Having enjoyed Harrison’s last visit with Tommaso Starace, this eagerly sought return sees this high-class, lyrical and sensitive pianist take centre stage. Performing his own compositions alongside empathetic re-inventions from the American Songbook, anticipate “lucid, intelligent, …beautifully controlled explorations”, Jazzwise. The songs of Jerome Kern, Fats Waller and Cole Porter are likely to feature and will, without doubt, appeal to classical music lovers as well as jazz afficionados. Last November’s audience have not forgotten Harrison’s bewitching and moving rendition of Starace’s arrangement of Ravel’s Adagio Assai from the Piano Concerto in G Major.
The evening also promises some jazzy musical fireworks. Frank will be joined by his latest Trio line-up of Dave Whitford on bass and Enzo Zirilli on drums. They will be promoting their first studio album together, ‘Lunaris’, released last year to great acclaim and described by John Pallant as an “anthology of warmth, exploration, unpredictability and, ultimately, possessing an overriding sense of equanimity”.
Harrison took up the piano at 11, and began playing gigs when he was 15. After taking up a scholarship at Berklee School of Music, Boston, he returned to the UK and joined Gilad Atzmon’s Orient House Ensemble which regularly tours Europe, playing at major jazz and world music festivals. Frank has also performed with Tim Garland, Peter King, Julian Arguelles, Bobby Wellins, Julian Siegel, Don Weller, John Etheridge, Louis Stewart and Iain Ballamy. Frank’s own four albums are supplemented with numerous other album credits.
From early years with the Cornish Youth Jazz Orchestra, Dave Whitford gained his postgraduate diploma in Jazz from the Guildhall School of Music. He has since built a considerable reputation playing with top names including Bill Frisell, Maceo Parker, Steve Lacy, Paul Carrack, Marc Copland, John Taylor, Dave Liebman and the NDR Big Band – that’s just a few of them.
Enzo Zirilli was born in Turin and studied at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory. He is considered one of the most creative and versatile drummer/percussionists of the last generation, having worked and recorded all around the world for the last 25 years with great artists from jazz, world music and the pop scene: Charlie Mariano, James Moody, Bob Mintzer, Tom Harrell, Peter Bernstein, Dado Moroni, Enrico Pieranunzi, Marco Pereira, Hamish Stuart, Gloria Gaynor, Jim Mullen, Gilad Atzmon, Alex Garnett, among others.
Frank Harrison Trio perform at The Hive, Belmont, Shrewsbury on Saturday 12 September at 7.30pm.
Tickets £14, members £12, 21 and under £7, from the Hive, Pengwern Books, Fish Street and WeGotTickets.