Friday 20 December 2024
Julian Nicholas & Emil Viklicky Quartet: “Food of Love” (Rubicon Jazz) – album launch!
The concert will feature a quartet brought together to celebrate and build upon the legacy of this celebrated album from 1995, originally recorded in Prague, CZ. There will be compositions from the original album and new work, too. Emil and Julian have worked together for 35 years in many circumstances – tonight they are joined by two associates with powerful and individual voices – Steve Watts and Mike Pickering!
The album is on: www.rubiconclassics.com
Line up:
Julian Nicholas – saxophone
Emil Viklicky – piano
Steve Watts – double bass
Mike Pickering - drums
Julian and Emil have worked together consistently over some 35 years. Steve Watts’s association with Emil, too, goes back some decades. Steve and Mike Pickering were co-members of a band with Julian from the mid-1990s. One way or another, their pathways have always been connected, but tonight’s quartet is moving forwards with fresh original material and building upon classics from past recordings and performances.
Emil has toured and recorded with Wynton Marsalis, Miroslav Vitous, George Mraz, Ray Brown, Bill Frisell, among many other greats of the music. He is much celebrated at home in Czechia as an orchestral writer of film scores, with a piano concerto and an opera to his name.
Julian Nicholas is “no stranger to fans of top-flight U.K. jazz” (Eddie Myer - Jazzwise). He came through the Loose Tubes stable and has forged his own identity working with Claire Martin OBE, Bobby Wellins, Chris MacGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, Baluji Shrivastav and Eddie Parker. Julian’s recent vinyl triptych release “Rising Cost of Love” was hailed by Stuart Nicholson (Jazzwise) as “totally compelling”.
Steve Watts is quite literally the sound of the bass in original UK-jazz. He is on a raft of great modern British albums by artists such as Mark Lockheart, Iain Ballamy and Nikki Iles. He is on countless recordings of the greatest players of his generation: Django Bates, Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, Martin France, Nikki Iles, Loose Tubes, Iain Ballamy, Julian Arguelles, Mark Lockheart. and Huw Warren, as well as USA star Kirk Lightsey.
Mike Pickering has been a sustained member of the sound world of The Tiger Lillies, as well as the varied combos of Billy Jenkins; and would have otherwise been appearing tonight with Hank Wangford!
Video 1 (“You Don’t Know What Love Is”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w85gnr4XzI
