Alyn Shipton’s New Orleans Jazz Friends

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Alyn Shipton’s band is made up of musicians who have all spent time in New Orleans learning from the founding fathers of the music. In these concerts – launched in May 2019 at SJE Arts in Oxford UK, and followed since by visits to more churches or other arts centres in converted church buildings.

Back in 1954, the celebrated New Orleans clarinettist George Lewis recorded his album “Jazz at Vespers” in Oxford, Ohio. His band was the leading New Orleans revivalist band at the time, comprising veterans who had all been in on the birth of jazz. Playing in an Episcopal church, they focused on the spirituals and hymns that had been part of the music from the start. – they re-explore the repertoire that Lewis made famous, from lesser known pieces such as “Sometimes My Burden Is Hard To Bear” to old favourites like “Down By The Riverside” and “Lord, Lord, Lord, You Surely Been Good To Me”.

And just like the Lewis band of the ’50s, Alyn’s jazz friends play entirely acoustically without amplification. The music runs the full emotional range from soft, contemplative pieces to joyous outpourings of the infectious rhythms of the Crescent City.

From the review of the band’s concert at SJE Arts
“as the band received their entirely deserved standing ovation, some of the audience whooped for more as if it were Saturday night at the Bullingdon” Amelia Gabaldoni, Daily Information

• Alan Gresty, trumpet;
• Tom Sancton. Clarinet;
• Simon Picton, guitar and banjo;
• Martin Litton, piano;
• Alyn Shipton, bass
• Emile Martyn, drums.

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All profits from our jazz concerts support musical and other development at St Giles’ Church Oxford.

This concert is supported by pplprs.co.uk 'The Music License'