Jimmy Cannon

Born in Wimbledon, London 1972.

My first musical memory was tapping inanely on my desk at school, probably encouraged by my dad, who used to be a drummer and taught me a “Paradiddle” before I had the urge to speak.

A plastic polyphonic trumpet was then shoved in my face and a brass equivalent would become my weapon of choice until I was around fifteen.

We moved to Cornwall when I was eleven, changed schools and was consequently thrown in to the local brass band on cornet.

Not sure what turned me on to jazz; possibly the Cagney and lacey theme tune or Mike Hammer Detective theme “Harlem Nocturne”, however every Saturday morning I went religiously to rehearse with the Cornwall Youth Jazz Orchestra, and within that 7 year period, I swapped from trumpet to saxophone.

“No Picnic” would be my first introduction to life on the country lanes. They were a rock covers band in which I could squawk quite comfortably over Floyd renditions.

Playing and recording with a lot more bands and with older and more experienced musicians, helped me to develop an overall versatility and a sense of harmony.

After a stint in London playing jazz in restaurants and studying Sound Engineering at the Gateway school I moved back to Cornwall to teach saxophone and music technology.

Over the next few years I played a lot of jazz gigs, but predominantly with an original line-up called Naked Sushi, which were signed to Roger Taylor’s’(Queen) record label Smashing records.

Being a self taught saxophonist, I decided that it was about time that I took my jazz a little more seriously and moved back to London and studied at Trinity College of Music. I was fortunate to study with Iain ballamy, Mark Lockhart and Bobby Lamb (Woody Herman) who runs the Trinity big band. It was after this period of swing pleasure that I decided to form my own big band.

I now run and lead the Jimmy Cannon Big Band, Co run the Loose Cannon’s, am a member of Asterisk Saxophone Quartet; Yossi Yoffe And His Band, have appeared with Dave Finnegan’s “The Commitments”; The Winston Rollins Big Band; The Pasadena Roof orchestra, The Syd Lawrence Orchestra, and have appeared at Ronnie Scott’s, The 606 club, extensively around the UK, Europe and Bangladesh.

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