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Billy Marrows And Grande Familia: The Penelope Album Live
by Neil Duggan
In 2024 London-based guitarist and composer Billy Marrows formed a 12-piece chamber-jazz ensemble. Together as Billy Marrows and Grande Familia, they released their debut album, Penelope (Self Produced), in memory of Marrows' mother, Penny. This deeply personal project used tunes he had written during her battle with cancer. The band featured Marrows' musical friends and relations playing in various formats: as a 12-piece ensemble, in smaller combinations and Marrows' solo guitar pieces. The project was used to raise funds for ...
Continue ReadingBilly Marrows and Grande Família: Penelope
by Neil Duggan
London-based guitarist and composer Billy Marrows brings us a new 12-piece chamber-jazz ensemble, Grande Família. It is a family affair with members of his extended family and a wider circle of close friends and musical associates making up the group. Their debut album, Penelope, is released in memory of Marrows' mother, Penny. Most of the music was written by Marrows as a surprise for his mother during her battle with cancer. All proceeds go to World Child Cancer, a charity ...
Continue ReadingMoss Freed / Union Division: Micromotives
by John Sharpe
A question any composer for improvisers must face is whether they can create something more worthwhile than what they might come up with if left to themselves. It can be a tough call. For some, such as Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity Orchestra or Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet, the ultimate conclusion was no, while for others such as Anthony Braxton and Barry Guy the answer has been far less clear cut. British guitarist Moss Freed falls somewhere between the two ...
Continue ReadingLet Spin: Steal The Light
by Chris May
Formed in 2014, London's Let Spin is an electric quartet peopled by musicians who emerged around a decade earlier as part of a scene which was rather lazily dubbed “punk jazz" by British music journalists. The music was certainly loud, irreverent and in-your-face, but it was played by musicians who were conservatoire graduates, a demographic not associated with punk in its original knuckle- scraping manifestation. Let Spin's Ruth Goller and Chris Williams were members of two of ...
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