Xhosa Cole Presents FreeMonk Big Band • Special Album Pre-Release

Join us at the Edge for the special pre-release of album number 4!  Xhosa Cole, On a Modern Genius Vol. 2.
This event will feature an (very seriously) all-star line up:

Cleveland Watkiss - Vocals
Soweto Kinch - Alto Saxophone
Xhosa Cole - Tenor Saxophone/Orchestration
George Crowley - Tenor Saxophone
Jason Yarde - Baritone and Soprano saxophones
Laura Jurd - Trumpet
Christos Stylianides - Trumpet
Hans Koller - Euphonium
Louis Koller - Trombone
Corey Mwamba - Vibraphone
Leon Foster-Thomas - Steel Pan
Calum Gourley - Double Bass
Tim Giles - Drum Kit

We will be playing abstractions and collages of the great compositions of Thelonious Monk: A Genius of Modern Music.

In collaboration with Stoney Lane Live and Friction Arts, supported by Arts Counill England.

A night not to be missed!

"... saxophonist Xhosa Cole catches Monk’s wild spirit as well as the legacy of his great compositions ... Cole will surprise even the most devout buffs, and hook the most unsuspecting of jazz newbies too." - The Guardian

📹 thewire.co.uk/video/xhosa-cole-all-roads

Critically acclaimed saxophonist, flautist and composer, Xhosa Cole is an embodiment of the success of numerous community outreach arts programmes in Birmingham, UK. Holding his spirituality at the centre of his creative practice, Cole has been forging a career across communities in the UK and beyond. Having developed his unique mixed-heritage, black British, queer voice in the Jazz tradition, Xhosa’s musical roots are in collaboration and improvisation. This alchemic mix has opened the doors to work alongside a diverse and expansive pool of creative forces from different traditions, cultures, backgrounds and practices.

The output of Cole’s artistic practice manifests through performance, composition and teaching; all informing and reinforcing each other. With a musical language that is rooted in and spans across cultures and modalities, Xhosa is a sought after composer in the contemporary classical and improvising industries in the UK. Having been commissioned by the BBC, Symphony Hall, Ideas of Noise Festival and Flatpack Film Festival and Aldeburgh Festival, Cole is building his own methodology for composition that puts islamic geometry, natural structures/processes, West African rhythms and non-hierarchical orchestration and performance at its center. This unique combination is the foundation of highly invigorating music that has the stability of sacred music structures found in Wester- Harmony and free combustion of Black improvising traditions. Cole’s teachers include John O’Gallagher, Hans Koller and Pat Thomas, who supported in building an understanding of Western Classical composition from the foundations of Schoenberg’s ‘Fundamentals of Musical Composition’ through to the modalities of Messiaen, Bartok and Thelonious Monk.

In 2018 he was the recipient of the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year Award and has since: performed alongside artists including Monty Alexander and Courtney Pine and as a soloist for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales; appeared at the BBC Proms, Cadogan Hall, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall and Ronnie Scotts; and received the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Newcomer, Jazz FM’s Breakthrough act and Peter Whittingham Jazz Award. Last year Xhosa completed a 38 date UK tour with his quartet featuring NYC tap dancer Liberty Styles. To date he’s recorded two studio albums with Stoney Lane Records: ‘K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us’ featuring saxophonist, Soweto Kinch and Pianist, Reuben James and ‘Ibeji’, featuring conversations and duets with seven percussionists from the African Diaspora, which explores themes of Brotherhood, Ancestors, Masks, and Codes. As an improviser, Cole’s career has launched into the contemporary classical and free jazz communities of Europe and beyond, working closely with internationally acclaimed artists including Hamid Drake, Elaine Mitchener, Jason Yarde, Bex Birch, Majid Bekkas and Mark Sanders.