Emma Rawicz is a London-based jazz musician, saxophonist, composer and bandleader. [1]
Rawicz won Jazz Newcomer of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2022, [2] won a Drake YolanDa award in 2021, was a finalist in BBC Young Musician Jazz Award 2022 [3] and nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year at Jazz FM Awards 2021. [4]
Emma Rawicz has chromesthesia, a type of synesthesia which involves seeing colours when hearing sounds. [5] [6] [7] On ACT Music, her second album of original compositions, “Chroma”, is named after the Ancient Greek word for colour.
Emma Rawicz grew up in Devon, playing classical violin and then switching to the saxophone from the age of 15 years old, [8] [1] studying at Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Chetham's School of Music [8] and then the Royal Academy of Music, [9] [1] with support and guidance from various experienced performers including Gareth Lockrane, [8] Ivo Neame [8] and Nikki Iles.
The Emma Rawicz Jazz Orchestra has performed self-composed music at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, at which Rawicz also is one of the regular hosts of the Late Late Shows.
Jazz FM broadcast a radio episode in which Emma Rawicz performed and was interviewed as an expert in the life and works of John Coltrane. [10]
Rawicz has some Polish heritage through her grandfather [6] and is also known by the full name Emma Rawicz-Szczerbo. [11]
Gwilym Simcock is a Welsh pianist and composer working in both jazz and classical music. He was chosen as one of the 1000 Most Influential People in London by the Evening Standard. He was featured on the front cover of the August 2007 issue of the UK's Jazzwise magazine.
Straight-ahead jazz is a genre of jazz that developed in the 1960s, with roots in the prior two decades. It omits the rock music and free jazz influences that began to appear in jazz during this period, instead preferring acoustic instruments, conventional piano comping, walking bass patterns, and swing- and bop-based drum rhythms.
Mark Lockheart is a British jazz tenor saxophonist who was a member of the Loose Tubes big band during the 1980s.
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Denys Baptiste is an English jazz musician. A graduate of Tomorrow's Warriors, Baptiste plays tenor and soprano saxophone in addition to composing.
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Simon Richard Spillett is a British jazz tenor saxophonist. He has won the BBC Jazz Awards Rising Star (2007), Jazz Journal's Critics' Choice album of the Year (2009), the British Jazz Awards Top Tenor Saxophonist (2011), and Services to British Jazz award (2016).
The Parliamentary Jazz Awards in the United Kingdom are organised by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group (APPJAG) at the Houses of Parliament in London. The group consists of over a hundred members drawn from across the UK political parties. The awards were the brainchild Bob Blizzard, a long-time enthusiast of the jazz genre who was concerned that there was a lack of national recognition for the work of jazz performers and venues across the UK. Blizzard was involved with organising and running the awards for 11 years. Also supporting the awards are Jazz Services, Jazz UK, Jazzwise, the UK Musicians' Union jazz section, and PPL.
To the One is an album released by British jazz guitarist John McLaughlin. It is his first album with his band, the 4th Dimension. The album was released in 2010 on Abstract Logix Records and was produced by McLaughlin. It reached number 27 on the Billboard Jazz Albums Chart and was nominated for the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
ACT is a German record label founded in 1992 by Siegfried Loch. It is a division of ACT Music + Vision founded by Loch and Annette Humpe in 1988. ACT started as a pop music label but folded soon after it started. Loch turned it into a jazz label, at first reissuing music he had recorded for Liberty, Philips, and WEA before turning to new recordings.
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Alex Bone is a British multi-instrumentalist, record producer and composer, known for his blend of electronic music and jazz. He has gained recognition as both a saxophonist and a house music producer. Bone has worked with artists such as Disclosure, Nile Rodgers, and Tom Misch.
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Tomorrow's Warriors (TW) is a jazz music education and artist development organisation that was co-founded in 1991 by Janine Irons and Gary Crosby, committed to championing diversity, inclusion and equality across the arts through jazz, with a special focus on "Black musicians, female musicians and those whose financial or other circumstances might lock them out of opportunities to pursue a career in the music industry". Crosby drew inspiration from having been a member of the Jazz Warriors, a London-based group of musicians that in the 1980s showcased many young Black British musicians who went on to achieve international success.
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Nubya Nyasha Garcia is a British jazz musician, saxophonist, composer and bandleader.
Daniel Casimir is a London-based composer and bassist.
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