Alexandra Ridout, BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year 2016
Friday 19 May – Sunday 21 May
Brasserie Toulouse Lautrec,
London SE11 4RN, 020-7582 6800
The world loves competitions these days, and it seems people aren’t interested unless there are judges whirling round in big red chairs. But music really isn’t like that.
The latest amazing group of jazz talent emerging from the top colleges work and play together, and we are proud to present a summer festival to demonstrate that the whole is even greater than the sum of the parts. Collaboration, not competition – very jazz…
This weekend in May, Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club will host three ensembles, featuring several BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year participants and their colleagues, in their natural habitat – playing together, performing their music, their way. Welcome to the future.
Produced by Jason Lyon
Friday 9pm (£18 door, £10 adv)
TOM SMITH SEPTET
Tom Smith alto, Alex Hitchcock tenor, Alistair Martin tpt, Rory Ingham tbn, Will Barry pno, Daisy George bass, Dave Storey dms
Advance booking here
Saturday 9pm (£18 door, £10 adv)
THE REDOUBTABLE RIDOUTS
Alex Ridout tpt, Tom Ridout saxes & recorder, Will Barry pno, Flo Moore bass, Phelan Burgoyne dms
Advance booking here
Sunday 7.30pm (£18 door, £10 adv)
SAM BARNETT QUINTET
Sam Barnett tenor, Laurence Wilkins tpt, Alberto Palau Garcera pno, Seth Tackaberry bass, Zoe Pascal dms
Advance booking here
All these musicians have come through the leading music academies and they’ve already worked with NYJO, Soweto Kinch, Stan Sulzmann, Dennis Rollins, the BBC Big Band, Clark Tracey, Gareth Lockrane, Jean Toussaint, Perico Sambeat and many others. But this weekend is all about them.
Tom Smith and Tom Ridout were BBC Young Jazz finalists last year and Alexandra Ridout won it – and got a big engraved thingie, of which she’s justifiably very proud. She was also nominated in the British Jazz Award Rising Star category, as was Rory Ingham.
Monday nights 8pm (free), starting in May
GUILDHALL IN FOCUS
The UK is home to some of the world’s finest music academies, several of them are in London and one in particular, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, is virtually on Toulouse Lautrec’s doorstep.
We’ve decided to offer GSMD students a residency they can call their own, to give our audience and us an opportunity to get to know these exceptional up and coming young players. We’ll be seeing a lot of them in the future, but why wait? Come down any Monday night and enjoy a lot of them right now.
1st Alex Weston King/Sam Leak
8th Ines Loubet Franco/Telmo Sousa
15th Darcy Williams/Joe Hill
22nd Maria Rehakova/James Maltby
29th Matthew Grenz/David Swan
Darcy Williams Trio at GSMD – ah, that hall, those “platform performances”… some things never change. (The tutors and friends are usually coolly slumped up at the back for these affairs, btw.)
Jason Lyon on Music 
Many thanks to all the musicians involved and the punters who came down to enjoy them. The whole weekend was a blast.
I shall now spend most of the next week either face up in the garden or face down in bed…