Press Release

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The following is our current press release. Please feel free to use it for promotional material.

Partisans are that very good thing, an unclassifiable band. Jazzwise

Phil Robson - guitar (jazz musician of the year 09 Parliamentary Jazz Awards)
Julian Siegel - reeds (best instrumentalist 07 BBC Jazz Awards)
Thaddeus Kelly - bass
Gene Calderazzo – drums

Since 1996 Partisans have been thrilling audiences with their energetic performances of tightly knit themes and groove-based sound, bridging the gap between New York swing, European improv and UK jam band. Partisans are real band, honed over their years together, where the combination of each member's influences feeds a genuine creative spark generating huge excitement and energy.  They are widely acknowledged as the godfathers of the new wave of British jazz.

In summer 09 Partisans released By Proxy, their 4th album on Babel, and a testament to their maturity and continuing inventiveness as composers and musicians. Partisans cook up a trademark shot of gritty be-bop and hard bop, early electric Miles, ballads with sustained delicacy, rock riffs mixed with P-Funk grooves and with fresh departures into electronica notably on Thad Kelly's distinctive remix of Duke Ellington's 'Prelude to a Kiss'. The richly lyrical and strongly melodic compositions written by Robson and Siegel provide the framework and starting point, underpinned by the rock solid, freewheeling and supercharged rhythm section of Kelly and Calderazzo.

Partisans have worked with American greats, such as Steve Swallow and Wayne Krantz (who wrote ‘Partisans’ and ‘Partisans #1’ for them on 2005 Max and 2009 By Proxy), and played European and UK festivals including Appleby, Brecon, Coventry, Cheltenham, Manchester, Jyväskylä Finland, Haarlem Holland, and London Jazz Festival.

Forthcoming appearance representing the UK, March 2010, at Banlieues Bleues Festival in Paris.
 
www.partisans.org.uk
www.myspace.com/thebandpartisans

Recent Press:

‘this is music that is always headed somewhere worth going’  Metro

“Partisans’ long expected masterpiece, ‘By Proxy’ is one of the most exciting albums to be released on either side of the Atlantic in 2009” Allaboutjazz 
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=33153

“punchy as hell…Thoroughly original, thoroughly of its time and … with all the time changes and timbral excitement, it has some real beauty to it too.”  The Jazz Breakfast
http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/disc-of-the-day-04-07-09/

"By Proxy has all the power and personality needed to keep you coming back, the playing is superb…  This is totally a group sound and identity… Words and phrases such as 'hard edged' and 'high energy' are often bandied around but here they apply, and the sheer power and joyous swing that the rhythm section sustain throughout these nine tracks give the record much of its fire and edge"  Jazzwise

“Partisans are one of the most consistently inventive and original bands” The Scotsman****

**** ‘restless, almost reckless energy..delirious listening…consistently thrilling’  
BBC Music magazine****

‘...tricky zigzagging heads are played with flawless attack, and the quartet's trademark of seamless idiom and time-shifting within each piece operates with a gleeful tautness’.  Guardian****

‘their fourth album [By Proxy] is a killer…one of our greatest bands’ 
Drummer magazine****

‘simply magnificent’  jazzman.com (live)
http://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/sunday-at-lichfield-real-ale-jazz-and-blues-festival-2009/

‘one of the most consistently interesting and entertaining bands in British music
 of any genre’   jazzman.com (album)
http://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/partisans-by-proxy/

‘intelligent, varied and often dazzling’  Evening Standard****

Interviews

(part) Birmingham Evening Post with Julian Siegel - Martin Longley

..."We just decided to let it hang out, let it all just go. It's all part of being more relaxed as a band, more relaxed in the studio. Most things were one take, two takes at the most." There were a few overdubs, mostly by Siegel himself, doubling on clarinet or bass clarinet, thickening up the textures. "I started on clarinet when I was nine. It's my first wind instrument, really, but tenor's been the one, mainly, that I've focused on." Siegel is also an accomplished bassist, filling that role in Jacqui Dankworth's Field Of Blue band. He's also played recently with blues singer Joe Lee Wilson. The first Partisans album had a few standards included, but the new one is all self-penned. "It wasn't a choice," says Siegel. "It's just the way it happened. When we play live, we still do that, as part of our thing. We pick and choose the things that we do to suit the sound of the band." Siegel does think that it's unfair, the way several critics have attacked them for not concentrating on standards, as if we didn't have enough bands that cover such terrain already. Partisans is dominating its members' lives at the moment, but that isn't always the case. "It always feels to me like its ongoing, even if we're not working, when we get together, there's still the vibe there. It just feels like the band's really solid." One interesting feature of the new album is its cover art, which was provided by painter and photographer Gee Vaucher, a member of the old anarcho-punk Crass collective. "We play at the Vortex a lot, in London," Siegel explains. "These people usually sit right at the front, and start cheering when the music starts happening. We got to know them straight away, and they're all from the band Crass, they're massively into quite a few of the jazz bands that play down at the Vortex." Siegel has a gig with their singer Steve Ignorant next month, in Milton Keynes, as part of a punk revivalist festival. Julian will be part of a horn section, with pianist Liam Noble joining in too. "He's a great singer, Steve. We went into the studio and did a couple of tracks with him. That's the thing about musicians having a voice. I think people get obsessed with style. They think, 'he plays like that, and I don't like that music.' It's not a problem for us. It's all joined up, we all do different things."...


The Times 2001 on Phil Robson, article by John Bungey

Profession: Jazz guitarist Age: 30
In demand: Hes at the heart of the Christine Tobin band and co-leader of a sharp young jazz-rock outfit, Partisans, who have just released their second album, Sourpuss. For much of the Nineties he played with either Julian Arguelles or Django Bates, not to mention his own octet. Didnt young electric guitarists always used to want to be the next Jimmy Page?I became serious about the guitar when I was 14. I played mostly rock tunes and liked heavy metal, including Led Zeppelin, says Robson.But when I was about 16 I suddenly got swept up by several jazz records. Miles Daviss Miles in Antibes was one.I was completely fascinated by it, obsessed. So the course was set: I used to go to a local jazz club in Derby called Browns, says Robson.I sat in with John Etheridge when I was about 16 and a year later played with Bheki Mseleku. By then I was part of the house rhythm section. At 18 Robson became one of the youngest students to be accepted on the Guildhall School of Music postgrad jazz course. When he left he immediately began gigging around London. A bit too late for the great Brit-jazz boom of the Eighties:I missed the heyday of Loose Tubes and that scene but Ive played with almost everyone involved, particularly in Django Batess Delightful Precipice. In 1997 Robson won the BTbest soloist of the year award and in 1998 won a Perrier Young Jazz award for instrumentalist of the year. Whats his style? Partisans update the English fusion tradition of Nucleus and late Soft Machine. Says Robson:We do groove-based music but with a strong emphasis on improvisation and group playing. Im sure Ill be seen as a jazz-rock guitarist for the next ten years, but at heart Im a bebop player - although I love all sorts of things. A piece he wrote for Derby Jazz this autumn saw his octet team up with a local steel band and Indian percussionists. How is the sickly patient that is the British jazz scene? There are some great venues out there, says Robson,the Vortex in London and Ronnies, with really good audiences. I love gigs in Sheffield, Brighton, Cambridge - any audiences who are open-minded. But there are lots of gigs in this country that are one-dimensional. If youre not playing standards its not right. My experience is that there is a big audience out there. People will say to us,I dont like jazz but I like this. Theres a problem with the image, the public think its either very traditional or very avant-garde and hard to listen to. Are the bright lights and big fees of rock ever a temptation? In 1993 I had a fling with a band called Nimlet but we broke up when we were on the verge of a record deal. The music was really good - a cross between Ian Dury, Prince and Zappa. But its not what I would write - and people dont succeed unless they believe in what theyre doing. Ill happily play someone elses music but I wouldnt naturally sit down and come out with rock music. Ive always been into jazz - God help me