A Celebration of Keith Tippett

A series of 6 concerts recorded at St Georges in Bristol on Saturday 2nd October 2021 to celebrate the life of jazz pioneer Keith Tippett, featuring Julie Tippetts, Kevin Figes, Paul Dunmall, Matthew Bourne, Maggie Nichols, Liam Noble, Mark Sanders and many other jazz musicians who worked and played with Keith.

"It was early in the 2020 pandemic when we sadly heard of the death of Bristol-born musical innovator Keith Tippett. As a result of lockdown restrictions, no gathering could mark the passing of someone so well-loved and respected within the musical community and beyond. This mini-festival reflecting diverse aspects of his musical legacy was thus more emotionally charged than most, both for the audience and for the players - some 38 musicians all of whom had worked with and been inspired by Keith over his fifty-year career as pianist, bandleader, composer and educator. With funding scratched together by crowdfunding and calling in all kinds of favours it was the kind of unfeasible project Tippett himself would have relished and, like so many of his own projects, amazingly it worked.

"The Saturday programme explored Keith's compositional work, with saxophonist Kevin Figes leading both the From Granite to Wind Septet and a 17-piece Celebration Orchestra. The latter's brave and gutsy evocation of Centipede's Septober Energy drew singer Julie Tippetts up from the audience, while pianist Jim Blomfield distinguished himself in Tippett's complex and beautiful introduction to the former." - Tony Benjamin, B24/7