Pan Jumby Big Calypso Band

Dudley Nesbitt steel pans, Tony Burkill sax, Richard Ormrod sax, Si Beddoe tpt, James Hamilton tpt, John Burr hca, Barclay McKay keys, Bob Birch organ, Kenny Higgins bass, Sam Hobbs drums Chris Wright and Helen Curtis percussion ++

A video of the band playing Andy Narell's tune "out of the blues" can be seen here

A calypso band to celebrate the work and life of Leeds steel pan player Dudley Nesbitt. He came to Britain from Trinidad & Tobago in the 1980s, having already built a successful career as a self-taught arranger for Steel Orchestras in Panorama - the Trinidad equivalent of the Proms - an extremely prestigious musical position in that country. It was common practise for Nesbitt to compose, arrange and teach several through-written and related pieces to a band of 80-100 instrumentalists (the equivalent of an orchestral symphony in western classical terms) without ever writing down one note of music.

Dudley Nesbitt has been resident in Chapeltown, Leeds since his arrival in Britain and has earned deep respect from musicians and educators in Yorkshire for his extraordinary musical ability and prodigious educational talents. Nesbitt is acknowledged as one of the finest steel pan players in Europe and a rare exponent of jazz pan. His teaching abilities have led not only to twenty years of extremely successful peripatetic work in local schools (bands he has coached have played in London before heads of state), but also to an unquantifiable enrichment of the musical scene in Leeds; alumni of his twenty year-old (and counting) ensemble Panjumby have themselves gone on to form several bands.
 
Richard Ormrod (who has played with and taught alongside Nesbitt for twelve years) has arranged the large-ensemble music featuring a rhythm section and front-line horns from among Leeds finest up-and-coming professional musicians

Dudley Nesbitt Big Calypso Band at Seven Arts, Thursday 3rd November at 8pm.

Tickets £12 (full price), £10 (concessionary) from Seven Arts tel 0113 26 26 777, standby tickets for full time students £5 on the door only.