Billy Marrows and his 12-piece Grande Família return after a sold-out 2024 show that packed the house two months in advance and earned a full standing ovation. That gig is now set for release as a live album, with a UK tour including this two-night album launch at the legendary PizzaExpress Jazz Club. Expect thrilling new music alongside favourites from their critically acclaimed debut album 'Penelope', which received ★★★★ Editor's Choice in Jazzwise Magazine. With impassioned solos, colourful harmonies, and infectious melodies, this promises to be an unforgettable night of captivating large ensemble jazz....
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Billy Marrows and his 12-piece Grande Família return after a sold-out 2024 show that packed the house two months in advance and earned a full standing ovation. That gig is now set for release as a live album, with a UK tour including this two-night album launch at the legendary PizzaExpress Jazz Club. Expect thrilling new music alongside favourites from their critically acclaimed debut album 'Penelope', which received ★★★★ Editor's Choice in Jazzwise Magazine. With impassioned solos, colourful harmonies, and infectious melodies, this promises to be an unforgettable night of captivating large ensemble jazz.
This concert is one of two nights at PizzaExpress Jazz Club celebrating the release of Billy' second album, 'The Penelope Album Live'. Experience the uplifting music of his 12-piece chamber-jazz ensemble Grande Família, in the same room where their new album was recorded at a sold-out gig last May.
Award-winning composer/arranger and guitarist Billy Marrows' debut album 'Penelope' was a surprise for his mother during her struggle with pancreatic cancer in 2023 and released in her memory in January 2024 with all proceeds going to World Child Cancer, raising over £5,400. Receiving critical acclaim, it was described by Jazz Views as "a triumph…Marrows has created a spectacular new ensemble”.
"An exhilaratingly original sound, at once intimate and expansive" (Jazzwise), Grande Família brings together some of Billy's favourite musicians alongside several of his family members. These brilliant musicians include BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year finalist Tom Ridout, and Mercury Prize nominated Led Bib saxophonist Chris Williams, and have worked with artists such as Cory Wong, Shabaka Hutchings, Stan Sulzmann, Mark Lockheart, the LSO and London Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2024 Grande Família performed to packed houses at PizzaExpress Jazz Club, the Vortex and Puppet Theatre Barge, all sold-out well in advance. 'The Penelope Album Live' will be released on Discus Music (https://discus-music.org/) on 28th March 2025. Recorded live at PizzaExpress Jazz Club, it features every piece from the Penelope album, with the solo guitar vignettes expanded for the full band. This gig will also feature lots of new music, inspired by the likes of Wayne Shorter, Weather Report, Toninho Horta, Gil Evans, Vince Mendoza and Loose Tubes.
Billy also released an EP, 'Mount Tibidabo', with a sextet version of Grande Família in November 2024, described by Ruth Fisher on Jazz FM as "a superb follow-up to his debut album, the EP features some of the UK’s finest up-and-coming talent”.
Billy has toured in the UK and Europe with Chelsea Carmichael, Tom Barford, Patchwork Jazz Orchestra and Tom Ridout and has appeared on numerous albums, including Amsterdam-based Sam Newbould’s 'Bogus Notus' and Tom Barford's 'Bloomer', on Edition records. Billy won both the small ensemble and big band category of the Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition in 2016 and 2018 respectively, and studied with Vince Mendoza on the 2018 Metropole Orkest Arrangers Workshop in Holland.
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