It’s hard to believe that London-born saxophonist Ralph Moore has never been on tour in the UK in his own name; hats off to bassist Simon Woolf for making all of these dates happen.
Moore has revisited the country of his birth as part of groups led by… wait for it…Horace Silver…McCoy Tyner… Cedar Walton…Dizzy Gillespie…but this long overdue tour truly is something special.
I wanted to get the biographical facts right and spoke to the saxophonist on the phone. Moore tells me that he was born in St Thomas’s Hospital, grew up in Brixton, and at fifteen went to Santa Maria, California to live with his father.
After high school he went to study at Berklee in Boston, where friends contemporaries included Kevin Eubanks. “It really was a jazz school then. I left in 1980 and went to New York. I had an audition with Horace Silver and joined his quintet in January of the following year.” Moore has described this band as his ‘finishing school’.
Over the next fifteen years in New York he worked with “a slew of people: Roy Haynes, JJ Johnson, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Ray Brown. I was really fortunate… That’s the way in those days, I worked hard, the competition was fierce, there were a lot of good musicians around…” (see a few recommended albums below)
He left New York in 1995 to join the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as part of the band led by Kevin Eubanks, and stayed in that role for 15 years. He tours regularly in Europe and the US. This video is from the current tour, taken in Bologna.
ALBUMS: I have real affection for albums by him such as 623 C Street (1987- Criss Cross) with the trio of David Kikoski – piano Buster Williams – bass Billy Hart – drums, and Moore Makes 4 (1991 – Concord) with Ray Brown’s trio – Gene Harris and Jeff Hamilton. These are Try the track SOS – link to transcribed solo on YouTube. Or as sideman: Invitation by the Kenny Barron Quartet (1991 – Criss Cross) is another gem.
TOUR DATES
All gigs feature Ralph Moore (tenor sax) and Simon Woolf (double bass), plus:
Tuesday 1/4 20.15 – 22.45 Concorde Club Eastleigh; Matyas Gayer, Joe Edwards
Friday 4/4 18.00 – 20.00 St Andrew’s Hove with Mark Edwards, Joe Edwards
Saturday 5/4 19.00 – 20.30 & 22.00 -23.00 Peggy’s Skylight Nottingham with Nat Steele, Sean Fyfe, Joe Dessauer – BOOKINGS
Sunday 6/4 19.00 – 21.15 Elephant Inn North Finchley , Alex Bryson, Rick Findlay
Monday 7/4 12.30 -2.30 Spice of Life with Richard Pite, Jim Mullen, Oli Hayhurst
Wednesday 9/4 20.00 – 22.30 606 Club with Deschanel Gordon, Shane Forbes – BOOKINGS
Thursday 10/4 19.30 – 21.30 Diss Jazz Club with Chris Ingham, George Double
Friday 11/4 19.45 – 22.15 Studio Theatre Peterborough with Fraser Urquhart, Joe Dessauer
Saturday 12/4 20.30 -22.30 Bear Club Luton with Matyas Gayer, Mark Taylor – BOOKINGS
Sunday 13/4 18.30 – 21.00 Imber Court with Vasilis Xenopoulos, Fraser Urquhart, Mark Taylor
