Big Screen Trio at PizzaExpress Jazz Club Soho

Big Screen is a new trio with an enviable pedigree created with the brief to play music from the movies. The trio is made up of three of the most in-demand players in UK jazz: Matt Skelton on drums, Tom Farmer on bass and David Newton on keyboards.

Piano trios are the most perfect of improvisatory ensembles: rhythm section and soloists all in one package, capable of playing any songs from the jazz canon as well as from the world of popular music. And while jazz has often turned to Tin Pan Alley for its musical inspiration, the worlds of Broadway and cinema offer timeless melodies that enjoy universal appeal, with a library that grows year after year. ...

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Big Screen is a new trio with an enviable pedigree created with the brief to play music from the movies. The trio is made up of three of the most in-demand players in UK jazz: Matt Skelton on drums, Tom Farmer on bass and David Newton on keyboards.

Piano trios are the most perfect of improvisatory ensembles: rhythm section and soloists all in one package, capable of playing any songs from the jazz canon as well as from the world of popular music. And while jazz has often turned to Tin Pan Alley for its musical inspiration, the worlds of Broadway and cinema offer timeless melodies that enjoy universal appeal, with a library that grows year after year.

Because so many of us live out our fantasies in film as well as score our own lives and daily moments with music from the cinema, there is an emotional and visceral joy when hearing these tunes rendered with the care, intellect, passion and excellence that the Big Screen brings to the music.

Who are the musicians in the Big Screen? They are players who ‘get’ what this music is about. They honour the composers and filmmakers intentions while playing the music with a finelytuned sense of taste and swing. And this jazz trio does swing. Plus they know how to use space. If you detect a good amount of reverence for artfulness and for these songs – and what these songs mean to so many people – then you ‘get’ it too. The three members of the Big Screen make for an impressive line-up. Right! Here they are, then

Matt Skelton (drums)
Dave Newton (piano)
Tom Farmer (bass)

Matt Skelton
Equally at home in modern and vintage jazz styles, Skelton enjoys a diverse musical career that also encompasses symphonic and light orchestral music. He is the drummer for the GRAMMY©nominated John Wilson Orchestra.

Dave Newton
Pianist David Newton is, in Skelton’s words, 'one of our nation’s treasured pianists'. Newton’s recording career had begun in 1985 with Buddy de Franco and Martin Taylor and his first solo album was released in 1988. Fittingly, Newton has been voted ‘Best Jazz Pianist’ in the British Jazz Awards for the thirteenth time in 2014 and was made a Fellow of Leeds College of Music in 2003.

Tom Farmer
Farmer’s résumé includes being a member of the multiple award- winning 'Empirical' quartet. One of the top young bass players on the UK scene, he is - like Skelton - a regular performer at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club.

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