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Beats & Pieces Big Band

Beats & Pieces is not your average big band, rather a band that's big. These 14 musicians have been playing together for over ten years and have become a tight knit bunch, open to a huge diversity of music. The influence of artists such as Björk, Radiohead, David Bowie, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Loose Tubes, Gil Evans and Kenny Wheeler pop up in their performances and the compositions of bandleader and conductor Ben Cottrell..

The band tours regularly across the UK, Europe and further afield, marking their 10th anniversary in 2018 with their debut North American tour and inclusion in the Downbeat Critics Poll in the category Rising Star Big Band.

To date they have released 2 studio albums - 'Big Ideas' (2012) and 'All In' (2015) - and a 10th anniversary live CD/DVD entitled 'ten' (2018), all on Manchester independent label Efpi Records.

Awards

Ensemble of the Year, Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2014 Best UK Newcomer, Jazz FM Awards 2013 European Young Artists' Jazz Award 2011 - Burghausen International Jazz Festival, Germany


Tags

29
Extended Analysis

Beats and Pieces Big Band: All In

Read "Beats and Pieces Big Band: All In" reviewed by Phil Barnes


The idea of the gang is well established in rock bands--think of the wonderful Astrid Kirchherr photos of the Beatles in their Hamburg-era leathers, the Specials glowering from the cover of their classic debut LP or the Clash in pretty much any picture ever taken of them. Rock bands often foster this “us v's them" mentality as a shorthand for identification with their audience or a set of beliefs, but it is a position that only translates imperfectly into jazz ...

4
Album Review

Beats & Pieces Big Band: All In

Read "All In" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


While almost every sensible thought screams “Don't Do It!" for good economic and logistical reasons, there are still plenty of jazz musicians for whom the big band is an ideal--and an attainable one at that. Manchester's Beats & Pieces Big Band is a fine example--the name may or may not be a nod to Manchester's '60s popsters the Dave Clark Five, but the music is firmly descended from the big bands that came before. A large ensemble that's been together ...

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238

Award / Grant

Beats & Pieces Big Band - European Young Artists' Jazz Award Winners 2011

Beats & Pieces Big Band - European Young Artists' Jazz Award Winners 2011

Source: Ben Cottrell

Efpi Records is proud to announce that the Beats & Pieces Big Band have been named as the winners of the 2011 Burghausen European Young Artists' Jazz Award. Their prize was a cheque for £ 15,000 and the honour of performing the opening concert of the 42nd Burghausen International Jazz Festival in Germany, taking to the stage before Chick Corea and Gary Burton in an event that was filmed and recorded for German national television and radio. Ben Cottrell, the ...

"Heirs to the eclectic big-band traditions of Loose Tubes, they make their own sounds from many styles" (The Guardian)

"One doesn't hear interplay in compositions this stormy in a big band all too often, at least not since the last Darcy James Argue album" (Nextbop)

“[Beats & Pieces'] extraordinary achievement is to combine discipline with anarchy, and rock’n’roll energy with textures from the entire canon of big band jazz history” (Tom Robinson, BBC 6 Music)

"Spine-tinglingly good" (MOJO)

"A return to the idea that contemporary jazz for big band can still generate the kind of direct impact more associated with rock and pop music, but without undermining its essential craft and sophistication" (Jazzwise)

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Beats & Pieces EP

Efpi Records
2020

buy

ten

Efpi Records
2018

buy

All In

Efpi Records
2015

buy

Big Ideas

Efpi Records
2012

buy

Jazzwalk

From: Big Ideas
By Beats & Pieces Big Band

Videos

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