Moseley Folk Festival News - December 2009

The Imagined Village @ Birmingham Town Hall



Interweaving trad folk & the sounds of today’s multicultural England

Thursday 21st January

Our friends The Imagined Village are performing at the Birmingham Town Hall on Thursday 21st January.

Englishness is the final frontier of world music! The Imagined Village is a stunning project interweaving traditional folk with the sounds and voices of today’s multicultural England.

An outstanding line-up includes Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, and Chris Wood backed by a band featuring Grammy Award-winning musician and producer Simon Emmerson, Johnny Kalsi, Ali Friend, Andy Gangadeen, Simon Richmond, Sheema Mukherjee and Barney Morse Brown.

Traditional instruments are interwoven with the sounds of today. Fiddles and squeezebox sit alongside electronica and ambient effect, with the line-up completed by members of world beat troupe Transglobal Underground and live electronic band, The Bays.

This tour marks the release of the second Imagined Village album Empire & Love due for release in early 2010, recorded in Emmerson’s garage, converted to a studio by the band.

The basic concept remains the same: traditional material interpreted by a band who are not the usual suspects and a front line of English folk musicians.

The album includes famous tracks like Scarborough Fair alongside little-known gems such as Ewan MacColl’s Space Girl.

Thursday 21st January

Birmingham Town Hall
Victoria Square
Birmingham
B3 3DQ

Tickets available online or from the box office £16.50


Mostly Jazz Festival 2010



Including Sun Ra Arkestra, Courtney Pine, James Taylor Quartet


Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th July 2010

As Moseley Folk Festival veterans we thought you should be the first to know about a great excuse to spend another weekend in Moseley Park next year.

Mostly Jazz Festival is the UK’s newest jazz festival and the only open air, one site festival dedicated exclusively to contemporary jazz, funk and soul.

Celebrating the dynamic grooves, innovation and excitement of the modern jazz movement Mostly Jazz is about showcasing the diversity of contemporary jazz in all it’s forms. From avant-garde, free and modern jazz through to vocal, song based jazz, jazz-fusion and future jazz. It’s also about considering jazz’s influence and relationship to other black music art-forms such as latin music, funk and soul.

For our inaugural year we have invited pioneering artists such as the Sun Ra Arkestra, Courtney Pine and James Taylor Quartet to perform alongside leaders of the new wave of British talent such as Polar Bear, Led Bib and Portico Quartet.

Set in the lush surroundings of Moseley Park, Birmingham’s eleven-acre woodland glade only two miles from the city centre. July 3rd & 4th 2010 is set to be a weekend to remember, we hope you can join us there.

Tickets will be on sale from February 1st

Mostly Jazz Launch Event @ The Rainbow

Featuring Led Bib

Wednesday 27th January

To launch the all new Mostly Jazz Festival we'll be hosting a very special evening with Led Bib at the Birmingham Jazz 'Jazz Club which is held at The Rainbow in Digbeth.

Led Bib are one of the original torch bearers for the revitalized young British jazz scene. Hailed by The Times as ‘the future of jazz’. Relentlessly dodging definition, they are both a maverick jazz band and an unlikely rock quintet with a band name that was taken from a protective garment used during dental treatment.

Led Bib’s first album was released in 2005 to widespread critical praise. Since then they have climbed from strength to strength including winning the 2005 Peter Whittingham Jazz Award, previously awarded to the likes of Soweto Kinch, Tom Arthurs and Empirical. The fourth and latest album ‘Sensible Shoes’ stays true to the Led Bib style by being a riot of unusual ideas. For example the sounds of a deranged waltz and Tom and Jerry chases are mixed with more traditional jazz structures. Their individual references peer out via Metallica like riffs, Northern Soul licks and downtown New York influenced improvisation. ‘Sensible Shoes’ was nominated for the 2009 Mercury Prize.

The band members can usually be found in one another’s homes drinking tea and discussing the merits of different types of biscuit. Led Bib offer an honest comment on the struggle, drama, losses and loves of life whilst delivering their sound with an element of playfulness.

Wednesday 27th January

Birmingham Jazz
The Rainbow
160 High Street, Digbeth
Birmigham, B12 0LD


Doors : 9pm

Price : £4.00