Bobby Wellins Quartet

Revered tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins comes to the Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston with an exciting new quartet, featuring highly regarded pianist Liam Noble, talented young bass player Mark Lewandowski (a recent graduate from London’s prestigious Guildhall School of Music) and drummer Mark Wickins.
A long-time musical partner of the legendary British pianist Stan Tracey, who passed away just last year, Wellins is among the last of the UK’s jazz aristocracy. A saxophonist in the style of the great Lester Young, renowned for his tenderness and lyricism, he achieved widespread recognition after moving to London in the 1950s and joining Buddy Featherstonhaugh’s quintet, which also featured the late trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. He began working with Stan Tracey just a few years later, appearing on seminal Brit-jazz recording Under Milk Wood, a suite of Tracey compositions inspired by the Dylan Thomas radio play of the same name, in 1964.
But Wellins is more than just a talented sideman. Respected as a composer and bandleader in his own right, his Culloden Moor Suite, an epic work of orchestral proportions, was recently re-released on Scottish jazz label Spartacus. Conveniently timed to allow for a bit of pre-referendum sabre rattling, it sees the saxophonist join forces with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.
Material from the suite, reworked for the pared down setting and delivered in the tenorist’s inimitable style may well feature on this Vortex date, with Tracey compositions and classic standards sure to be in the mix as well.