Eldar Tsalikov - Sax/Clarinet (RUS)
Tom Gibbs - Piano (UK)
James Banner - Double Bass (UK)
Ugo Alunni - Drums (IT)

The Zig Zag is proud to announce a brand new and fresh Sunday concert series that showcases a community of jazz artists responsible for bringing about an explosion of energy and life into the Berlin jazz scene. The series will feature some of the most in demand, highly skilled and exciting young jazz talents in the scene today. Going against the trend of complexity, abstraction and the “academization” of the arts, these young masters have taken the jazz scene by surprise by packing in the clubs and bringing back to life a love and passion for hard swinging music. Performances are completely acoustic with little to no amplification. Subtle interaction, melodic focus and soulful virtuosity is at play here. If you’re interested in listening to some of the finest swinging sounds of jazz this is not an event to miss out on.

A first in Berlin for the acclaimed UK based pianist Tom Gibbs (one of Jazzwise magazines 'one to watch', BBC Scotland 'Album of the Year'), he will be joined by 3 of Berlin's most in-demand players on the jazz and swing scene, known for their impeccable, danceable beat and energetic improvisation rooted in the history of jazz. For this concert, the quartet will play music from the jazz's heyday in the 1920s-1940s.

Eldar Tsalikov - Born in 1993 in Rostov-on-Don into a musicians family. At the age of eight Eldar began learning saxophone at the «Kim Nazaretov Children’s Jazz School». After graduating in 2011 he moved to Berlin, where he continued his studies at the «Jazz-Institut Berlin», where he eventually picked up clarinet as his second instrument. In 2018 Eldar successfully graduated from the institute receiving the Bachelor’s degree as an instrumentalist, as well as the Master's degree as an arranger and composer.
Being himself a skilful and a versatile musician, Eldar has been expanding his knowledge of jazz music (and not only), collaborating with numerous European and Western performers of various kinds of this genre: from the deep traditional styles, such as «hot jazz» (or «trad jazz») and swing (Jon-Erik Kellso, Evan Christopher, «The EarRegulars», Meschiya Lake, «The Musicomaniacs», «The Echoes of Django», «The Jungle», «Moscow Ragtime Band») to the modern kinds of jazz and experimental music (Greg Cohen, Joey Baron, Laurie Anderson, Elias Stemeseder, Manlio Maresca, «The HAF», Anna Webber's «Percussive Mechanics»). With those and many other artists, Eldar got to travel around different countries, performing in worldwide recognised venues and concert halls such as «Birdland» (New York / USA), «Elbphilharmonie» (Hamburg, Germany), «Konzerthaus Berlin» (Berlin, Germany), «TivoliVredenburg» (Utrecht, Netherlands), as well as taking part in festivals such as «Copenhagen Jazz Fest» (Denmark), «Ascona Jazz Fest» (Switzerland), «French Quarter Fest» (New Orleans / USA), «Glasgow Jazz Festival» (Scotland).

Tom Gibbs - Pianist Tom Gibbs was one of Jazzwise’s ‘One to Watch 2011′ and has been called ‘A star in its ascendancy’ by BBC Radio Scotland. His 2010 album ‘Forgotten Things’ co-led with Euan Burton, featured New Yorkers Ari Hoenig and Gilad Hekselman, and was one of BBC Scotland’s records of the year. The Herald called their music ‘international in reach and quality.’ October 15th, 2012, sees the release of his new record Fear of Flying on Whirlwind Recordings, featuring Will Vinson on saxophones, James Maddren on drums, and Euan Burton on bass. This time around Gibbs takes full writing credits and the resulting album is a powerful collection of melodic jazz. His quartet was broadcast live from the Jazz Bar on Radio 3, and he has also recorded for the BBC several times as a sideman. Gibbs’ sideman work includes Stu Brown’s Raymond Scott Project who recently performed at London Jazz Festival and also won the Rural Touring Support Scheme; Thought Fox, winners of Irish Music Network’s ‘Young Musicwide Award 2010-13,’ and were selected to play at the 12 Points Festival in Porto. Gibbs has recorded for bands such as Admiral Fallow (one of his solos is featured on their upcoming release) Hue and Cry and The DT6. Tom gained a Masters with distinction at York University, a forward-thinking department where we was mentored by John Taylor and Julian Arguelles, both key influences. He also studied in New York with Jason Moran and Oslo with Ralph Alessi. Gibbs has been based in Glasgow since 2007, securing gigs with amongst others, Ulf Wakenius, Konrad Wisniewski, Paul Towndrow, Graeme Stephen, Phil Bancroft and Martin Kershaw.

James Banner was born in Dudley, England and is now based in Berlin and the UK, working around Europe as a musician, composer and educator. His main project James Banner’s USINE has received support from both the Berlin State and Initiative Musik. As a composer he received the prestigious Elsa Neumann Stipendium in 2018 from the Berlin University of the Arts/HfM Hanns Eisler, supporting the ambitious project Voices of Berlin, interviewing residents of Berlin and reflecting their stories through music for improvising choir and ensemble. James has been featured in portraits by Der Tagesspiegel and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, and was recently selected to be a part of Making Music’s Adopt A Composer scheme, composing the collaborative piece Concertino For Concert Band with premiere performances in late 2019 and a BBC Radio 3 broadcast in 2020. James is a Lecturer at Leeds College of Music, composer in residence for Make The Paint Dance, and workshop leader for Jazzlines at Symphony Hall Birmingham, and active as a co-leader and sideman in projects in the jazz and improvised music scenes of Berlin, also regularly being selected to take part in collaborative projects further afield such as Fish and Chips at Leipziger Jazztage 2018 and Jazz Alloy at the Vortex, London.

Ugo Alunni is a drummer from Perugia, Italy. He attended the Conservatorio di Musica "Francesco Morlacchi” di Perugia (2000-2004) after which he moved to New York for further studies at the Collective School of Music (2005-2006). He has been living in Berlin since 2010 where he studied at the Jazz Institut Berlin under the guidance of John Hollenbeck, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Greg Cohen and David Friedman, graduating in 2016. He has played with Rossano Emili, Perugia Jazz Orchestra, Pietro Tonolo, Joe Chambers, Dan Kinzelman, Alessandro Lanzoni, Elias Stemeseder, Phil Donkin, Uli Kempendorff, Julia Hülsmann and many others.

Location:
Zig Zag Jazz Club GmbH
Hauptstr. 89, 12159 Berlin

Beginn 21:00 Uhr( Einlass 20:00 Uhr) 
Eintritt frei – Beitrag erwünscht

Sitzplatzreservierung

EINTRITT
Einer der Gründe, die den Zig Zag Jazzclub so einzigartig machen, ist, dass er der erste und einzige Jazzclub der Welt ist, dem es gelingt nur durch freiwilligem Eintritt/Crowdfunding Events von Weltklasse zu finanzieren. Und wie machen wir das? Ganz einfach. Während der Konzertpause geben wir bekannt, dass wir Geld einsammeln werden. Bei den meisten Konzerten (außer Jam Sessions) informieren wir unsere Kunden, dass ein Beitrag von ungefähr 15 Euro es uns erlaubt die Musiker gerecht zu bezahlen. Manche geben dabei mehr und andere weniger... und das ist auch in Ordnung. Wir haben auf diese Weise schon Hunderte Konzerte organisiert.