More than 40 child-friendly gigs are taking place at this year’s Marsden Jazz Festival, including a street parade, live jazz in the woods, and a jazz duck race. The festival takes place between Friday 6th and Sunday 8th October.

The street parade will take place at 12.30pm on Saturday 7 October and feature nine-piece rock influenced brass band Young Pilgrims, who have previously entertained audiences everywhere from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games to the Paris Jazz Festival.

The band will be supported by The Incredible Plastic Street Band – a group of children from Mossley in Saddleworth, who compose and perform their own music on plastic trombones and trumpets.

There will also be two children’s gigs in the woods by the canal towpath between Marsden railway station and Standedge Tunnel on Saturday 7 October, where children will be able to enjoy live jazz in the woods and make their own woodland creatures.

And a live band will accompany this year’s Marsden Jazz Festival Duck Race at 4pm on Sunday 8 October. Marsden’s very own jazz band, Marsden Swing, will perform as 1,000 plastic yellow ducks make their way down the River Colne, with a first prize of four first class return tickets on Grand Central Rail.

Barney Stevenson, Artistic Director at Marsden Jazz Festival, said: “Our Saturday street parade is always the centrepiece of the festival and it’ll be great to have the young musicians of The Incredible Plastic Street Band adding to the atmosphere this year.

“We’ve also teamed up with local forest school Be More Outdoors for the two children’s gigs in the woods with a live jazz band, and think they’re going to be really special.

“And the duck race on Sunday – accompanied by a live jazz band – is a great way of bringing the festival to a close.”

A Jazz Fox story telling event will take place at 10am on Saturday 7 October and weave its way through the trees, accompanied by a four-piece band. Children will then be able to make their very own ‘jazz fox’ or just sit and relax to the sound of jazz in the woods.

A Twist in the Tale will also be held in the same woods at 2pm on Saturday 7 October and feature storytelling as well as the chance to make creatures, wands and musical instruments to take away.

Both woodland gigs costs £5 per person, are suitable for families with children of all ages and include drinks and snacks.

More than 70 free gigs will also take place across Marsden in a wide range of venues, including on four outdoor stages. Over nine hours of live music will be performed in the bandstand next to the children’s play area in Marsden’s Victorian park, where there will also be an artisan market.

Tickets for the Jazz Fox and A Twist in the Tale gigs are on sale now at www.marsdenjazzfestival.com, by calling 0800 6125 649 or at the jazz festival office in the library at the Mechanics Hall (10am-4pm, Monday-Friday).

Children and teenagers (16 and under) can also see any of our headliner gigs, which include Mercury Prize 2017 nominee Dinosaur and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, for half price.

LA outfit The Americans return to Europe for the first time since releasing their debut album ‘I’ll Be Yours’ this summer.

Dates

06 Nov – BRISTOL Louisian
07 Nov – MANCHESTER Gullivers
08 Nov – LONDON Borderline

Having started out as a roots band enthralled by pre-war American country and blues, they have evolved into a blistering amalgamation of those influences, injected with a fiery blue collar rock’n’roll attitude, absorbing and reconfiguring the history of American music from Chuck Berry and Tom Waits to Bruce Springsteen. They named themselves after the controversial photo series by Robert Frank, which was first published in 1958 with a foreword by Jack Kerouac. Like Frank’s photos, The Americans’ songs are miniature biographies, intimate and empathic portraits of individuals that leave much unsaid.

The info

The Americans were plucked from obscurity by Jack White, T Bone Burnett and Robert Redford to appear in the BBC/PBS documentary series American Epic. Featuring artists such as Beck, Elton John, Nas, Willie Nelson, Alabama Shakes, The Avett Brothers and many more, the film reconstructs the story of the first American music in the 1920s and re-assembled the recording apparatus that was used at the time. As experts in early music, The Americans were invited in to figure out the equipment and make the first recordings. Once the sessions were underway, they functioned as the house band, backing up various artists and suggesting songs to the filmmakers. Burnett was quoted as saying; “The Americans are part of this group, these genius 21st century musicians that are reinventing American heritage music for this century. And it sounds even better this century.”

The band are made up of frontman and guitarist Patrick Ferris, bassist Jake Faulkner and lead guitarist Zac Sokolow, brought together through their love of American roots music. Spurring one another on, they spent years digging through obscure records and arcane field recordings, busking and teaching themselves banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and slide guitar. They were deep into a purist phase, as Patrick recalls; “We were suspicious of modern rock music. I think we were all curious whether we could summon the spirit of old blues and country through what we’d learned firsthand, and create something brand new, leaving behind the nostalgia and musical aesthetics.”

The Americans’ debut album seems to have achieved just that. “They’ve shape-shifted back into the modern-day rock and roll band,” writes Cara Gibney (No Depression), “writing contemporary music of their time, incorporating the kernel of their traditional roots, enhancing their rock and roll credentials with the emotional quality of music made generations earlier.”

Their live show, honed over many hundreds of performances, is something to behold. Ron Wray (No Depression) writes, “They’re led by lead singer, guitarist Patrick Ferris, looking like James Dean but even better… Jake Faulkner, with his dark black beard and jaunty hat, dances across the stage, lifting his stand-up bass like a dancing partner.”

‘I’ll Be Yours’ is out now via Loose, available on 180g vinyl, CD & digitally.

Merging a fevered imagination and solid songwriting with a mad scientist’s brain for weird gadgets, American singer Thomas Truax is a true one-off. Returning with new single ‘Save Me’, a UK tour has been booked to coincide with its release.

Truax has brought in British pop-noir chanteuse Gemma Ray for a warm and poignant duet. The song begins with a pair of down-on-their-luck barflies and ends with a spider who has spun his web in an unfortunate place. It’s the first single from Thomas’s upcoming ninth full-length album. Thomas and Gemma are joined by underground luminaries drummer Brian Viglione (Dresden Dolls, Violent Femmes) and Pete Harvey (Modern Stories, Withered Hand) on strings. (All of the above feature on additional music on Truax’s upcoming album)

Gemma Ray’s album ‘Lights Out Zoltar!’ earned her an Independent Music Award and on its release her album ‘Milk For Your Motors’ was named Mojo Magazine’s ‘Album of the Week’.  More importantly, she often plays guitar with a knife.

Thomas Truax Tour

15th September – Oxford, Old Fire Station
5th October – Brighton, Prince Albert
6th Oct – Portsmouth, The Loft
13th  Oct – Manchester, Castle Hotel
15 Oct – Aberdeen, The Blue Lamp
16 Oct – Mon: Inverness, Market Bar
18 Oct – Wed: Glasgow, Hug & Pint
19 Oct – Thurs, Edinburgh, Voodoo Rooms
20 Oct – Fri: Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
22 Oct – Sun: Newcastle, Cumberland Arms Ouseburn
5 Nov – Sun: London, Lexington

Website: https://www.thomastruax.com