Saturday 22 November 2025
The Darius Brubeck Quartet returns to Jazz Café POSK with a themed programme of favourite tunes and original jazz!
At Jazz Café POSK on November 22nd, 2025, the Darius Brubeck Quartet will play their own chosen favourite tunes as well as numbers that audiences around the world have requested and enjoyed. The quartet has been together for nearly 20 years and have amassed a lengthy set list. Together with Darius Brubeck the other musicians, Dave O’Higgins, Matt Ridley and Wesley Gibbens have an enthusiastic individual following and, as a group, always play to full houses. Expect familiar hits and innovation within a swinging night of music.
The Darius Brubeck Quartet, with its three-dimensional programming of original compositions, Dave Brubeck hits and South African jazz is a real draw. Playing to consistently sold-out houses at home and abroad, their acoustic sound is melodic, spontaneous, rhythmic and audience friendly. Reaction to the quartet has been enthusiastic, whether in Riyadh or Ronnie Scott’s. In June 2025, they thrilled audiences at Festivals in the South of France and are now back appearing in the UK again.
Line up:
Darius Brubeck – piano
Dave O’Higgins – sax
Matt Ridley – bass
Wesley Gibbens – drums
During the 1970s, pianist and composer DARIUS BRUBECK toured the world with The New Brubeck Quartet (Dave, Darius, Chris and Dan Brubeck). He moved to South Africa in 1983 and initiated the first degree in Jazz Studies offered by an African university, then founded the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he taught until 2005 and toured with many great South African musicians. Darius and his wife Catherine co-authored a book called “Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and On the Road”. Brubeck is based in England and performs worldwide with The Darius Brubeck Quartet.Together they have made three very well reviewed albums. He also sometimes still plays with his brothers in Brubecks Play Brubeck.
DAVE O’HIGGINS - jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, educator. Dave is a well-known figure on the international jazz scene, having recorded numerous albums as leader with various lineups. He cut his teeth with NYJO, Cleo Laine, and went on to work with, Ray Charles, Martin Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Salif Keita, Kyle Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, and the BBC Big Band to name just a few. Dave’s saxophone sound and language draw from deep respect for Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Stanley Turrentine and Michael Brecker amongst a host of other inspirations from early on to the present day. “O’Higgins plays with quite exceptional fluency, and his fund of ideas never runs out” - TheObserver
MATT RIDLEY (bass) has been a familiar presence on the UK jazz scene for two decades, during which time he has performed and collaborated with an extremely broad range of artists. He played with luminaries such as Michael Garrick, Pete King, Don Weller, and since 2006 he has been touring the UK and abroad with The Darius Brubeck Quartet He worked extensively with Ant Law and more recently at major international jazz festivals with Ethiopian jazz legend Mulatu Astatke. He was co-producer and bass player on Fabienne Ambuehl's 2025 critically acclaimed album ‘Thrive’. Matt has 6 albums as band leader and his latest project, ‘The Antidote’, topped the polls in the UK and received glowing reviews.
WESLEY GIBBENS (drums) moved to London from South Africa in 2005 and has been a founding member of The Darius Brubeck Quartet since 2006. Credits include the UK based African musicians Netsayi, SA Gospel Singers, Afla Sackey and the late Lucky Ranku and Pinise Saul as well as extensive work within the London New Orleans/Trad Jazz scene with the likes of TJ Johnson and Adrian Cox. Wesley studied Brazilian and African music as part of the F-ire Collective between 2007 -2014 forming his own experimental duo “Euphorials”, featuring Zac Gvirtzman, who have released four albums to date. The balance of his time is spent mixing, mastering, teaching and producing in his home studio.
“Darius, the eldest (of Dave Brubeck’s sons) and most visually like his father, plays stylish piano and knows the score” - Jack Massarik, Evening Standard
“How often do you come away from a jazz concert wishing it could have been bottled and later poured out to relive the magic again?” – Stuart Nicolson, Jazzwise, 2020
“The combination of Brubeck & O’Higgins is certainly among the best piano/sax partnerships in the UK” - Jazzwise
Video 1 (“Take Five” - live): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9DIIWDbMPk&t=2s
Video 2 (“Mamazala” - live): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV9sVxubgY4
Video 3 (“Earthrise” – live): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZYjifbjfCc&t=2s
