At PizzaExpress Jazz Club, Dean Street, Soho, London
It is a welcome return to Pizza Express for another concert by the Callum Au Big Band.
Whilst no stranger to Dean Street audiences as an ace trombone player in small groups and with his septet, TrombaFonics, it was only in the 2024 EFG London Jazz Festival we welcomed the Callum Au Big Band. They played new band arrangements of Bernstein’s “West Side Story, so Dean Street experienced first hand, the Callum Au Big Band, for what was a sensational Sold-out experience.
The band returned in May playing in our Thursday lunchtime “Weekend Starts Here” series and in two sold-out concerts to accompany the great singer Claire Martin in new, compelling arrangements.
This November concert features innovative writing for their forthcoming new album “The Influencers” paying tribute to Callum’s most influential big band predecessors, including Ellington, Basie Kenny Wheeler and Maynard Ferguson and many of Callum’s most recent big band compositions.
Born in London to a Scottish mother and a Chinese father, Callum spent most of his formative years in Blackpool before moving to London, where he now lives and works.
Over the past fifteen years, Callum has established himself as one of the busiest arrangers and orchestrators in Europe. He has had the privilege of writing music for many international artists, including Quincy Jones, Jamie Cullum, Randy Brecker, and ensembles including the SWR Big Band, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Britten Sinfonia. In 2019, he was commissioned to arrange the big band songs in the Hollywood movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Cats’. More recently, he had the pleasure of writing two new arrangements for Michael Bublé’s album ‘Higher’, and conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra in a special episode of ‘Sunday Night Is Music Night’ for BBC Radio 2.
Callum is increasingly in demand as a composer for classical ensembles, with his flair for arresting melodies and lush complex harmony proving popular with audiences and musicians alike. Recent commissions include works for Inner City Brass at the Spitalfields and Ryedale Festivals and pieces recorded and performed by the Metropole Orkest and the Tippett Quartet.
Callum has been the jazz trombonist with the Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Orchestra since 2012, one of the UK’s premier large jazz ensembles, with a performance schedule to match. He has also composed or arranged a substantial proportion of the band’s current working repertoire.
Here is the band in a full flow ensemble and solo performances of “Bandwagon Blues” from a previous Sunday Lunch spectacular concert at Dean Street’s PizzaExpress Jazz Club.
“…the remarkable arranger Callum Au is already a master of the mysterious art of orchestration and arranging.” – Dave Gelly - The Observer
“You just have to be there in the club to experience the embracing Callum Au Big Band sound” – The Hoste of Jazz
