Jazz Course - Sponsored by John Packer of Taunton

Directed by Andy Hague

Sunday 14th – Saturday 20th August

Places now available for summer 2011 - BOOK NOW!

Following a hugely successful 2010 course we are pleased to announce the return of Andy Hague as Musical Director. His enthusiasm and friendly relaxed approach is the key to a hugely successful week. Andy will be joined by Jonathan Taylor, an experienced jazz pianist who will support musicians of all abilities on their journey to expand their understanding of jazz. Ed Jones will also tutor on saxophone for four days of the course. The rhythm section will be supported by Pete Furnish (Bass), Jez Franks (Guitar), Riaan Vosloo (String Bass) and Tim Giles ( Drums)  alongside a host of other visiting professionals. Professional tutors will be available to guide each student in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.


The word jazz covers a wide spectrum of idioms. Whether you need to be guided through the essential elements or new challenging innovative material for improvisation, this course is for you. The course is open to woodwind players, brass players, rhythm section (keyboard, bass guitar, rhythm guitar and drums) and vocalists (please see jazz vocal page).

This course will give you the opportunity for daily performance, but no pressure will be put on any student. There will be opportunities for jazz ensembles to perform in the bar area every evening and we encourage you to bring along some of your favourite repertoire for performance. Step by step theoretical advice alongside practical experience is the best way to make progress.

The 2011 course will offer tuition to beginner, intermediate and advanced players. Musicians will be placed in groups with others of a similar standard. The structuring of the course is new for 2011 and will allow musicians to work at their chosen level. You may be required to complete a short questionnaire prior to the course to ensure that you are in the correct group.You will be able to develop your improvisation, sight reading, theory and performing techniques at the appropriate level. We appreciate that beginners are often nervous of these first few classes and will provide all the support necessary to make this experience enjoyable and informative. For more advanced players we will take the time to see how we can help develop your technique further with ample opportunities for performing. Instrumental workshops will be provided during the week by specialist tutors which will allow musicians to develop their individual instrumental technique. There will be daily opportunities to rehearse with a variety of other musicians and vocalists and perform in the Bar de la Musique. You will certainly share these experiences with others who share a similar interest, and we can guarantee that you will have an enjoyable and informative week.

Visiting Artists

To add variety to the course we will invite well known artists to present workshops throughout the week. Last year world famous Brazilian percussionist Bosco D'Olivera presented an afternoon workshop on Samba. Material was taken from the workshop and performed by the jazz musicians in the Bar de la Musique in the evening. Steve Rubie, owner of the 606 Jazz Club also visited and played in the evening jam session in 2008 and our guest artist in 2009 was the infamous Pete Long, leader of the Ronnie Scott Big Band.

Bar de la Musique

The 2009 Jazz Course saw the introduction of the 'Bar de la Musique' which turned out to be a great success. Every afternoon there will be the opportunity to perform with other musicians and prepare for the evening entertainment in the bar area. This is a fantastic oppotunity for musicians to experience playing with new people and to enjoy the 'buzz' of playing to a live audience. The Bar de la Musique is run on a voluntary basis so there is no pressure placed on individuals. The week culminates with performances that musicians have prepared with tutors during the week.

A welcome meeting will be held at 1.00pm on Sunday 15th August and rehearsals will commence at 1.30pm. A daily schedule will be given to you on arrival.

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Andy Hague - Trumpet - Course Director

Andy is a prolific composer and arranger - although his own groups feature him on trumpet he also plays drums to an equal extent, and has performed with many big names in this capacity. Key career points include - attended Banff Summer School [1988] with tutors such as Dave Holland & Kenny Wheeler - recorded four broadcasts for the BBC's Jazz Notes programme, and three CD's as band-leader - many appearances as a session musician including the albums by Portishead and their Live in New York video - organised two tours with support from Jazz Services, and appeared at festivals such as Edinburgh, Brecon & Glastonbury - received composition commissions from Bristol Brass Consort, South West Jazz, & Jazz at the Albert - theatre work including Blues Brother, Soul Sister [Bristol Old Vic production starring Kwame Kwei Amah & Ruby Turner] & Hold On [national tour starring Peter Straker & Ruby Turner] - played on the soundtrack of the motion picture "A Good Woman" starring Helen Hunt & Scarlett Johannson. Education work - Andy has tutored for Bristol Jazz Workshops for several years, directs a community big-band for Bristol Music Service, and has acted as an external examiner for the Welsh College of Music & Drama.

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Jonathan Taylor - Piano Tutor

Jonathan began his musical career in Bristol having studied classical piano before developing an obsession with jazz which proved a major distraction from his English Literature degree course. He has worked with many distinguished jazz musicians since such as Iain Ballamy, Andy Sheppard, Pee Wee Ellis and Tim Garland, and performed his own music at jazz festivals around the UK.

These days he is more usually found playing and writing for Tango Siempre, the UK’s leading Argentinean Tango group, and has done since their inception in 1998, recording four albums and playing in every kind of venue imaginable from concert halls in major European cities to tiny village halls on remote Scottish islands. In 2006 he recorded a tango-jazz fusion project with saxophonist Gilad Atzmon and drummer/electronic wizard Steve Arguelles and in 2008 toured with bandoneonist Paolo Russo, writing music combining tango with jazz, electronica and contemporary classical music.

Away from tango he can sometimes be found in the theatre - touring recently with choreographer Matthew Bourne's 'Edward Scissorhands' - giving a solo jazz recital alongside virtuoso jazz pianist Uri Caine or playing funk with ex-James Brown legend Fred Wesley around Europe. He has studied composition with jazz flautist Eddie Parker and recorded an album with him (Being and Becoming), attempted to set up a jazz record label and currently teaches jazz at the Guildhall School in London and is an ABRSM examiner.

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Ed Jones - Tenor Sax

Ed Jones began playing saxophone at the age of 15. In 1984 he graduated from Middlesex University with a degree in music, and for a while served an apprenticeship as a street musician. After giging for a few years on the London scene he formed his first group "Ed Jones Quartet" in 1987, recording "The Homecoming" (Acid Jazz, 1989). In 1991 he formed a new quartet featuring pianist Jonathan Gee,and drummer Brian Abrahams This band recorded "Pipers Tales" (ASC, 1995). Since 1995 his main ongoing 'solo' project has been a quintet with which he has recorded ''Out Here" (ASC, 1997), and "Seven Moments" (ASC 2002).  He has made musical connections in many countries particularly in Japan where he runs two projects; EJQ (a jazz quartet), and Quasimodo, an electric project featuring the legendary Paul Jackson on bass.

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Jez Franks – Guitar Tutor

Jez Franks took up the guitar age 15 and attended Leeds College of Music acquiring a 1st on the Jazz and Contemporary Music Course, plus the College’s Jazz Guitar Prize. He has played, recorded and toured with a variety of ensembles in jazz, pop and world music including F-ire Collective member Tom Arthurs’ ‘Centripede’, Russell Van den Berg, Asaf Sirkis’ ‘Inner Noise’, ‘Centreline’, Rick Astley, Henry Lowther, Gerard Presencer, Koby Israeilite and Johnny Mayor (Indo-jazz fusion) with recordings for Babel, 33 records and FMR and performances including a live broadcast for Jazz on 3 and tours of Portugal, Poland and Austria. He leads his own quartet-Compassionate Dictatorship, which has just released it’s second album-‘Cash Cows’ on FMR, and has toured the U.K. extensively, to some critical acclaim. He is a Senior Guitar Lecturer at Leeds College and guitar tutor/examiner at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

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Pete Long - Guest Artist sponsored by John Packer of Taunton

Pete’s career began fairly inauspiciously at the age of 18 deep within the bowels of the Nat West bank in Marble Arch putting bank statements into envelopes. An unfortunate incident involving a picture of a lady and a horse being accidentally sent to the Convent of the Sacred Heart along with their financial records led to a re-think and a few days later, Pete had enrolled at the Royal London College Of Music. After a couple of years of hard study, ruthless self-denial and curry, Pete was out on the road with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, and during his time there, got to play all five saxophone parts, the solo flute part, the bass guitar, and on one rather messy occasion, the fourth trumpet. Having the unusual inclination to play modern jazz on the rather “old-fashioned” clarinet led to several works for clarinet and big band being commissioned during his stay, and established a tradition of clarinet solos in NYJO which has plagued the saxophone section ever since.

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Pete Furnish - Rhythm Section

Pete has always enjoyed a wide range of music from Pop to Classical.

In the 1960s he was busy doing TV, Radio, recording and touring with a Scottish Folk Group "The Islanders". Although he has played in dance bands, groups and trad jazz bands, an introduction to Modern Jazz in the 1980s required him to deepen his understanding of Modes and Harmonic Structure.  Summer Schools played an important part in this and the idea that Jazz could be taught lead Pete to gain a City & Guilds qualification in Teaching Adults. Pete plays bass with AJ's Big Band and Jazz Trilogy based in Devon.  He enjoys the variety offered by playing in other bands on a freelance basis and also plays in a local amateur symphony orchestra.

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Riaan Vosloo - Rhythm Section

Having studied at leeds college of music (BAhons) and the Royal academy of music (MA) Riaan became active on the uk music scene working in a freelance capacity as a bassist and composer. Riaan has made many appearances with many well known artists and has a growing portfolio of composition and album credits. On top of his freelance work Riaan currently occupies the Bass chair in Nostalgia 77, examples of twelves,and twelves trio.

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Tim Giles – Drum Tutor

Drummer Tim Giles is an award-winning performer and composer. Living in London, he is known for his collaborations with saxophonist James Allsopp and other leading lights of the UK jazz scene.

A musical prodigy, (winning a Telegraph Jazz Award for his childhood prowess), Tim started out backing jazz musicians that visited his home county of Suffolk. Aged twelve, Tim formed his own trio, which was heard by saxophonist Iain Ballamy. This led to Iain asking Tim to play in a Ronnie Scott’s residency as part of the nascent Hungry Ants. Recordings and touring followed, fitting in around the obligatory school calendar. Whilst still in his teens, Tim was performing internationally at events such as the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, and St Louis Jazz Festival, Senegal (providing support for the late Joe Zawinul). He left school at sixteen, and moved to London to be a full-time musician.

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James Allsopp- Saxophone Tutor

James Allsopp is a multi-instrumentalist and composer whose genre busting quintet ‘Fraud’ exploded on to the Jazz scene in 2005 to instant critical acclaim. Their Cheltenham Jazz festival gig of 2006, as part of the Jerwood Rising Stars programme, was voted one of the gigs of the year by Jazzwise magazine, and they have since gone on to record a special session for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Jazz on 3’ programme and have won both the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation 2008 and the Ronnie Scott Award for best New Act 2007. Fraud’s Debut album received many critical plaudits including being described as ‘the future of improvised music’ by Jazzwise Magazine and ‘what the term cutting edge was meant for’ by the Guardians John Fordham.