A quick inspection of the 2022 Proms schedule just released reveals (so far*) just two jazz-related events:
28 August. The South African Jazz Songbook (LINK)
“Celebrated South African trumpeter, conductor and SAMA award-winner Marcus Wyatt (BIOGRAPHY) leads the Metropole Orkest in a showcase of South African jazz. Vocalist Siyabonga Mthembu – lead singer of Shabaka and the Ancestors and performance-art band The Brother Moves On – makes a special appearance, together with Mercury Prize-nominated singer ESKA, double MOBO Award-winning saxophonist Soweto Kinch and Sons of Kemet tuba player Theon Cross.”
“‘I don’t think any musician ever thinks about making a statement’, said Hugh Masekela, the late, great ’father of South African jazz’ – ‘I think everybody goes into music loving it.’ Tonight’s Prom showcases the most dynamic sounds in contemporary South African jazz, including those of Cry Freedom’s Jonas Gwangwa, genre-crossing composer Abdullah Ibrahim, Dudu Pukwana and Johnny Dyani of The Blue Notes, and saxophonist Winston Mankunku. Singer Siyabonga Mthembu makes a special appearance, together with Mercury Prize-nominated ESKA, double MOBO Award-winning saxophonist Soweto Kinch and tuba sensation Theon Cross. Plus, if there’s one group that’s absolutely guaranteed to set the Proms on fire, it’s Metropole Orkest – the globetrotting, genre-defying ensemble behind recent Proms tributes to Nina Simone, Charles Mingus and Quincy Jones.”
3 September: Marius Neset, London Sinfonietta – Geyser BBC commission – LINK
Marius Neset / Ivo Neame / Jim Hart / Conor Chaplin / Anton Eger
London Sinfonietta / Geoffrey Patterson
“Saxophonist and composer Marius Neset has been praised for his ‘voracious reinvention of jazz’. In his Proms debut he teams up with the London Sinfonietta to unleash his elemental new commission Geyser“
“Geyser: forces from the core of the Earth heat water to boiling point, and then blast it high into the Northern sky in an unstoppable eruption of steam, spray and sound. Born in Bergen, Norway, saxophonist and composer Marius Neset knows all about the power of nature. And with influences as varied as Frank Zappa, Pat Metheny, Gustav Mahler and Olivier Messiaen, he knows all about the energy that results when elemental creative forces collide, too. In his Proms debut, a young virtuoso who’s been praised for his ‘voracious reinvention of jazz’ runs his own quintet, full-speed, into London’s crack new-music ensemble the London Sinfonietta.”
(*) We will add if there are more!
