Tori Freestone and Alcyona Mick have known each other for many years. Tori has been working with many of the most noted musicians on the UK and International Jazz Scene for many years induding the Julian Siegel Jazz Orchestra alongside the likes of Stan Sulzmann, Mark Nightingale, Jason Yarde and Henry Lowther, the UK All Star Big Band alongside Hermeto Pascoal, the London Jazz Orchestra, the Ivo Neame Quintet alongside Jasper Hoiby and Jim Hart, ‘Solstice’ (a co led sextet with Brigitte Beraha and John Turville, the Andre Canniere Quintet alongside Mike Janisch and Ted Poor and her own trio with two releases on Whirlwind recordings. Her writing and playing has a range of influeces from folk to straight ahead jazz and Brazilian music.
Alcyona has been performing internationally for many years, working with Arabic artist Natacha Atlas all over the world and has performed extensively in France in recent years. She is a member of the esteemed London Jazz Orchestra – for whom she also writes, the John Warren nonet, and has a trio with Paul Clarvis/Stuart Hall, she has performed on TRT Turkish TV with many Turkish artists, and performed with a wide array of other musicians including Samy Bishai (Egypt), Ibrahim Maalouf (Fr), Macadi Nahhas (Jordan), Zoe Rahman, Merit Stephanos, Jerry Dammers Spatial orchestra, Yazz Ahmed, Blink, Fae Simon. She has composed music for many independent short films, documentaries, silent cinema, and released three albums.
After working together on the London jazz scene in various large ensembles including the London Jazz Orchestra and then travelling together to work on a project in the Canary Islands in 2014, they decided to fuse their unique writing styles and improvisational approaches to explore some new material and contemporary standards with a twist. Given their wealth of experience working with unusual instrumentation in a variety of formats, the duo is the ideal setting to blend their unique and distinct voices for a more intimate exploration of this engaging and innovative material. Performances have included St Ann’s Church (Manchester Jazz Festival), the Lancaster Jazz Festival, The Vortex and museo del Grifo in Lanzarote (Spain).
Tori Freestone saxes, Alcyona Mick piano, Dave Mannington bass, Tim Giles drums
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