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‘Godfather of UK Jazz’ starts 70th birthday celebrations at the Jazz Café

Gary Crosby's Tomorrow’s Warriors educational scheme is said to have reached over 15,000 young people aged 11-25 since its formation in 1991

Jazz educator and bassist Gary Crosby is to lead a jazz jam at London’s Jazz Café 2 February to mark his 70th birthday (26 January 2025). Titled “Gary Crosby’s Great Big 70th Birthday Jam” it will feature a mix of Tomorrow’s Warriors alumni, emerging artists and current members of the Tomorrow’s Warriors Young Artist Development programme and recall the Sunday afternoon Jazz Café jam sessions that he started in 1990.

Through the London-based Arts Council funded jazz education scheme Tomorrow’s Warriors, which he founded with Janine Irons in 1991, Crosby has helped numerous young musicians including a number whom his publicist describes as “tearing up the international music scene”, among them Ezra Collective, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Cassie Kinoshi, Binker Golding, Shabaka Hutchings, Camilla George, Cherise, Theon Cross, Sheila Maurice-Grey and Shirley Tetteh.

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Since its inception in 1991, Tomorrow’s Warriors is said to have reached over 15,000 young people aged 11-25 through its Talent Development Programme, providing each musician with 1,000-5,000 hours of free jazz training and development. It sets out to help “aspiring young artists from diverse backgrounds discover their magic and achieve creative ambitions”.

Although Gary’s legion awards and honours – including an OBE, a BBC Jazz Award, two Parliamentary Jazz Awards, a BASCA Gold Badge Award, a Queen’s Medal, an honorary doctorate from the University of London Institute in Paris and membership of the Ivors Academy Senate – feature prominently in press releases about the bassist, his partner Janine Irons says “He still can’t bear the title ‘Godfather of UK Jazz’ and that tells you the kind of person he is. For Gary it’s never about glory or credit, he truly loves what he does and it’s what he does best.”

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Despite his modesty, Crosby, a solid bassist in the hard-bop style and a nephew of the outstanding Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin, has been hailed by the BBC as “a towering figure in jazz”, and last year BBC reporter Kevin Connolly recognised him as a jazz great in a 30 March report for the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Interviewing Crosby about the discovery of new Marvin Gaye recordings in Belgium, he said “Any musician would be intrigued at the idea that we may be about to hear a new Marvin Gaye song, and that includes the jazz great Gary Crosby, who’s led an orchestral tour celebrating Marvin Gaye’s classic, What’s Going On?

Crosby thus approached such illustrious company as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson who were named among the greatest jazz artists of all time in a 2015 poll the BBC conducted in association with Jazz FM and the EFG London Jazz Festival.

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Gary Crosby’s Great Big 70th Birthday Jam is at the Jazz Café, London this Sunday 2 February from 12pm-3pm and tickets are here.

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