Jazz at Progress | Five-Way Split | Buy tickets
Friday 10 May 2024 | Progress Theatre, Reading | 7: 30pm | £19.00 (£17.00 concessions, £10 under 16) plus maximum 5% booking fee.
Quentin Collins trumpet & flugel horn, Vasilis Xenopoulos tenor saxophone, Rob Barron piano, Matyas Hofecker bass, Matt Home drums.
Five-Way Split is a new jointly-led band featuring five of the finest contemporary bebop musicians in the UK. It is fronted by internationally renowned trumpet star Quentin Collins, Greek saxophone phenomenon Vasilis Xenopoulos and the golden touch of pianist Rob Barron. Added to this is virtuosic bassist Matyas Hofecker and rock-solid drummer Matt Home.
The band’s vision is to carry on the lineage of groups like Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers as well mirroring the New York contemporary-bop scene.
From this inspiration, the band presents a sound that respects the tradition of hard-bop and straight-ahead jazz in a way that will appeal to today’s audience. With an extensive repertoire of carefully crafted and imaginative original compositions, along with hip, swinging material by greats like Jimmy Heath, Cedar Walton and Horace Silver, Five-Way Split delivers a night of the best swinging and soulful music in town.
Since the band’s formation in 2020, “when performance opportunities were scarce, but creative energy was strong”, it has played sold out shows at London’s Ronnie Scott’s & 606 Jazz Club, as well to appreciative full houses at jazz clubs up and down the country.
Their debut album “All The Way” contains original compositions by the band as well as choice arrangements of classic jazz standards.
“No duds,” wrote Peter Vacher in his 4-Star Jazzwise review of ‘All The Way”, “no longuers, just brilliant and distinctive outcomes. Great to hear these accomplished musicians in this kind of creative shape. Track them down. It will be worth it.”
Hear Five-Way Split in action on this performance clip: https://youtu.be/ivUdNBWlY8w
