Ivo Neame’s Dodeka feat. Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell Music Services

Jazz At NAC presents this special gig led by celebrated Phronesis pianist and composer Ivo Neame – featuring promising teenage musicians from Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell Music Services.

The city’s gifted young instrumentalists and their peers from across the Black Country will join Ivo’s heralded, virtuosic 12-piece band Dodeka for this one-off event, which will be preceded by an invaluable series of afternoon workshops.

The up-and-coming jazzers will share the stage in our marquee with Ivo’s scintillating players from 7.30pm in this performance for our punters, before Dodeka give a full-length concert of their spectacular music.

Dodeka is a superb band formed in 2022 performing original music written by Ivo. The live performance drought that resulted from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was a kick in the teeth for all musicians – but Ivo decided to nurse his teeth by writing and recording music for a virtual big-band and running a marathon for the charity Help Musicians.

In May 2020 he received support from Help Musicians and Arts Council England to multi-track a big-band album – this eventually became Glimpses Of Truth. None of the musicians involved in the project were in the same room at any time, impeccably observing Government regulations despite the difficulties that this entailed. Thanks to the wonders of music technology and the internet, Neame was able to produce a critically-acclaimed work during an extremely tough time. Seeing as it was possible to record musicians from their homes anywhere in the world, he also decided to involve US-based jazz stars Gilad Hekselman and Ingrid Jensen on the record.

Line-up:
Ivo NEAME: Piano – Brinley HEYWOOD-SNELL: Trumpet – Robbie ROBSON: Trumpet – Miguel GORODI: Trumpet – Rory Ingham: Trombone – Olli Martin: Trombone – Mike CHILLINGWORTH: Alto Sax/ Clarinet – George CROWLEY: Tenor Sax/Clarinet – Emma RAWICZ: Tenor Sax/Flute – Jon SHENOY: Baritone Sax/Bass Clarinet – Tom FARMER: Bass – Josh Blackmore: Drums

Ivo formed Dodeka to perform the music he had composed, produced and recorded during the pandemic. Their debut gig was performed on November 13, 2022 to a sold-out Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club during the EFG London Jazz Festival. The core of the band is drawn from Ivo’s quartet, which has performed across Europe since 2017. At the heart of this are some of the UK’s finest jazz instrumentalists: George Crowley (Melt Yourself Down, Yazz Ahmed) on tenor sax and Tom Farmer (Empirical) on bass, with renowned Loose Tubes drummer Martin France joining them. The other musicians involved include rising star Emma Rawicz, fresh from her own gig at NAC this May, and Mike Chillingworth, of whom our recent guest Liam Noble said: “Really special… very complicated but full of wit and melody too. Clever sod.”

PRAISE FOR “GLIMPSES OF TRUTH”:
‘A tour de force of lockdown woodshedding creativity’  – THE GUARDIAN

‘This wide-screen triumph by Ivo Neame is one of the standouts of the pandemic era’  – JAZZWISE MAGAZINE

‘Glimpses Of Truth is a triumph for Ivo Neame and must rank as one of the most outstanding releases of 2021’  – THE JAZZ MANN

‘Glimpses Of Truth features some of the most engaging jazz you’ll hear this year’  – LONDON JAZZ NEWS

‘If these dark times can produce such brilliance who knows what comes next’ – KIND OF JAZZ

‘Neame’s work is off-beat, complex, immersive, kaleidoscopic and often bracingly polyrhythmic’ – ALL ABOUT JAZZ

‘To compose and arrange music of this quality for a big band is laudable, to gather together great musicians and have them play as an ensemble when in reality they are all apart and then to mix and produce their performances into a work of art is simply sensational’ – SANDY BROWN JAZZ