Alison Rayner

Alison Rayner is an award winning bassist and composer from the UK.

The 2019 recipient of an Ivor Novello Composer Award and runner-up ‘Double Bass’ player in the British Jazz Awards for both 2018 and 2019, Rayner has had an extensive career playing jazz and other contemporary styles since the mid-70s, recording and touring internationally with critically acclaimed Latin/jazz group The Guest Stars throughout the 80s.

Performing regularly throughout the UK and Europe, she leads ARQ, her contemporary jazz quintet, described as ‘a beautifully integrated band’ **** by Dave Gelly in the Observer. ARQ’s third ARQ album ‘Short Stories’ was released to critical acclaim late 2019, receiving extensive airplay and reaching #1 in the Amazon Jazz Chart. ARQ won ‘Ensemble of the Year’ in the prestigious 2018 Parliamentary Jazz Awards and were shortlisted in the ‘Small Group’ category of the 2018 British Jazz Awards.

Rayner’s compositions incorporate inspiration and musical ingredients from outside the world of jazz music, creating a broad palette of music that is ‘inventive, vibrantly colourful and unfailingly melodic, possessed of a strong sense of narrative and cinematic quality’ (the jazzmann.com).

Rayner is a regular in the bands of guitarist Deirdre Cartwright, trumpeter Chris Hodgkins and vocalist Carol Grimes. She has played on around 30 albums and also co-runs Blow the Fuse, the artist development partnership in London since 1989, performing with artists such as American guitar legend Tal Farlow, New York jazz poet Jayne Cortez and British players Peter King and John Etheridge.

W: www.alisonrayner.com
F: https://www.facebook.com/alisonrayner.arq T: https://twitter.com/alison_rayner

Awards

Alison Rayner:

2019 Ivor Novello Composer Award

2018 & 2019 British Jazz Awards Runner-up ‘Double Bass’

ARQ (Alison Rayner Quintet):

2018 Parliamentary Jazz Awards 'Ensemble of the Year’

Shortlisted 2018 British Jazz Awards ‘Small Group’

Alison Rayner Quintet: Short Stories

Read "Short Stories" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 4, 2020

The Alison Rayner Quintet's third album is good medicine. Despite the sad events which inspired it, about which more in a moment, Short Stories tells its tales through strong melodies, sinewy rhythms and luminous solos, is by turns tender and exuberant, has an uplifting narrative arc, and simply makes you feel better for listening to it. Rayner has been a hero of British jazz since the mid 1980s when, with ARQ's guitarist, Deirdre Cartwright, she was a member ...

Press:

‘Purposeful, full-toned and melodic.’ The Observer

‘Playing bass with a big, beautiful bass sound that comes from the heart... characterized by individuality, spirit and a sense of freedom.’
Val Wilmer, author, As Serious as Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz

‘Rayner’s late blooming into a composer of some stature is one of the most satisfying stories of British jazz in recent years.’
‘...concise, fluent and eminently melodic statements – big toned, highly melodic bass’ thejazzman.com