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“The man with the big sound” “Something special” – Michael Parkinson Groove Rider Jazzwise Magazine  Schooled in hard bop, hotly tipped trumpeter Bryan Corbett has moved beyond the mainstream to bolt on 'more modern beats' for the club generation. INTERVIEW: KENNY MATHESON Bryan Corbett has been turning a few heads at jazz festivals around the country. The Birmingham-based trumpeter made his initial impact in a classic hard bop mould, releasing a couple of early COs In that vein, but branched out into a more contemporary sound and feel on his last album, Corbenova in 2003. Dance label Woodland records has just sued an EP of enlace of three tracks, with an LP imminent The disc followed two quintet albums, hunk in the Deep Freeze (leek) and Simply Blue (2000), both recorded with an earlier version of his acoustic group. Corbenova hailed as change of direction, but Bryan seas no discontinuity. I didn't see it as a change: the trumpeter insisted, 'I saw it as something extra added on. The first disc was really a live demo to help me get work, and it done quite well for me. The second was recorded live at Ealing Jazz Festival and we have a new one from the One Eleven Club in Sheffield, which is also the first release on their label. That is with my quartet, and that is pretty much what I do live. 'The Corbenova protect was really aimed at bringing both jazz and my music to a younger audience, and it has done that for me. It got me radio play and a higher profile, and I enjoyed working with a different group of people using the computer set-up. It is something I can do now at home - if I don’t feel like picking up my trumpet, I can still be creative with the computer.’ The quartet featured on Live at The One Eleven Club features Levi French on piano, Ben Markland on bass and Neil Bullock on drums. They play extended workouts on Corbett's own Simply Blue', Freddie Hubbard's Little Sunflower, Stanley Turrentine's Sugar and Victor Young's Beautiful Love'. 'I put the quartet together at the stall of last year. The quintet had pretty much run its course by then, and was getting a little bit stale. These guys play together a lot anyway, and are good friends of mine, so it came together pretty easy. They are all very creative and don't need to have everything tightly arranged and set down for them. You can give them an idea and they will make something happen. 'Levi French is very much on the same wavelength as me when it comes to melody and music language. We understand each other's approach, and he has the Fender Rhodes as well when we need that funkier sound. I have a huge respect for all three of them, and I think you can hear on the CD that we are really a band. I was getting bookings for some bigger festival stages, and I wanted a band that could stand up there on any stage and do us Justice. That was my aim, and I think that was what I got. Bryan began playing trumpet when his father, musician Stuart Corbett, brought him one at the age of six. He is classically trained, and came through various youth orchestras and wind bands, but his teenage aspirations did not lie in music. ‘All through my teens I wanted to be a professional sportsman,' he admitted, still sounding a little rueful even now.' Cricket and football were all i had my eyes on. After university the fact of having to find a proper job raised its head, and I drifted into music. I had done all my grades and diplomas and so forth, but there was always a bit of jazz in there from my dad, and that was really the fun side of music for me.' He moved to Birmingham six or seven years ago', where he worked in an instrument shop and began gigging locally. There, are some great players here, and at that lime there were good venues as well I had a residency at Ronnie Scotts, when it was here, and there was a great venue called Ty’s Jazz & Spice, but there was no support for it and it closed in July, There was enough to keep me here at that time, but at the moment I'd have to say if anything It is now going the other way. There is currently only really what Tony Dudley-Evans at Birmingham Jazz Is doing. I used to earn £50 quid gigs around the city, but they are just not here any more. There is still plenty of talent, but the venues have disappeared' Does this mean a change of location is likely, I wondered? 'It's always in the back of my mind,' he laughed, 'don't ask me where!’ One striking aspect of Corbett's playing is his rich trumpet sound, and that was something he wanted to keep intact in Corbenova, rather than going down the route of heavy electronic manipulation In the manner of Nils Petter Molbvaer’s recent work. 'I love what Nils Petter does, but I wanted something different I take great pride in my trumpet sound, and I warned to preserve it. Maybe I will move into electronics in a future project, but at this stage it was down to getting my sound across in a natural way in that musical context. The crossover approach of Miles, and Freddie Hubbard has been a big influence in the material I am doing now. It’s putting more modern beats behind it most of the drum samples on the disc, other than a drum machine, and I think really feel that difference. 'We have played a few clubby nights but it is very hard unless you have a run to get the number of players needed to get the sound. The material that is coming on Woodland is more amenable to live performances. I look that into consideration at the time. The original Corbenova was more of a studio project. Sounding Very Live Jazz Review  Watch out - here comes another outbreak of new Midlands jazz. MARTIN LONGLEY meets trumpet maestro Bryan Corbett. Already, we've had alto saxophonists Soweto Kinch and Chris Bowden representing a triumphant upsurge on the Birmingham jazz scene. Now it's the turn of trumpeter Bryan Corbett, recently playing an attention-gathering gig at the Cheltenham Festival and now releasing Corbenova, his second album. This new disc presents a radical contrast after Bryan's acoustic standards debut, turning on to the liquid fusion properties of early 1970s Miles, then running right up to areas inhabited by this year's Gerard Presencer release. The beats and synthesizer washes are swirling and atmospheric, framing a series of crystalline trumpet or flugel horn improvisations. Corbett bas succeeded in creating a commercial release that will attract outsiders to jazz, but one which will surely satisfy any open-minded old soldiers. "It's a very big shift," Bryan agrees. "If you really want to sell records, you've got to come up with something new, and one of my biggest aims is to take jazz to a younger audience. It's a natural progression. The commercial market: as a young player, I've got to enter it. That's the idea of the crossover. I'm not going straight down the Jazz FM smooth alley, there's a lot of brickbat samples coming from the '70s, a lot of analogue instrumentation. It's about sound and vibes, really. It's not about proving that you're the best player in the world. It can work as background music, to give out a really nice, chilled-out vibe. But in a live setting it can be very bard-hitting. For the live show, I'd use a line-up with two drummers, running samplers and computerized stuff, as well as having the live stuff going on top of it. If someone wants to invest in me to do a smooth groove album, then fair enough, but if I'm left to my own devices,
I'll just try to do that in a slightly different way. It sounds very live, because we've used all live drum samples." Bryan grew up in Bromyard, near Hereford, where he attended its Sixth Form College. Then he did a degree in Liverpool, with part of his time spent at Manchester's Royal Northern College Of Music. This was a general music course rather than one of those new-fangled specialist jazz options. He started playing with the college and university big bands as well as gigging with his father Stuart, who's now working at the London College Of Music where he's involved in writing the jazz syllabus. Upon arriving in Birmingham, Bryan found work at a shop called Musical Instrument Repairs & Sales, acting as their resident brass and woodwind expert. He stayed there for three years, making contacts that would lead to further big band work. Corbett formed his quintet at quite an early stage. "Initially, I used guitar, drums, bass, saxophone and trumpet," be recalls. "The saxophone player then left to go on the ships. I replaced him with another sax player called Mark Overton, who left to do the UB40 world tour. And then I decided to add Levi French on Rhodes and piano, rather than getting another front line." Bryan bad a regular gig at the Birmingham Ronnie Scott's for the last six months of its existence, and now he's a member of South African singer Esther Miller's band and the resident Ty's All-Stars. Even though Corbett's only been living in Birmingham for six years, this tall string bean cat has become an integral presence, now running his own quartet and programming the music down at Ty's Bar & Restaurant. This haunt is the UK's only Kashmiri curry and cornet venue, and its owner Ty Mahmood is a committed supporter of live jazz, presenting bands for five nights of the week. Lately, he's been expanding the date sheet with nationally known names, but that's not to say that the indigenous talent doesn't have its own substantial qualities. Ty's newest ventures involve the running of a recording studio and record label, both operated from the restaurant premises. Indeed, Corbett can play a Ty's gig until the early hours, then retire to his flat above the venue, roll out of bed the next morning and stumble straight into the studio for an all-day recording session. He need never leave the building... Like me, Corbett caught Nils Petter-Molvaer's set at this year's Cheltenham Festival. The Norwegian trumpeter's band consisted of a turntable DJ, a laptop beat manipulator, a realtime sampler and an actual acoustic drummer. "I guess that's the way that I'd probably look to set my thing up," says Corbett. "But the thing Nils did was use his trumpet like an effects unit. My stuffs got a lot more melody there, to be played with the raw sound of the trumpet. I think if you're using effects, they are gimmicks. They just need using when the time's right, rather than all over the track." Corbett operates a variety of composing strategies, sometimes adapting material that was penned for an acoustic line-up. "The 'Corbenova' track, I'll be doing with my new quartet, with more of a jazz vibe, which is how it was written." At other times, Bryan will improvise over a set of programmed heats. "Certainly on the three tracks that I did in Amsterdam, with Roger Perks. He wrote a vibe, and I just put bits over the top. Roger's a good friend of mine. He used to live in Birmingham." Perks plays guitar, bass and keyboards, working from out of his own studio. The main body of the new album was, of course, recorded at Ty's studio, in collaboration with Salt-uh and Levi French. Corbett's known both of these tech-orientated musicians for several years now. "Ty was always talking about having a studio. They had their own set-up down The Jewellery Quarter, and Ty spoke to them. Where my flat is, there's two spare rooms, so we moved the studio across. It was ideal for me to have a studio next door!" Salt-uh and French are doing a fair amount of outside, commercial remix work, with Corbett's album being the first release on Ty's label. There are imminent plans for an album by Birmingham singer Sara Coleman, followed by a project front keyboardist Steve Sheriff. Corbett has been playing at Ty's since it opened five years ago. "The club has yet to receive any funding, so it all comes out of Ty's pocket. I think it's had a massive impact on the jazz scene, and given a fresh lease of life to people. They've got something to work for." The new quartet will feature Corbett and French, with Ben Markland (bass) and Neil Bullock (drums), already known for their work with Chris Bowden. They're set to play the Swanage, Wigan and Brecon jazz fests over the summer, with Corbett's next move being to storm the London club scene. "All of a sudden, it seems that the Birmingham players are starting to break through," he says, with justified optimism. Old and Young Funk de Nite Gazeta Wyborcza (March 08) In existence since the year 1993, the Krakow band Funk de Nite began an anniversary tour of concerts celebrating its fifteenth year. On this occasion, they invited the outstanding British trumpeter Bryan Corbett to collaborate with them. They may be approaching their fifteenth year, but they are still young in spirit. This was evident at their fourth appearance at the Drukarni in Podgorze. As befits an anniversary, it started with memories. - We played our first concert during the opening of the Absolwent club in Nowy Sacz. Its founder, Wojtek Kulasa, told us that he couldn't pay us, because he was just starting up, but that we could have open access to the bar in return. The event went on for three days. "Hell", I could have paid you after all" - he said in annoyance later, as he added up his takings - recalled Ryszard Krawczuk, the creator and leader of the band Funk de Nite. Musically, it also started with memories, because the energetic opening sound of "Duke" was led by its composer, Pawel Maciwody, one time bassist of Funk de Nite, now a member of the legendary group, Scorpions. Today only Krawczuk (Saxophonist) and Artur Malik (Percussion) are left out of the old line-up of the group. New faces in the group are Piotr Grzaslewicz on electric guitar and Piotr "Quentin" Wojtanowski on bass. Anyway, in music, visions of "old musicians", - at least those not in the least conservative ones, - are dusted off by the craziness of "young musicians". Whereas their playing is excellent and harmonious, they present us with a strong funk - jazz - rock massacre. The star of the fourth evening was trumpeter Bryan Corbett, a member of US3, one of the most famous British groups playing a fusion of hip - hop and jazz. Do you remember the Dutch trumpeter, Saskia Laroo, who for the last couple of years collaborated with the Krakowian group? If she was fire, then Corbett demonstrated that he is a real musical volcano. He delighted us with his energetic solos, as well as his excellent feeling for the style in which Funk de Nite play. However, for me the revelation of this concert was the bassist, "Quentin" Wojtanowski. Not only a superb support of the section, but also a musician capable of conjuring up a real cosmos with the help of instruments. Now that really is a great trick. “The Bomb!!” - Courtney Pine TALKING JAZZ (Sholto Byrnes) THE INDEPENDENT (Review)  12 May 2007 Corbett is never afraid to let the music take him where it will - to let his whole body become the servant of the spirit of improvisation, to twist and turn on stage, to become one with the horn through which the magic is working. Perhaps this sounds fanciful, but anyone who has experienced it knows that there is a type of soloing that comes not from rigorous concentration on a melodic train of thought but from a plateau seemingly above that, where it feels as though some other intangible power is speaking through the soloist. Peter Bacon's Jazz Diary Birmingham Post It’s rare to be so excited by a player whose legend has yet to reach beyond his own lunch break. So : remember the name of Bryan Corbett. If there is any justice in the world, he is at the beginning of a brilliant career. It's a rare thing but you know it when you hear it - a musician who has got to that place where they have found their voice, where the sound they make is true to their character, their outlook on life, on the influences that made them what they are. SEE THE NEW CHET BAKER (Peter Baker, The Birmingham Post) May 13th 2003 So single-minded does the aspiring jazz musician have to be in order to satisfy their own impossibly high standards of musicianship and make their mark in a highly competitive field, that to find one prepared to promote others as well as himself deserves special praise. And one such is Bryan Corbett, the frighteningly young (and frighteningly slim) silver-lipped trumpeter and flugel horn player who masterminds the wide range of top talent, both locally and nationally, which appears at Ty’s Jazz & Spice five nights a week. He was in storming form down at the recent Cheltenham Jazz Festival and will be back with the Jazz & Spice All-Stars on Thursday evening. A Chet Baker for the new era, indeed. Vortex gig reviews by Chris Parker
Blow the Fuse
Bryan Corbett Thursday 13 March 2008 As the programme suggested, this gig provided a rare chance to hear one of the UK's most accomplished trumpet players, Bryan Corbett, in an informal setting doing what he does best: blowing over accommodating changes. Discreetly but punchily supported by guitarist Deidre Cartwright, bassist Alison Rayner and drummer Mike Pickering, Corbett grasped the opportunity with both hands, subjecting the likes of 'Angel Eyes', 'Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise' and the Horace Silver classic 'Song for My Father' to thorough workouts in which he demonstrated all his strengths addressing such material: a spearing, pure tone tellingly interspersed with the odd growl or smear; a surefooted improvisational gift that enables him to exploit every last melodic and rhythmic possibility offered by a chord sequence; a musical personality that sees him inject everything he plays with just the right amount of wit and panache. On quieter material, too ­ 'Autumn in New York', 'In a Sentimental Mood' ­ he is equally at home, musing quietly one minute, then flaring tastefully the next, and on more vigorous fare ­ his idol Freddie Hubbard's flagwaver 'Red Clay', or an intriguing samba version of 'You Don't Know What Love is' ­ he is simply unbeatable, rattling and ripping through the changes with an apparently unassuageable appetite for soloing. A real treat BRING IT ON! ‘The Independent Arts Etc.’ 
‘Jazz’ - Sholto Byrnes 28th December 2003 Talent to watch: sooner or later the Birmingham-based trumpeter Bryan Corbett is going to burst onto the national scene and blow everyone away. Equally adept at hard bop and dance grooves, only a season ticket to London stands in his way. http://www.bryancorbett.co.uk/JWBIG.htmhttp://www.bryancorbett.co.uk/JWBIG.htmhttp://www.bryancorbett.co.uk/jazzreview01full.htmhttp://www.bryancorbett.co.uk/jazzreview01full.htmshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3