Pigfoot
Chris Batchelor - trumpet: James Allsopp - baritone: Liam Noble - piano: Paul Clarvis - drums
You can hear Pigfoot here
You can see Pigfoot here
"On last year’s debut album of twisted pop songs, improv, trad-jazz huffing and impish groove-bending, Pigfoot sounded like ideal reassurance for the jazz-suspicious.....a hot ticket for the festival circuit."
John Fordham Guardian
"A band that takes classic early jazz material associated with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines and others and gives it a fiercely contemporary twist. There are few other bands who have mined the trad seam quite as radically or audaciously as Pigfoot who look at the music with a fresh eye and cast it into fabulous new shapes while still retaining the outlines of the originals. Above all they sound as if they’re having fun."
Ian Mann thejazzmann.com ★★★★
Chris Batchelor's Zoetic
Chris Batchelor - trumpet: Margrit Hasler - viola: John Parricelli - guitar: Steve Watts - bass: Paul Clarvis - percussion
You can hear and buy Zoetic here
You can see Zoetic here
“A highlight of the gig-going year. The music casts its net wide for idiom and influence. The approach of the ensemble, led by trumpeter Chris Batchelor forges a distinctive sound and mood; quietly spellbinding, unfailingly uplifting.” Mike Collins jazzyblogman
Airlock - Big Air » buy on Amazon
Big Air: Chris Batchelor, Steve Buckley, Myra Melford, Oren Marshall, Jim Black
Genre-mashing international quintet, Big Air is a collaboration between UK jazz artists and some of the leading US players - Chris Batchelor & Steve Buckley (Loose Tubes) , Myra Melford, Jim Black & Oren Marshall. Won five star reviews from The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine and described in Jazz Journal by Brian Morton as "the best British jazz record for 20 years".
The Art of Flying Backwards - Life As We Know It » buy on Amazon
Life As We Know It: Chris Batchelor,Steve Buckley, Mark Sanders
Reedsman Steve Buckley and trumpeter Chris Batchelor are from the generation of jazz musicians coming out of the influential 80s big band Loose Tubes. On this gloriously original multilayered recording, Buckley and Batchelor create loops and improvisations enhanced by samples and hard disk manipulations by Peter Beckmann as well as percussion support by Mark Sanders and Paul Clarvis. But the music also puts the focus on acoustic improvisation, and like Django Bates who they have both worked with, continue in their own way where Loose Tubes left off, absorbing anything from North/West African music to Balkan folk melodies through to Ellington in a colourful explosion of sounds.