The Alan Barnes Octet at Mill Hill Music Festival at Hartley Hall

This evening is part of the 2019 Mill Hill Music Festival. This all star octet has been performing together for over 25 years. Recently recording the Sherlock Holmes Suite, two sets of songs with lyrics by Alan Plater, and A Jazz Christmas Carol. This hugely versatile line-up presents an stellar evening of jazz. As well as some selections from the Suites, The Alan Barnes Octet will present a short and incomplete history of jazz. Short, because they only have two hours and incomplete because it only includes the band’s favourite bits! From Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, through Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan to Coltrane and beyond, there will be something for everyone to enjoy. Everyone in the band is a superb soloist and Alan has written an amazing selection of new pieces to let them loose on. The show will, of course, include a lot of anecdotes about the great (and not so great) figures of the music through the years....

read more

This evening is part of the 2019 Mill Hill Music Festival. This all star octet has been performing together for over 25 years. Recently recording the Sherlock Holmes Suite, two sets of songs with lyrics by Alan Plater, and A Jazz Christmas Carol. This hugely versatile line-up presents an stellar evening of jazz. As well as some selections from the Suites, The Alan Barnes Octet will present a short and incomplete history of jazz. Short, because they only have two hours and incomplete because it only includes the band’s favourite bits! From Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, through Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan to Coltrane and beyond, there will be something for everyone to enjoy. Everyone in the band is a superb soloist and Alan has written an amazing selection of new pieces to let them loose on. The show will, of course, include a lot of anecdotes about the great (and not so great) figures of the music through the years.

With Martin Shaw on trumpet and flugel horn, Mark Nightingale on trombone, Robert Fowler on reeds, Karen Sharp on reeds, David Newton on piano, Andrew Cleyndert on double bass, Clark Tracey on drums and of course Alan Barnes on saxophone and reeds.

show less