Take Five Presents: Jelly Cleaver
Take Five Presents: Archipelago
Take Five Presents: Archipelago
Sat 14 November 2020
Stream time / 6:15pm
EFG London Jazz Festival is very proud to present its inaugural showcase of artists from Serious’ prestigious Take Five talent development programme – a scheme that supports emerging jazz and improvising musicians through mentorship, residencies, and collaborations. Past participants include Seb Rochford, Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed, and Nubya Garcia. The inaugural Take Five presents features performances by 10 artists from the last two years of Take Five, who Serious have commissioned to create a bespoke video of a performance of some of their newest material which will be broadcast throughout the festival.
Archipelago take audiences on a genre crushing journey fusing jazz, art-pop and blues folk melodies with cinematic improvisation; creating a sound that is stormy, exciting and unforgettable.
Fronted by multi-instrumentalist Faye MacCalman (composer/reeds/voice/synth) and completed by John Pope (Bass/FX) and Christian Alderson (Drums/Percussion), Archipelago formed out of the North East of England’s creative underground music scene, after meeting in ‘mutant funeral jazz big band’ The Midnight Doctors, brainchild of guitarist, composer and producer Phil Begg.
Playing their first ever gig squeezed into a tiny coffeeshop space set the precedent for Archipelago as they continued to defy expectations; playing anywhere from DIY bars to mainstream festivals and jazz nights, honing their music and connecting with audiences outside of the ordinary jazz touring roadmap.
Their activist stance saw them creating ‘BETWEEN WAVES’ in 2018 with the support of HMUK; a residency for female-identifying artists to make new music with Archipelago, and they have shared bills with Arun Ghosh, Binker & Moses and Once and Future Band.
Supported by BBC Introducing and selected as a Latitude Festival 2019 highlight by Tom Robinson (BBC6 Music), Archipelago completed a national tour in 2019 and after a four year break from recording are now working on their second trio album release.
Moving between instruments and effects to create the illusion of several musicians before peeling back to their raw trio form, Archipelago’s signature ‘shape shifting sound’ (Kevin Le Gendre) and uncompromising ability to fit in one genre is a fully charged musical experience.
