a double bassist, improviser and composer. Raised in London and Jerusalem, he now lives by the sea in Hastings.

He leads a Quartet featuring Rachel Musson, Alexander Hawkins and Will Glaser, (their debut album “All It Was” will be released in 2025) and an improvising trio with Rachel Musson and Mark Sanders (“Immense Blue”, 2024).  He has also led a trio, quintet and octet which can be heard on albums including “Fire Hills” and “Day After Day”.

Brice performs with a wide range of creative improvising musicians, including both legends of the music and his peers.  Frequent collaborators include Mark Sanders, Paul Dunmall, Rachel Musson, Tobias Delius, Cath Roberts and Luis Vicente, and he has also appeared with the likes of Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, John Butcher, Trevor Watts, Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Vandermark, Eddie Prevost and Louis Moholo. He is part of several ongoing improvising ensembles including Somersaults (with Tobias Delius & Mark Sanders), a Trio with Ziv Taubenfeld & Kresten Osgood, and the Flame (with Robert Mitchell & Andrew Lisle).

Brice is also in demand as a bass player in creative Jazz bands led by many artists, including Dee Byrne’s Outlines and Nick Malcolm’s Out Front.  He regularly performs at venues and festivals across Europe. Brice has been the recipient of Arts Council England funding multiple times and in 2021 received a composition commission from Jazz South.

“Brice makes the entire body of his bass sing. He has the ability to deliver a fractal line that is as purposeful as any by the great jazz bassists, but to do so within an entirely abstract setting” – Brian Morton, Point of Departure

“imaginative and adventurous” – London Jazz News

“consitently inspired” – The Wire

Andrew Lisle was born and raised in Northumberland (UK) but now based in London, is a multi-directionaldrummer, and composer. His quick and highly textural playing filled with rhythmic complexity makes him ahighly in-demand member of the fertile jazz & improvised music community. In turns both propulsive and abstract, Lisle has worked with many of the leading voices on the UK and European improvised music scene,including: Kit Downes, John Edwards, Alex Ward, Camila Nebbia, Charlotte Keeffe, Tom Challenger, Ab Baars, Rodrigo Amado, John Dikeman, Colin Webster, Dirk Serries and many more. He performs at notable venues including: Cafe oto, and V ortex (London); KM28 (Berlin), Bimhuis (Amsterdam), De Singer (Belgium), Galeria Zé Dos Bois (Lisbon); and festivals such as London Jazz Festival, Jazzfest Berlin, Freejazzfestival Saarbrucken, Jazz Jantar (Poland), to name a few. His most active projects currently are: Exhaust (feat. Camila Nebbia, Kit Downes), Multi-directional (feat. John Edwards, Kit Downes), KODIAN Trio (feat. Colin Webster, Dirk Serries), Ab Baars/Aaron Lumley/Andrew Lisle, and Tom Challenger/Caius Williams/Andrew Lisle.

10/2 – Fraser Urquhart

wegottickets.com/event/646760/

Fraser Urquhart – piano
Lorenzo Morabito – bass
Joe Desseaur – drums

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Fraser Urquhart is one of the U.K’s foremost pianists, specialising in jazz and American show-tunes of the 1920s-1950s. Cutting his teeth on the vibrant Scottish jazz scene, Fraser fast became a first-call rhythm section player for singers and horn players, playing regularly at Edinburgh Festival and Glasgow Jazz Festival.  

Now based in London, Fraser made his Ronnie Scott’s debut in February 2023 and his Pizza Express Jazz Club debut in August 2023. He performs weekly at the best music venues in and around the city, most at home accompanying singers. His most recent album release is a collection of duets with Jazz FM vocalist of the year Georgia Cecile.

Just a handful of the incredible musicians Fraser has worked with include: Stella Cole, Gabrielle Stravelli, Georgia Cecile, Allan Harris, Richard Shelton, Martin Taylor, Steve Brown, Dave Green, Matt Holborn, Roy Williams, Johnathan Stout, Jumaane Smith, Seonaid Aitken, Evan Christopher, Elise Roth, Hetty Kate, Pete Horsfall, Fraser Smith, John Burgess.  

For the Parakeet, Fraser performs with his trio comprising Joe Desseaur on Drums and Lorenzo Morabito on Bass, playing a variety of gems from the American Songbook canon, some which are featured on his upcoming self-released debut album: ‘I Leave This At Your Ear’.

17/2 – Monkin’ Around

wegottickets.com/event/646762/

Dave O’Higgins – tenor saxophone
Luke Fowler – bass
Billy Pod – drums

Monkin’ Around
Oscar Wilde once said; ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness’. Jazz musicians have always known this and have always done their best to stand on the shoulders of giants. While these three musicians are in no way mediocre they will happily afford every flattery to the great Thelonious Monk. 

Here are three friends getting together to pay homage to one of the greatest Jazz composers of the 20th century, Thelonious Monk.

With a wealth of experience and artistry at their finger tips Dave O’Higgins, Luke Fowler and Billy Pod have set out to pay their respects to the works of Thelonious Monk and to use his compositions to express themselves and display their veracious talents.

Monkin’ Around are in the process of mixing and mastering their first album which will be available by September 2024.

Dave O’Higgins now has 24 albums as leader to his credit. His sound is highly personal and recognisable, with a clear sense of melodic development and adventure.

A popular performer with the public, with an excellent sense of pacing and presentation, he has a wide palette from Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane and Joe Henderson through to Stanley Turrentine and Michael Brecker.

O’Higgins has relentlessly pursued artistic exploration and development always maintaining a deep respect for the tradition of the music. Now with the spotlight on Monk we will get to see yet another feather in Dave’s cap.

“A stunning player in the neo-bop vein, with an apparently effortless flow of coherent ideas, beautiful time and a highly developed harmonic sense.” ( – JAZZ GUIDE).

After spending his formative years in Perth, Western Australia studying at WAAPA until 2005, Luke Fowler moved to the UK where he has spent the last 18 years. He opened an award winning Jazz Venue in South London called ‘The Junction’ which soon became a hub for some of the best musicians in the UK, featuring the likes of Jim Mullen, Dave O’Higgins, Alex Garnett plus some of the new younger sensations coming out of London, including Mark Kavuma, Emma Rawicz and Rob Luft. The Junction was voted in the Guardians; ‘Top 10 music Pubs in the UK’

After recently graduating with his Masters in Jazz Performance at London’s acclaimed Guildhall of Music in 2020, Luke has been busy running a series of projects which he has presented in and around London. He has a strong sound and infectious beat on his instrument having been inspired by Ray Brown at an early age. His extensive knowledge of harmony makes him an engaging and interesting bassist to listen to and perform with.

After exploding onto the UK jazz scene, Billy Pod has worked with a number of leading musicians including; Jim Mullen, Dave O’Higgins and Rob Luft, Vasilis Xenopoulos and Mornington Lockett among others. He has recorded more than 20 albums as a side-man/co-leader and has performed in festivals and venues in EU, USA and Asia. In 2016 he performed at the Tribeca Performing Arts Centre in New York as a finalist of the “Made In New York” International Jazz Competition and in 2019 he was selected in the list of ‘Top 10 new and upcoming drummers’ by French ‘Βatterie’ magazine.

His debut album “Drums to Heal Society” released in 2019 has not just given him a prominent position among the new generation of drummers internationally but also demonstrated his compelling skills as a composer and music ensemble director. His latest album entitled ‘Quintessence’ was also well received by press, media and audiences during his UK and European tour in 2023. 

24/2 – James Allsopp

wegottickets.com/event/646768/

James Allsopp- tenor saxophone and mellotron
Chris Batchelor- trumpet
Tom Herbert- electric bass
Zands Duggan- percussion
Dave Storey- drums

Returning to The Parakeet by incredibly popular demand, this gig will feature repertoire from this exciting group’s new album – as yet to be released. This brand new lineup expands the sound world of the band and we are very excited to debut it at the Parakeet. This is joyous, life affirming music. Deceptively simple, deeply melodic, with a healthy dose of the other worldly.

In a 20 year career, James has been a featured performer and recording artist for an incredibly diverse range of musicians. He has played in concert and on albums by legendary artists such as The Last Poets, David Axelrod, Dr John and Mulatu Astake, for European jazz luminaries such as Django Bates, Nostalgia 77, Kit Downes and Polar Bear, on more commercial albums by Jamie Cullum and Jorja Smith and as featured soloist in a wide range of compositions by composer Brian Irvine.

His debut album was nominated for BBC Jazz Award for Best Album 2007 and he won the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation 2008