Tom Bancroft
Encyclopedia
Tom Bancroft is a jazz
drummer and composer. He began drumming aged 7 and started off playing jazz with his father and identical twin brother Phil. After studying medicine at Cambridge University he spent a year studying composition and arranging at McGill University in Montreal. Qualifying as a doctor in 1992 he then worked as a jazz musician and composer, supporting his music income with locum work as a hospital doctor until 1998, when he began starting music related companies. He is married to singer Gina Rae and has two children - Sam and Sophie. In 2004 he received the prestigious Creative Scotland Award.
In 1998 he launched Caber Music with support from the National Lottery fund, which went on to release over 30 CDs over the next 7 years to great critical acclaim including 2 BBC Jazz awards for Best CD, and numerous album of the year placings. He has subsequently started the company ABC Creative Music with his twin brother Phil Bancroft
, which develops creative music education resources which are now being used in more than 500 schools in Scotland.
As a drummer he has studied with Jo Morello, Joey Baron
and Andrew Cyrille
and played with many great musicians including Sun Ra
, Joakim Milder, Charlie Mariano
, Hamiett Bluiett, Liane Carroll
, Oliver Lake
, George Colligan
, David Berkman
, Tommy Smith
, Julian Argüelles
, Emil Vicklicky, Martin Taylor
, Sheila Jordan
, Shooglenifty
, Karen Mathieson, Reid Anderson
, Billy Jenkins
, Bill Wells
, Geri Allen
, Mr. McFall’s Chamber, and Martyn Bennett
.
He is currently the drummer with the Dave Milligan Trio, the Chick Lyall Trio, and Kevin MacKenzie’s Vital Signs, the Laura MacDonald
Quartet & Octet and plays in a crazy improvising duo with Italian guitarist Enzo Rocco.
He is drummer and co-leader of Trio AAB, whose first album ‘Cold Fusion’ Caber 004 was named an album of 1999 by BBC Radio 3, and whose second album ‘Wherever I Lay My Home That’s My Hat’ Caber 021 was an album of 2001 in The Guardian, and picked in a list of 100 essential all time jazz albums by MOJO
magazine in 2001. They also released 'Strager Things Happ[en at C' in 2002. Recently reactivated in 2011 Trio AAB performed at the Delhi Jazz Festival to an audience of 10,000+.
As a band leader and composer he has led Orchestro Interrupto (formerly the Tom Bancroft Orchestra) (contemporary jazz big band) producing a CD ’Pieology’ Caber 001 in 1998, many festival performances, a UK tour, and a live concert broadcast on BBC Radio 3
. In 2004 the band toured the Uk with US piano star Geri Allen ( one of Bancroft’s musical hero-ines) and the tour was broadcast on Radio 3, received 5 star reviews in The Guardian and The Scotsman and was voted jazz gig of the year in Manchester’s City Limits and London’s Time Out magazines. Orchestri Interrupto released a CD in 2009 of the music from the Geri Allen tour with Chick Lyall on piano entitled 'The Ballad of Linda & Crawford'. This received very positive reviews in the UK.
He has also composed for smaller groups including the Orange Ear Ensemble (octet), and Kilt Couture (collaboration with French group ARFI). In 2006 he launched the new Tom Bancroft 6 Pack as well as a spin off kids focussed band from the Orchestra called Kidsamonium , featuring trombone playing mystic chickens, which premiered at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival at The Sage Gateshead and also at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in 2006 and went on to perform all over Europe.
Bancroft’s compositions have been used in radio, film, dance, TV and theatre. He has been commissioned by BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 3, Glasgow International Jazz Festival, Assembly Direct, Birmingham Jazz, and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland. He has ‘danced’ in, played and composed music for ‘Life on the Planet's Surface’ with Kelsey Michael,and ' A Case for a Picnic Pt2, ' Tracing Houdini' , and ‘hoOps hAtS & AcrObAts’with choreographer Ruby Worth.
He has led many large scale community and education projects, including 150 primary school kids performing at the London Jazz Festival, 200 at Perth Concert Hall with classical percussionist Colin Currie, and 100 parents, grandparents and children playing drums and percussion at the Big Stix project at Gateshead Jazz Festival, The Sage.
Tom is an active teacher and educator - from private drum students to teaching composition and leading big bands. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator.
Tom has always been active in setting up new ways to promote jazz and improvisation. He curated a series of mini festivals for UK and European musicians inside the Glasgow Jazz Festival in the 90‘s called Clandemonium and Europhonium. In 1998 he set up Caber Music, the Scottish Jazz Record label that ran for 7 years and released 35 CDs to critical acclaim, and now he runs music education company ABC Creative Music with his twin brother Phil and his own label Interrupto Music. He was very active in setting up the Scottish Jazz Federation.
In 2010 he was musical director of major dance show ‘Off Kilter’ which played in major venues across Scotland, toured Scotland with the Dave Milligan trio, and premiered the ‘Band of Eden’ male/female big band to great critical acclaim, and Clandemonium a jazz flash mob event that drew 1500 people to Edinburgh’s High Street all wearing colour coded tammies and singing, playing drums and kazzoos, and dancing.
In the Autumn 2010, in his role at ABC Creative Music, Tom launched the innovative new website ABC Creative Music Online to allow Scottish schools to teach creative music by smartboard.
see: www.abcmusic.org.uk
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
drummer and composer. He began drumming aged 7 and started off playing jazz with his father and identical twin brother Phil. After studying medicine at Cambridge University he spent a year studying composition and arranging at McGill University in Montreal. Qualifying as a doctor in 1992 he then worked as a jazz musician and composer, supporting his music income with locum work as a hospital doctor until 1998, when he began starting music related companies. He is married to singer Gina Rae and has two children - Sam and Sophie. In 2004 he received the prestigious Creative Scotland Award.
In 1998 he launched Caber Music with support from the National Lottery fund, which went on to release over 30 CDs over the next 7 years to great critical acclaim including 2 BBC Jazz awards for Best CD, and numerous album of the year placings. He has subsequently started the company ABC Creative Music with his twin brother Phil Bancroft
Phil Bancroft
Philip William Bancroft is a New Zealand rugby league player who represented his country in two Test matches in 1989.-Playing career:A Canterbury and South Island representative in the 1980s, Bancroft played for the Glenora Bears in the Auckland Rugby League competition and also represented Auckland...
, which develops creative music education resources which are now being used in more than 500 schools in Scotland.
As a drummer he has studied with Jo Morello, Joey Baron
Joey Baron
Joey Baron is an American avant-garde jazz drummer probably best known for his work with Bill Frisell, Stan Getz, Steve Kuhn, and John Zorn...
and Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Charles Cyrille is an avant-garde jazz drummer.Cyrille was born in Brooklyn, New York into a family with a mother from Haiti. He began studying science at St...
and played with many great musicians including Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
, Joakim Milder, Charlie Mariano
Charlie Mariano
Carmine Ugo Mariano was an American jazz alto saxophonist. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and died in Cologne, Germany.-Biography:Mariano was the son of Italian immigrants....
, Hamiett Bluiett, Liane Carroll
Liane Carroll
Liane Carroll is an English pianist/vocalist who grew up in a musical family. She has played professionally since she was 15....
, Oliver Lake
Oliver Lake
Oliver Lake is an American jazz saxophonist, flutist, composer and poet. He is known mainly on alto saxophone but also performs on soprano saxophone and flute....
, George Colligan
George Colligan
George Colligan is a New York-based jazz pianist, organist, drummer, trumpet player, educator, composer and bandleader. He was born in New Jersey, and raised in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. He attended the Peabody Institute, majoring in classical trumpet and music education...
, David Berkman
David Berkman
David Berkman, born December 28, 1958 is a jazz pianist, composer, arranger and educator. Berkman came of age in Cleveland, Ohio playing in house bands for visiting jazz greats Sonny Stitt, Hank Crawford and Carter Jefferson and local heroes Joe Lovano, Jamey Haddad and Greg Bandy...
, Tommy Smith
Tommy Smith
Tommy Smith or Tommie Smith may refer to:* Tommy Smith , American playwright* Tommy Smith , spent much of his career with Liverpool* Tommy Smith , plays for Queens Park Rangers...
, Julian Argüelles
Julian Argüelles
Julian Argüelles is a saxophonist. He is currently a member of the HR Big Band in Frankfurt am Main, Germany....
, Emil Vicklicky, Martin Taylor
Martin Taylor
Martin Taylor, MBE is a British jazz guitarist who has performed in groups, guitar ensembles and as an accompanist to many of the world’s most famous musicians...
, Sheila Jordan
Sheila Jordan
Sheila Jordan is an American jazz singer and songwriter. Jordan has recorded as a session musician with an array of critically acclaimed artists in addition to a notable solo career....
, Shooglenifty
Shooglenifty
Shooglenifty are an Edinburgh-based six-piece Celtic fusion band that tours internationally. The band blends Scottish traditional music with influences ranging from electronica to alternative rock...
, Karen Mathieson, Reid Anderson
Reid Anderson
Reid Anderson is a bassist and composer originally from Minnesota. Anderson is best known for his work in The Bad Plus with pianist Ethan Iverson and drummer Dave King...
, Billy Jenkins
Billy Jenkins
Billy Jenkins is an English blues guitarist, composer, and bandleader.Initially Jenkins became famous as a member of Burlesque, then as part of Trimmer & Jenkins. A short period he followed as a member of Ginger Baker's Nutters. For several years, he ran Wood Wharf Studios...
, Bill Wells
Bill Wells
Bill Wells is a Scottish bassist, pianist, guitarist and composer.He is best known for his group the Bill Wells Octet, since the early 1990s, but he has performed and recorded in a wide range of settings, including collaborations with The Pastels, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Future Pilot A.K.A., Lol...
, Geri Allen
Geri Allen
Geri Allen is an American composer/pianist educator jazz pianist, raised in Detroit, Michigan, and educated in the Detroit Public Schools. Allen has worked with many of the greats of modern music, including Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Tony Williams, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette,...
, Mr. McFall’s Chamber, and Martyn Bennett
Martyn Bennett
Martyn Bennett was a Scottish musician who was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada...
.
He is currently the drummer with the Dave Milligan Trio, the Chick Lyall Trio, and Kevin MacKenzie’s Vital Signs, the Laura MacDonald
Laura Macdonald
Laura Margaret Macdonald is a Scottish alto and soprano saxophonist, composer and teacher, specialising in jazz.She attended Prestwick Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, before moving to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music. She began to play the saxophone at the...
Quartet & Octet and plays in a crazy improvising duo with Italian guitarist Enzo Rocco.
He is drummer and co-leader of Trio AAB, whose first album ‘Cold Fusion’ Caber 004 was named an album of 1999 by BBC Radio 3, and whose second album ‘Wherever I Lay My Home That’s My Hat’ Caber 021 was an album of 2001 in The Guardian, and picked in a list of 100 essential all time jazz albums by MOJO
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
magazine in 2001. They also released 'Strager Things Happ[en at C' in 2002. Recently reactivated in 2011 Trio AAB performed at the Delhi Jazz Festival to an audience of 10,000+.
As a band leader and composer he has led Orchestro Interrupto (formerly the Tom Bancroft Orchestra) (contemporary jazz big band) producing a CD ’Pieology’ Caber 001 in 1998, many festival performances, a UK tour, and a live concert broadcast on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
. In 2004 the band toured the Uk with US piano star Geri Allen ( one of Bancroft’s musical hero-ines) and the tour was broadcast on Radio 3, received 5 star reviews in The Guardian and The Scotsman and was voted jazz gig of the year in Manchester’s City Limits and London’s Time Out magazines. Orchestri Interrupto released a CD in 2009 of the music from the Geri Allen tour with Chick Lyall on piano entitled 'The Ballad of Linda & Crawford'. This received very positive reviews in the UK.
He has also composed for smaller groups including the Orange Ear Ensemble (octet), and Kilt Couture (collaboration with French group ARFI). In 2006 he launched the new Tom Bancroft 6 Pack as well as a spin off kids focussed band from the Orchestra called Kidsamonium , featuring trombone playing mystic chickens, which premiered at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival at The Sage Gateshead and also at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in 2006 and went on to perform all over Europe.
Bancroft’s compositions have been used in radio, film, dance, TV and theatre. He has been commissioned by BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 3, Glasgow International Jazz Festival, Assembly Direct, Birmingham Jazz, and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland. He has ‘danced’ in, played and composed music for ‘Life on the Planet's Surface’ with Kelsey Michael,and ' A Case for a Picnic Pt2, ' Tracing Houdini' , and ‘hoOps hAtS & AcrObAts’with choreographer Ruby Worth.
He has led many large scale community and education projects, including 150 primary school kids performing at the London Jazz Festival, 200 at Perth Concert Hall with classical percussionist Colin Currie, and 100 parents, grandparents and children playing drums and percussion at the Big Stix project at Gateshead Jazz Festival, The Sage.
Tom is an active teacher and educator - from private drum students to teaching composition and leading big bands. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator.
Tom has always been active in setting up new ways to promote jazz and improvisation. He curated a series of mini festivals for UK and European musicians inside the Glasgow Jazz Festival in the 90‘s called Clandemonium and Europhonium. In 1998 he set up Caber Music, the Scottish Jazz Record label that ran for 7 years and released 35 CDs to critical acclaim, and now he runs music education company ABC Creative Music with his twin brother Phil and his own label Interrupto Music. He was very active in setting up the Scottish Jazz Federation.
In 2010 he was musical director of major dance show ‘Off Kilter’ which played in major venues across Scotland, toured Scotland with the Dave Milligan trio, and premiered the ‘Band of Eden’ male/female big band to great critical acclaim, and Clandemonium a jazz flash mob event that drew 1500 people to Edinburgh’s High Street all wearing colour coded tammies and singing, playing drums and kazzoos, and dancing.
In the Autumn 2010, in his role at ABC Creative Music, Tom launched the innovative new website ABC Creative Music Online to allow Scottish schools to teach creative music by smartboard.
see: www.abcmusic.org.uk