Last Friday the Emma Cons Hall, in Morley’s Waterloo Centre, hosted The Blues and Roots Ensemble for an inspiring evening of Charlie Mingus’s music and more. The sold-out jazz concert was the first to be held in the modernised Emma Cons Hall since it re-opened in September. Morley’s Head of Jazz , Flavio Li Vigni, plays drums with the Blues and Roots Ensemble – a diverse collective of accomplished international musicians from South Africa to Sicily, Australia to Cuba known for its raucous, visceral and captivating concerts.
Flavio explained: “The Blues and Roots Ensemble have been working together for almost 10 years now. We are now a charity. We do a lot of festivals, we perform around the country, but we also do a lot of educational workshops in schools, in all sorts of centres, for adults, beginners, advanced students, on all sorts of settings to bring me to jazz music to as many young people and adults that we can around the country.”
The band celebrate the music of Charlie Mingus, and other jazz composers. The Artistic Director, Ed Barber, adapted two or three pieces which two Morley jazz choirs sang with the band.
“I’d written some arrangements for them just to sing with the band, mainly as a chance to get them improvising, like with the band. Yeah, it’s been really fun.” Ed added: “ It’s interesting going into a new space for the first time, and kind of feeling the acoustics. It looks great. It’s got that kind of new room smell. It’s really exciting to be opening concert in the space.”
The concert’s audio was produced by Morley Radio, working in partnership with the Ensemble. Friday’s concert was a great occasion – the first of many memorable musical and theatrical performances to be hosted in the modernised Emma Cons Hall.
“ It’s a great space. It’s a beautiful space. It’s fantastic, to have opportunity to have live music in a space that dedicated to music and performance! ” said Flavio.
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