From busking on the streets of London and Brighton to featuring in a Simpsons special, via a Mercury Prize nomination and playing the Royal Opera House is not a bad progression for a jazz band.

Portico Quartet – Jack Wyllie (sax and loops), Milo Fitzpatrick (double bass), Nick Mulvey (Hang) and Duncan Bellamy (drums and Hang) – bring their fresh new mix of gentle jazz improvisation, minimalist, hypnotic moods and indie attitude to the CBSO Centre at 8pm on Saturday, courtesy of Birmingham Jazz.

The band has a new album out, Isla, on Real World Records. It was recorded at the Abbey Road studios and produced by John Leckie, the man best known for his work with Radiohead, so that gives you an indication of this band’s influence and potential.

And that Simpsons connection? Apparently the filmmaker and Big Mac endurance tester Morgan Spurlock is directing The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special, and Portico play a part.

To hear them with Sweet Billy Pilgrim (no, not Marge) in support, call 0121 767 4050 or go to thsh.co.uk

* On Monday, Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko brings his new quintet to the Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry. The band has a new album, Dark Eyes, out on the ECM label and it is a thing of beauty indeed.

Stanko’s live performances are every bit as good as his recordings and have an added intensity and extra fireworks from a player steeped in the history of European jazz but one who has never rested on his laurels, always searching and always playing with a compelling edge.

Like one of his chief influences, Miles Davis, Stanko is a great bringer-on of young talent; this time his band includes the immensely gifted Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila.

The Tomasz Stanko Quintet play the Warwick Arts Centre Theatre on Monday, November 9, at 7.30pm. Tickets from warwickartscentre.co.uk or 024 7652 4524. The band’s gig at the Edge in Much Wenlock next Friday is sold out.

* On Wednesday next week, November 11, pianist and composer Steve Tromans brings his Debop Band into the Glee Club Studio to perform his Last Words Of Victor Jara.

Jara was a Chilean singer-songwriter, political activist and all-round charismatic good guy who was one of the many victims of the US-backed coup in that country that swept Pinochet to power. Tromans uses Jara texts read by Andrew Cowell, an American-Columbian the pianist worked with in Mongolia, as an integral part of the music and the band is completed by Chris Mapp on bass, Miles Levin on drums and Aaron Diaz on trumpet.

This is a Birmingham Jazz gig and starts at 8pm and tickets are available at glee.co.uk or on the door.

The next jazz diary will appear in the new weekly Birmingham Post on Thursday, November 12. See you then.

peterbacon@mac.com

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