RBC Jazz Orchestra: Porgy and Bess

RBC Jazz Orchestra: Porgy and Bess

Musical Director: Jeremy Price-Head of Jazz at RBC
Soloists: Nick Dewhurst and Alex Astbury

RBC Jazz Orchestra celebrates the Miles Davis centenary year with a performance of the complete Porgy and Bess suite arranged by Gil Evans.

Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin’s acclaimed and groundbreaking opera of 1935 was reworked some twenty years later by jazz composer and arranger Gil Evans to create one of the most significant Miles Davis recordings of the 1950s. Recorded in New York in just four sessions in 1958, this suite, essentially a trumpet concerto for Miles, is a setting for Miles as sound-innovator and interpreter for many of the famous Gershwin melodies that we all know and love. From Summertime to I Loves You Porgy, My Man’s Gone Now and It Ain’t Necessarily So, this repertoire is gloriously singable, all in a new luxurious setting of masterful orchestrations that rival Debussy and Ravel for sumptuousness and innovation, while remaining authentically a jazz recording first and foremost.

Taking the role of Miles tonight, we have not one but two wonderful trumpet soloists, both graduates of RBC’s BMus(Hons)Jazz and now successful professional performers in their own right. Choosing to base their careers in the Creative Arts in and around Birmingham, this concert is also a celebration of the contribution Nick Dewhurst (pictured) and Alex Astbury have made to the vibrancy of the Birmingham jazz scene.

Additionally, we are very pleased to return to the fold once more anther graduate of ours, Gareth Howell. A lead trumpet specialist, Gareth is building a successful freelance career, again based in Birmingham, gainfully employed in numerous commercial and jazz settings.

Running time approx. 90 minutes