Pianist Geoff Castle (1949-2020), a member of Ian Carr’s Nucleus, Paz and Carmina was a “a pivotal and seemingly ubiquitous player on the British jazz scene” (Roger Farbey). His output ranged from contemporary Jazz & Latin to Folk and Caribbean.
His association with the 606 Club went back many years, and so a special tribute evening on 29 May will feature many of his friends and fellow musicians from just some of the classic bands Geoff worked with.
Musicians performing at this celebration include John Crawford, Matt Wates, Rob Statham, Steve Taylor and Emiliano Caroselli as well as vocalists Marta Capponi, Jojo Desmond and Shireen Francis plus Special Guests. This is a special evening to celebrate a special musician.
The evening is also centred around the launch on limited edition vinyl of Geoff’s final album Moving On. Quoting the text on Bandcamp: “Recorded and mixed just months before Geoff’s sad and sudden death, this is the album of his extraordinary compositions and piano playing that Geoff was all set to share with the world.” (LINK TO PURCHASE)
Mark Rose, who has set up the concert, working closely with Geoff’s widow Caroline, remembers a much-missed friend and very special and universally liked musician.
Mark Rose writes:
“When you’re a jazz musician for a living it is often the case that one needs to attempt to exist simultaneously in two states: the jobbing, gigging, professional, experienced and ready to adapt and bring their musicianship to any given situation; and the creative, life-long student of the art form who has musical ideas, contributions and a compositional output that one feels is something unique to all that is unique to themselves and the musical company they keep.
Throughout his long (albeit sadly cut short) career, Geoff very much demonstrated and lived the best example of both aspects of the modern jazz musician. In fact, when someone is as natural and unpretentious as Geoff, there really seams to be no distinction between the two. He was always working, gigging all over town, playing functions, teaching, and mentoring, supporting and encouraging all those he met along the way that could benefit from his expertise, experience and warm, selfless approach to sharing in his passion.
I was certainly a young player who hugely benefited from seeing firsthand Geoff’s blazing piano technique, incredible flow of improvisation and solid musicianship as he would call me, a complete rookie double bass player, for everything from pub gigs, wedding functions, recording session at his brilliantly quirky home studio session, and later a series of dates at Ronnie Scott’s.
With Geoff being as far from a bragger as you can get, I slowly pieced together for myself the various and varied peaks of his creative career from the occasional original charts he would present to play, many from the bands of the 80’s and 90’s he was so instrumental in.
Our final stint as the Geoff Castle Trio at Ronnie Scott’s motivated Geoff to play sets made up entirely of his compositions old and new and it is this music that makes up Moving On, an album finished in what would shock everyone to be Geoff’s final year.“
