Fleet Jazz Club: Alan Barnes & Bruce Adams Quintet

One of the UK’s most popular jazz musicians, saxophonist ALAN BARNES is a prolific international performer, composer, arranger, bandleader and touring soloist. ​His recorded catalogue is immense and his unique musicianship, indefatigable touring, and warm rapport with audiences have made him uniquely popular in British jazz.  He has received over 25 British Jazz Awards and has twice been made BBC Jazz Musician of the Year. BRUCE ADAMS is a masterly trumpet player with a legendary richness of tone whose long career has brought him associations with many top players who value his spectacular technique and lyrical capacity.

When these two get together fireworks happen! Both top players in their own right, when on stage as a frontline horn section they play off each other brilliantly and compete with amazing technique and equally quick one-liners that has audiences loving the music and having a fun night out.

With Robin Aspland (piano), Marianne Windham (bass), Matt Fishwick (drums)

ALAN BARNES

One of the UK’s most popular jazz musicians, Alan Barnes is a prolific international performer, composer, arranger, bandleader and touring soloist.  He is best known for his work on clarinet, alto and baritone sax, where he combines a formidable virtuosity with a musical expression and collaborative spirit that have few peers.

His range and brilliance have made him a “first call” for studio and live work since his precocious arrival on the scene more than thirty years ago.​

His recorded catalogue is immense.  He has made over thirty albums as leader and co-leader alone, and the list of his session and side-man work includes Bjork, Bryan Ferry, Michel LeGrande, Clare Teale, Westlife, Jools Holland and Jamie Cullum. He has toured and played residencies with such diverse and demanding figures as Ruby Braff, Freddie Hubbard, Scott Hamilton, Warren Vache, Ken Peplowski, Harry Allen and Conte Candoli.

​In British jazz, the young Barnes was recognized – and hired – by the established greats of the time:  Stan Tracy, John Dankworth, Kenny Baker, Bob Wilber, and Humphrey Lyttelton.  But he is equally respected for his longstanding and fruitful collaborations with contemporaries such as David Newton, Bruce Adams, and Martin Taylor.

​Alan Barnes’s unique musicianship, indefatigable touring, and warm rapport with audiences have made him uniquely popular in British jazz.  He has received over 25 British Jazz Awards, most recently in 2014 for clarinet, and has twice been made BBC Jazz Musician of the Year

BRUCE ADAMS

Bruce Adams is a masterly trumpet player and multiple jazz awards winner!

By the time he was twelve, Bruce was working three to four nights a week in the Glasgow area playing in small dance band residencies and performing in a cabaret act with his father. When he was fourteen he was sponsored on Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks by British trumpet legend Nat Gonella.

You don’t need to attend a course of lectures in order to know what he’s on about, because he speaks a musical language which everybody understands and speaks it with uncommon elegance and vigour.

His legendary richness of tone has recently been enhanced by his partnership with Eclipse trumpets, providing him with a trumpet, flugel and cornet. Bruce’s long career has brought him associations with many top players who value his spectacular technique and lyrical capacity – from Kenny Baker’s Dozen to a regular feature spot in Alan Barnes’ Octet.