Pizza Express Jazz Club is to host the Blue Note series which serves to mark the historic jazz label's 75th anniversary in 2014 with a series of gigs featuring some of the cream of the UK jazz scene. Beginning on 22 January in the Dean Street Soho basement space, an integral part of the thriving London jazz club scene, it's the acclaimed quartet of Empirical (Nathaniel Facey, Lewis Wright, Tom Farmer, and Shaney Forbes) performing music from Herbie Hancock's 1964 album Empyrean Isles. They're followed on 9 February by the Liam Noble trio with their take on The Amazing Bud Powell Vol 2. Further shows are the Quentin Collins/Brandon Allen Quartet playing music from Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil (30 March); and then the Martin Hathaway/Tom Challenger Quartet playing from Ornette Coleman’s New York Is Now on 21 May. Blue Note is also to reissue classic albums this coming year including Horace Silver's Song For My Father, and albums by Kurt Elling and Medeski, Martin & Wood. Empirical pictured
Updated 19 December 2013 1257: Blue Note and Pizza Express say the Quentin Collins/Brandon Allen quartet gig is now to be themed as stated above.