BMJC 2011-12 Season!

Friday 16 December 2011: TONY KOFI'S STANDARD TIME

Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts
21 Kingland Road, Poole, Dorset BH15 1UG

GIG STARTS AT 8PM
Tickets £12 (discounts available):
- in person via the Box Office in advance or on the night (subject to availability)
- by phone 0844 406 8444
- via Lighthouse website by following the link below

Book Tony Kofi tickets online by clicking on this link

Tony Kofi - alto sax
Dave Chamberlain - bass
Rod Youngs - drums

Tony Kofi was born in Nottingham of West Africa parents and after discovering jazz by accident and taking lessons while still training as a carpenter, he finally made it to Berklee College of Music in Boston on a full scholarship.

From 1991, when he returned to Britain, he played with the leading Afro Caribbean bands involving many of the best younger musicians, including Jazz Warriors, Jazz Jamaica and Gary Crosby’s Nu Troop. He also played with many of the most inventive and exciting bigger bands of the past decade, including the Grand Union Orchestra, Tim Richards’ Great Spirit and Julian Joseph’s Big Band.

Several top American musicians, including David Murray and Sam Rivers, picked him for their international bands, as did the great South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim. Tony has also played with numerous other British bands, most recently in quartets with Chris Biscoe and with Byron Wallen

His quartet playing the music of Thelonious Monk has won many awards and Tony was Best Instrumentalist in the 2008 BBC Jazz Awards.

With his newly formed Trio ( with a line-up perhaps influenced strongly by Sonny Rollins’ piano less trios in the 1960s) the band is exploring the classic jazz songbook. Tony’s arrangements give a very fresh and independent take on many of the classic tunes, and use the capacities of the instruments and the abilities of the musicians to their fullest extent. The music is sometimes ‘edgy’, but the band swings mightily, with each of the trio’s members contributing to maintaining the strong rhythmic propulsion and developing new melodic lines.

Tony’s style owes much to Charlie Parker, Coltrane and perhaps most to Eric Dolphy, but he has produced a highly individual style out of all his influences.