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Tom Bancroft

Tom Bancroft is a drummer, composer, bandleader and educator who has been working professionally in music for over 30 years. You can explore his previous projects in the Archive section of this website.

Originally trained as a medical doctor Tom now makes a living from music. He has played with musicians ranging from Sun Ra & Martyn Bennett to Geri Allen and Bill Wells and composed music for jazz orchestra, live dance, multi-media. theatre, and film. Currently (as of 2017) Tom is a key member of the 80 piece folk/jazz/classical GRIT Orchestra, plays with the bi-weekly Playtime collective in Edinburgh, leads the group In Common featuring the Indian masters Sharat Chandra Srivastava on violin and Gyan Singh on tabla, and co-leads the Go Get It Trio with Graeme Stephen.

Tom is a founder member of the Pathhead Music Collective, a collective of 15 professional musicians living in a small Midlothian ex-mining village, where he curates (with Martin Green from LAU) the PIE series of experimental music concerts in a village hall. He leads other irregular creative projects like a trio with pianist Tom Cawley & bassist Per Zanussi called Trio Red, a quartet with Italian bassist Furio Di Castri, big band Orchestro Interrupto, and the non-jazz electronic/experimental group Vincent – with Japanese avant grade pianist Satoko Fujii and Una McGlone, and performs with the free-improv group UNST – with Una McGlone, Neil Davidson, and Sue MacKenzie.

Tom is a very experienced educator at all levels from nursery/kindergarten to conservatoire, has taught Jazz Composition at Napier University, and led the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland with Laura MacDonald for 2 years.

After running Scottish Jazz record company Caber Music for 7 years, he now co-runs the music education company ABC Creative Music with his twin brother Phil which provides online creative music education resources to over 10,000 teachers. Tom won the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation in 2007 and the Creative Scotland Award.

Awards

Creative Scotland Award 2004 BBC Jazz Award for Innovation 2007 Herald Angel Award for Leading Performance in Edinburgh Festival & Fringe 2007 for Kidsamonium


Tags

1
Album Review

Tom Bancroft's In Common: Love & Stillness

Read "Love & Stillness" reviewed by Roger Farbey


A qualified medical doctor and highly experienced jazz musician, Tom Bancroft is co-leader of the bass-less Trio AAB and leads the big band Orchestro Interrupto. He studied drums with Jo Morello, Joey Baron, and Andrew Cyrille, and has played with a host of renowned jazz stars including Sun Ra, Charlie Mariano, Oliver Lake, and Sheila Jordan. In addition to his percussive prowess, Bancroft studied music in Africa and India, so he is uniquely equipped to compose the type of hybrid ...

85
Album Review

The Tom Bancroft Orchestra: Pieology

Read "Pieology" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Tom Bancroft’s six–year–old orchestra from Scotland has been described as “the most adventurous contemporary big band in the UK,” a statement that will go unchallenged here. I have no degree in Pieology, but after appraising Bancroft’s debut recording (covering those six years) on the new Caber Music label, I’d guess that it must have something to do with slicing big–band Jazz into as many pieces as one can, tossing them into a blender and awaiting the outcome — which, in ...

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171

Performance / Tour

World's First Jazz Flashmob draws 1500+ in Edinburgh

World's First Jazz Flashmob draws 1500+ in Edinburgh

Source: tommy banana

World's First Jazz Flashmob—called Clandemonium—drew 1500+ people at the Edinburgh International Jazz Festival on July 31st 2010. Over 1000 people were supplied with colour coded “tam-o-shanter" hats and took part in the event in four colour coded teams—blue—dance, green—drums, red—kazzos, and orange—body percussion and scat vocals. The onstage band featured Scottish jazz and music luminaries such as Finlay MacDonald (bagpipes), Laura MacDonald (sax), Phil Bancroft (sax) and scat vocal legend Freddie King. Organiser, leading Scottish jazz composer Tom Bancroft , ...

"increasingly attracting international attention, drummer Tom Bancroft must beconsidered one of its leading lights”The Guardian

 “the most instinctive powerhouse drummer 
on the Scottish Jazz scene” David Keenan, Sunday Herald       “Tom Bancroft has been a key mover and shaker on a remarkably inventive Scottish jazz scene for many years, as drummer, composer and creative catalyst. As well as continuing his life as a tirelessly creative artist at the highest international level, in 2006 and 2007 he has extended his innovative range with Kidsamonium, a show that absorbs, inspires and entertains children of all ages (and their parents), combining jazz, improvisation, theatre and comedy, reaching a new generation of audiences in a fresh and uniquely personal approach, bringing the talents of musicians such as Oren Marshall, Claude Deppa, Laura MacDonald and Billy Jenkins into a whole new dimension.”

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Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Love & Stillness

Interrupto Music
2019

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Pieology

Caber Music
1999

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