8th January 2022 – PizzaExpress Jazz Club, Soho, London 1pm
Featuring Ivo Neame on piano, Dave Whitford on bass, James Maddren on drums
& the Tear String Quartet
26th January 2022 – Newhampton Arts Centre, Wolverhampton
27th January 2022 – Albany Club, Coventry
28th January 2022 – 1000 Trades, Birmingham
29th January 2022 – Bishop’s Castle Town Hall, Shropshire
30th January 2022 – Ashburton Arts Centre, Teignbridge
Featuring Alcyona Mick on piano, Phil Donkin on bass, James Maddren on drums & the Tear String Quartet
“The original compositions and arrangements are elegantly poised and, with a sound suspended somewhere between flugelhorn and trombone, Rattigan’s playing is ravishing.”
**** BBC Music Magazine
French horn player Jim Rattigan will be touring his critically acclaimed album When in the New Year. The eloquently inventive composer/arranger/bandleader brings together some of UK’s finest players from both jazz and classical music – Ivo Neame and Alcyona Mick on piano, Dave Whitford and Phil Donklin on bass, James Maddren on drums and the Tear String Quartet (Julian Tear – violin, Alison Gordon – violin, Nic Barr – viola, and Nic Cooper – cello).
“Having had a career in classical music and now playing jazz, I thought that I would write some music that would combine the two worlds,” explains Rattigan. “This is not crossover music but a juxtaposition – the two styles working side by side. I worked with Julian Tear for many years in the Academy of St Martin’s chamber orchestra and asked him to record the music with his quartet. The quartet becomes a quintet when I call on the double bass to play ‘arco’ and the French horn is a bridge between to two genres.”
Most of the ten original compositions on the album were written five years ago. “They seemed a little sad and reflective at the time so I put them in a folder and forgot about them,” says Rattigan. “The irony is that the title When could be applied to the times we’re living in now.”