Doors 7:45 PM, Music 8:30 PM – 2 set(s) of music
Line-up:
Ivo Neame – Piano
Iain Ballamy – Tenor saxophone
Charles Kieny – Accordion
About
Ivo Neame met accordion virtuoso Charles Kieny in Paris at the New Morning Jazz Club in 2022 – Neame was working there with the band SHIJIN, a collaborative group featuring Belgian drum master Stéphane Galland of AKA MOON. Kieny and Neame have since developed a new Anglo-French collaboration, recording arrangements of music by Kurt Weill and their own music. Neame decided to invite a legend of the UK scene, tenor saxophonist Iain Ballamy to join the duo for this special appearance at the Vortex Jazz Club. They will play music by Kurt Weill and also explore free improvisation within the context of this unorthodox instrumentation.
Ivo Neame is an award-winning pianist and composer. In addition to leading his own bands, he has featured in several of European jazz’s most forward-looking groups including Phronesis and the Marius Neset Quintet. He regularly performs at jazz festivals worldwide, collaborating with ensembles as diverse as the Frankfurt Radio Big Band and the London Sinfonietta. Ivo studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and since leaving in 2003 he has performed and recorded with highly esteemed musicians at home and abroad such as Hermeto Pascoal, Gilad Hekselman and Kenny Wheeler. His eighth album under his own name “Glimpses of Truth’ was released on Whirlwind Recordings in November 2021. Following the release of this record he was made the 2023 artist-in-residence with the Cologne Contemporary Jazz Orchestra.
“Ivo Neame is one of the very best jazz pianists on the UK scene” BANDCAMP DAILY
“That Neame is one of the most interesting jazz pianists of his generation may be clear. That he is getting better and better is too. The 10 years of almost constant being on the road with bands has given him a prominent role in the front line of British jazz.” WRITTEN IN JAZZ
ECM recording artist Iain Ballamy is internationally recognised as a saxophonist and composer. He has been described variously as urbane, original, melodic, freethinking and uncompromising. Listed in the BBC’s publication ‘100 Jazz Greats’ between Count Basie and Chet Baker his work is contemporary with both strong jazz and classical references and yet un-encumbered by formality and tradition. Ballamy was presented with the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation in 2001. In 2007 Ballamy became the first jazz musician to receive the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Composer’s Award. As a soloist Ballamy has performed ‘Concerto for Stan Getz’ by Richard Rodney Bennett with the BBC Concert Orchestra and premiered Gary Carpenters Saxophone concerto ‘SET’ on Radio 3 with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014. Career highlights include playing with Loose Tubes, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks and Django Bates.
Charles Kieny is an accordionist and composer, based between Paris and London. Improvisationally adept, the variety of his artistic activity makes him an open and versatile musician. An installation of electronic sensors, called “augmented accordion”, allows him to play synthesizers directly from his acoustic instrument.
Graduate of Paris CNSM (National Superior Conservatory of Music), the teachings of the great masters of jazz and improvisation inspire his artistic approach.
Charles is a 2021 laureate of FoRTE (Regional Fund for Emerging Talents) of the Paris Region for his project CKRAFT, a jazz-metal quintet with melodies from Gregorian chant, which won the Tonnerre de Jazz award and released his first album “Epic Discordant Vision” in 2022.
Invited twice to the AMV (Musical Academy of Villecroze) by Richard Galliano then Vincent Peirani, he returned there in residency to develop his CrozPhonics project, a trio of two cellos and accordion mixing contemporary jazz and folk influences. He is also the 2022 winner of the Musician – Jazz and Classical Music grant from the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation.