Annie Whitehead and Interplay

Event information

Tickets available at the door from 7.30pm. £15.00

Star trombonist Annie Whitehead joins Interplay for this International Jazz Day event, celebrating jazz from South Africa among other genres.

Annie's pedigree ranges from Brotherhood of Breath to Penguin Café Orchestra. She has worked with McCoy Tyner, Carla Bley, Abdullah Ibrahim, Louis Moholo and James Blood Ulmer and more recently Gary Crosby's Jazz Jamaica All Stars with Andy Shepherd and Eddie ‘Tan-Tan’ Thornton.

She is in huge demand for her eclectic musicality and skill on an instrument more traditionally associated with men. Her commercial credits inlcude Joan Armatrading, Chris Rea, Bill Wyman, Maxi Priest, Jerry Dammers, Elvis Costello, Eddi Reader and Paul Weller among many others.

Annie continues to play with the Brotherhood of Breath, The Zappatistas with John Etheridge, and British blues legend Carol Grimes, along with her compadres from the Penguin Café Orchestra, ‘The Orchestra That Fell to Earth’.

She also tours with her own band Rude, formed with her partner and musical collaborator Jennifer Maidman, and continues to play live throughout the UK and Europe. Their CD 'This is Rude' is on the Resurgence label.

Annie will bring her own arrangements as well as shining a new light on Interplay's repertoire of original and well-known tunes.

Also sharing the stage is much-loved Coventry soul singer Letitia George (The Voice), making her jazz debut at this event.

As in previous years there will be a free public talk on a jazz-related topic. This year Tim Wall, Rpofessor of Radio and Popular Music Studies at Birmingham School of Media, will explore ‘Jazz at the BBC in Interwar Britain: Lessons for Today’.

Tim says "The BBC is often seen as neglectful of jazz in its broadcasts. Such views were as widespread in the early years of radio in Britain as they are today. However, a detailed study of jazz on UK radio in the 1920s and 30s reveals that for a period there was more jazz in the BBC’s output than any other form of programming, and that the BBC had a central place in defining what jazz was (and what it wasn’t). The debates of ninety years ago still have a powerful resonance for contemporary discussions, and this talk will enlighten and stimulate our thinking." 4.00pm in The Studio, Jephson Gardens. Admission free.


Tickets for Annie Whitehead and Interplay are available on the door from 7.30pm. £15.00. See you there!