Phil Robson Quartet featuring Jed Levy. Birmingham, Nov 2018. (Pic by Brian Homer).
It has been a busy 12 months for Robson. Apart from many great gigs in the New York City area, including the ‘Tobin’s Run On 51’ series he co-curates with partner Christine Tobin at the Irish Arts Center, a recent trio performance at Mezzrow with Tobin and bass master Peter Washington to name just two, It has also been a time of travel and establishing new projects and musical relationships, as well as maintaining old creative friendships.
In September 2018, Phil Recorded a live album with ‘Partisans’ at the Vortex Jazz Club in London. This band, co-led by Phil Robson and Julian Siegel has now been in existence since 1996! The new album, called ‘Nit De Nit’ was released by the great cross Atlantic label Whirlwind Recordings to critical acclaim in May 2019, accompanied by a series of gigs in England. This continues with another short Partisans tour in September 2019 which includes an appearance at Scarborough festival and many more. Please see the Live Dates page or http://righttempoagency.com/concerts/partisans/
In November 2018, Phil’s new collaboration with the great NY saxophonist Jed Levy finally became fully realized with a tour which included shows in Berlin, Barcelona and the UK including London Jazz Festival. The band that toured included Clarence Penn/Jason Brown on drums and Oli Hayhurst/Dave Whitford bass. On the back of a sell out show at Birdland Theater in April, this creative partnership is set to continue over the following months with performances at The 55 Bar, 2 nights at Smalls (Aug 23/24) and shows in Northern California in September including a performance at Yoshi’s. The core of the working band remains Robson, Levy, plus Peter Slavov bass while Clarence Penn re-joins us for Smalls and the great Billy Drummond completes the other gigs. We plan to record this project very soon for an album. There is plenty more in the pipeline for this collaboration with Jed and performances are still being planned in November 2019 in Europe including Rome and many more. Please watch this space!
As well as playing with longer term friends such as Mark Lewandowski, Peter Brendler, Tim Armacost, James Genus, David O’Rourke, Fintan O’ Neil, Ingrid Jensen, Rachael Cohen, Joseph Lepore, Tom Rainey, Polly Gibbons, Rob Garcia, Colin Stranahan etc, etc, there are a plethora of new great musician friends which Robson has had the great fortune to work with in recent months. These include Dezron Douglas, Harvie S, Lafeyette Gilchrist, Blake Meister, Charles Goold, Sam Bevan, Michelle Walker, Jon Davis, Janis Siegel, Perez, Misha Tsiganov, Vicki Burns, Dayna Stephens, Billy Drummond, Aaron Johnson, Benny Bennack iii, Luca Santaniello, Lorin Cohen, Steve Wilson, Peter Leitch (and all the fabulous guys in his New Life Orchestra), Marius Dičpetris, Evan Burrus, Nick Veyenas, Evan Francis, Roland Fidezius, Itay Morchi, Jim Ridl, Jimmy Macbride, Marco Panascia, Clarence Penn, Jason Brown etc. to name just a few! Long may it continue 😄