Django Bates Trio with Norrbotten Big Band at New Directions Festival

Saturday 1 June
Kulturens hus, Grand Hall
7.30 pm

THE STUDY OF TOUCH
THE DJANGO BATES TRIO AND THE NORRBOTTEN BIG BAND

Bebop and big band, jazz legends old and new. What else can it be than a party when Django Bates writes new material for the Norrbotten Big Band - along with a tribute to his idol Charlie "Bird" Parker? British jazz musician and composer Django Bates meets the Norrbotten Big Band in a thrilling collaboration that will take them all the way to this summer's Proms in London.

"Is there someone in your life whom you can touch and be touched by?" A colleague's question planted a seed in Django Bates, which has now sprouted into an entirely new work for the Norrbotten Big Band and Bates's own trio. In The Study of Touch Bates has pinned down a basic human need: intimacy and physical contact. But the title also alludes to the gift of being able to conjure up music from an apparently dead instrument. After its premier in Luleå, The Study of Touch will be taken to the Proms on 28 August.

2010 saw the release of Django Bates's Beloved Bird, an album tribute, in piano trio form, to the hero of his youth. Charlie Parker was the legendary saxophonist and jazz musician of the 1940s, who teamed up with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie to bring jazz closer to bebop. Here in Luleå, Bates's premiere performance of The Study of Touch will be combined with new big-band arrangements from Beloved Bird.

The headstrong Django Bates stands liminally to genre definitions, but likes to compose in the classical tradition - penning everything from a piano concerto for Joanna McGregor and the Royal Liverpool Orchestra to music for percussion virtuoso Evelyn Glennie. He has also collaborated with leading performers such as Laurie Anderson and brought young Swedish jazz singers like Josefine Lindstrand and Josefine Cronholm to bloom.

For the Norrbotten Big Band, working with Django Bates is yet another milestone on its journey to international recognition, which began when the band was formed in the 1980s under the artistic direction of Örjan Fahlström. Fahlström passed the baton in 1995 onto the multiple Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter Tim Hagans, who remained the ensemble's artistic director for some 15 years. The position is currently held by saxophonist and composer Joakim Milder.

For tickets and info:
www.newdirections.se