Jazz at Progress | Steve Fishwick Quintet with special guest from New York, Grant Stewart | Buy tickets
Fri 23 Nov | Progress Theatre, Reading | 7:30pm | £17.00 (£15.00 concessions) plus maximum 5% booking fee
Steve Fishwick trumpet, John Pearce piano, Jeremy Brown bass, Matt Fishwick drums and Grant Stewart tenor saxophone
UK trumpet star Steve Fishwick will be joining forces with special guest from New York, Grant Stewart to present an evening of swinging, straight-ahead, polished and powerfully expressive jazz, which bears the influence of their great heroes, Kenny Dorham, Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon. John Pearce, Jeremy Brown and Steve’s twin-brother Matt will round off this impeccable quintet.
Steve Fishwick is considered to be one of the best jazz trumpet players ever to come from the UK, and is rapidly gaining a global reputation thanks to his flawless technique and beautifully flowing, harmonically rich improvisations. He lists the late great Kenny Dorham as the key influence on his playing and Art Farmer, Miles Davis and Woody Shaw amongst his favourite players, but his style is very much his own.
‘Steve has his own style,’ remarked no less a giant of the trumpet than Wynton Marsalis. ‘He plays from the bottom to the top of the horn whilst maintaining the integrity of the chords. I can’t think of another trumpet player that can do what he does.”
‘Where has Fishwick been hiding?’ asked legendary Jazz critic Ira Gitler. ‘… when Steve lights his wick he becomes a flying fish, soaring above the waves, totally in control!’
Voted a ‘rising star on the tenor’ in the Downbeat critics’ poll between 2008 and 2015, Grant Stewart has toured internationally and released sixteen albums as a leader. Drum legend Jimmy Cobb described him as ‘One of my favourite tenor players in the world.’
Born in Toronto, Canada on 4 June 1971, Grant moved to New York at the City at the age of nineteen studying with masters such as Donald Byrd and Barry Harris. He has performed internationally with Jimmy Cobb, Harold Mabern, Louis Hayes, Curtis Fuller, Renee Fleming, Clark Terry, Bob Mover, Etta Jones, Bill Charlap, Lewis Nash, Peter Washington, Brad Mehldau, Russell Malone, Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, Harry Connick, Mickey Roker, Jimmy Lovelace, Cecil Payne, Dick Hymen, Herb Geller and was a member of the last Al Grey Sextet.
A winner of the prestigious Downbeat Award for the ‘rising star on the tenor’, Grant has toured internationally, recorded 16 albums as a leader, and appeared on many other recordings as a sideman.
‘Powerful in a form that combines tension and relaxation like that of Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon, Grant is one of the most powerful stylists and one of the most under-estimated on the scene. His sincerity, demonstrated in his straightforward, honed music, affirms completely his power of expression.’ – Jazz Hot Magazine, France.
John Pearce, piano, celebrates fifty years as professional musician, having begun his career as a member of ‘Geraldo’s Navy’ aboard a Cunard ocean liner in 1968. He has since become one of the UK’s most versatile and respected musicians, whose CV reads like a Who’s Who of jazz greats. He has also worked with singers Anita O’ Day, Peggy Lee, Mark Murphy, Annie Ross and Elaine Delmar, and has been a member of Scott Hamilton’s Quartet since 2000.
Jeremy Brown, bass,is one of the UK’s foremost bass players. He was a founding member of the John Wilson Orchestra, and is a member of the BBC Big Band, the Syd Lawrence Orchestra and Skelton-Skinner All Stars. He has recorded extensively with Anita Wardell, Kate Williams, Claire Martin, Chris Garrick and Chris Biscoe amongst many others. He has performed in the UK and Europe with many visiting artists including Brad Melhdau, Charles McPherson, Art Farmer, Jon Hendricks, Benny Golson, Red Holloway and Johnny Griffin.
Jeremy is professor of Jazz Double Bass at the Royal Academy of Music, he teaches on residential summer courses for the Global Music Foundation and Loire Music and acts as an external examiner for Trinity-Laban.
Matt Fishwick, drums,has been active in jazz since his early teens and is one of the first-call drummers in London. He met like-minded musicians Tom Cawley, Gareth Lockrane and Osian Roberts whilst a student at the Royal Academy of Music and has played with such giants of UK jazz as Mike Carr, Dave Cliff and Jim Mullen, as well as visiting stars including Scott Hamilton, Kenny Davern, Howard Alden and Ken Peplowski. Since returning in 2009 from a four year sojourn in New York, where he worked with Frank Wess and Anita O’Day amongst many jazz greats, Matt has led his own quartet and co-led a quintet with brother Steve.
