No sign of really breaking through yet but it could happen any time soon. But first Charlie Stacey is appearing with his trio at the New Blood strand of the London Jazz Festival next month. One of my picks of the new talent to impress me most for the first time this year last year’s list included Daniel Casimir who has picked up the odd prize or so this year and guitarist Artie Zaitz who did not disappoint when I next caught up with him at Kansas Smitty’s having heard him for the first time at Ronnie Scott’s.
Stacey was playing at Rich Mix in Shoreditch on the Bethnal Green Road at the Tomorrow’s Warriors jam when I heard him for the first time earlier this year, part of a quartet, the sound of Jackie McLean, nurtured over the years by the Harrow-based artist development and jazz education-centred organisation, ringing out.
In his early twenties his background is unusual for a British jazz musician as he is an Old Etonian (Humph the only other one I can think of) but don’t hold that against him. He is also a former student of philosophy at Princeton and part of the Tomorrow’s Warriors family since long before his teens, Warriors boss Janine Irons had filled me in on more background as we sat with her husband Gary Crosby, artistic don of the Warriors, on sofas enjoying the band.
With Stacey coming up at the LJF (think a young Jarrett but only stylistically circa his Life Between the Exit Signs period based on what I heard) are bassist Michele Montioli and another new name to me at the time drummer Jamie Murray, who I later in the year caught and was very impressed by jamming at one of the Grim Reaper’s astonishing Sunday bop banquets at the Vortex. Stephen Graham
The date is 19 November for the Stacey trio gig at London SE1 venue Iklektik. Stacey video, above