Django Bates Pays Tribute To His Childhood Inspiration: Charlie Parker, Sat 10th April, CBSO Centre,8pm

Django Bates & The Beloved Bird Trio
Saturday 10th April
CBSO Centre, Berkley Street
8pm
£13 (£11 Members & Concessions) Book Tickets

www.birminghamjazz.co.uk

Django Bates reaches his 50th Birthday this year in October and his project for at least the earlier part of the ’significant year’ for him is a tour built around an album issued this year dedicated to Charlie Parker, whose music he heard as a young boy and who inspired him to take up jazz.  The album is called Beloved Bird and it is played by a trio led by Django on acoustic piano and featuring two young players from Copenhagen where Django has been teaching for the last few years in the splendidly named Rhythmic University.  They are Petter Eldh on bass (seen here last year in Dan Nicholls’ Hyderabad) and Peter Brun on drums.

It’s a great album and it features some of the most famous tunes penned by Parker including Scrapple from the Apple, Billie’s Bounce, Moose the Mooche and other bop classics written by others such as Hot House. Reviews have pointed to the seriousness with which Django treats each piece and the avoidance of his normal quirkiness.  Mike Hobart in the Financial Times comments on Django’s clear ‘enthusiasm for bop piano’ and Ivan Hewitt in the Daily Telegraph describes the pieces as ‘true homages’.  John Fordham whose review you can read here describes the CD as ‘an astonishing achievement’ that in its creativity really delves into Parker’s psyche.

The trio comes to Birmingham’s CBSO Centre next week on Saturday 10th April at 8pm in a Birmingham Jazz gig.  You can buy tickets from the Symphony Hall Box Office on 0121-767-4050 or online here.

www.djangobates.com