Photograph by Pam Mann

Brecon Jazz Club presents ‘Jazz & More’ with Music Network Tân Cerdd, The Muse Arts Centre, Brecon, 10/06/2025

Thalia Ellice, Amelia Francis, Vanity Jay, Cinzia Palladino – vocals

Andy Brown – electric bass, Charlie Piercey – keys, Daniel West – drums

with Eric Martin Kamosi – guitar,  Dionne Bennett, Chantelle Burani – vocals, Dan Honeyfield – keys

Brecon Jazz Club’s events for June and July 2025 will see the organisation offering opportunities for emerging young musicians based in Wales to perform in public in front of the supportive and knowledgeable Brecon Jazz Club audience.

Both performances have been made possible with the support of the  Margaret & Gwendoline Davies Sisters Charity and form part of Brecon Jazz Club’s Llwyfan (or Platform) project, established to support young and aspiring musicians.

The July event, which will be held on the 8th of that month, will be a promotion by guitarist John Close featuring a double bill of small groups led respectively by trombonist Tiggy Blackwell and trumpeter Huw Llewelyn, both previous visitors to Brecon Jazz Club / Festival. More on that at the time.

Tonight’s show presented a collective of singers and musicians associated with the Cardiff based Tân Cerdd Community Interest Company (CIC), founded by vocalist and educator Dionne Bennett, perhaps best known as the former frontwoman of the band Slowly Rolling Camera, the group led by keyboard player, composer and record label owner Dave Stapleton.

Bennett is a great friend of Brecon Jazz and has performed at the Festival as a solo artist on three occasions in 2022, 2023 and 2024. She was also part of the all female collective 6.0, led by Paula Gardiner, that appeared at the 2021 Festival.

Music education is something that is particularly important to Bennett and the Tân Cerdd organisation is described by its founder thus;
“Tân Cerdd is a Black-led, Black music Community Interest Company (CIC) committed to championing and advocating for the inclusion and elevation of Black artists in Wales. Their mission is to empower and amplify the voices of Black, Asian, Multi-Ethnicity, and working-class Welsh artists, ensuring they have the opportunities and infrastructure needed to flourish within the music industry”.

The singers and musicians of Tân Cerdd perform regularly at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff where they host their regular Neo Soul Jams on every fourth Sunday of the month. They have also performed for members of the Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru) as part of Welsh Language Music Day.

Tonight saw the members of Tân Cerdd, under the direction of Dionne Bennett, bringing their Neo Soul Jam on the road and giving it a jazz twist. It represented the first time that many of the participants had performed outside Cardiff and they had been transfixed by the beauty of the Brecon Beacons on the journey up from the Welsh capital.

Although the formation of Tân Cerdd was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement it is an inclusive, multi-ethnic organisation where all aspiring musicians are welcome and tonight’s line-up very much reflected this.

The performance was centred around a nucleus of four vocalists and three instrumentalists, with singers Thalia Ellice, Amelia Francis, Vanity Jay, and Cinzia Palladino joined by bassist and trio leader Andy Brown, keyboard player Charlie Piercey and drummer Daniel West. The three instrumentalists work together regularly in hip hop groups and in the Joni Mitchell tribute band This Flight Tonight.

This core septet was periodically joined by guitarist Eric Martin Kamosi and there were also cameo appearances from vocalist Chantelle Burani, keyboard player Dan Honeyfield and from Dionne Bennett herself.

There was rather less to-ing and fro-ing than at the usual jazz jam session with the four singers working together in the style of a vocal group in addition to enjoying their own individual features. The core instrumental trio remained in place almost throughout and also impressed as a unit, providing the singers with high quality musical support, sometimes with the additional aid of the impressive Kamosi.

In a neat link with the previous BJC event three of tonight’s vocalists had also attended a vocal workshop with last month’s guest pianist, vocalist and songwriter Joanne Eden, another event facilitated by Brecon Jazz Club.

I have to admit to being caught out by the earlier than normal start, 7.30 pm rather than the usual 8.00 pm, and I contrived to miss most of the first of the evening’s three sets. That said I did probably get to enjoy the best part of the performance with the performers visibly growing in confidence as the evening progressed.

Having managed to miss a substantial chunk of the performance I don’t intend to give my usual ‘song by song’ review, but instead attempt to give an overall impression of what proved to be a highly enjoyable event.

From the couple of numbers I caught at the end of the first set it was obvious that the programme was going to feature a mix of jazz and neo soul and that the four core singers were able to function very effectively as a vocal group with adventurous vocal harmonies complementing the lead singing of four very distinctive lead vocalists.

The second set commenced with Tân Cerdd’s newest recruit, Chantelle Burani, singing the Amy Winehouse song “Back to Black” in the company of the ‘house trio’. It was the first time that she had sung in public with a live band (as opposed to a backing track) and she acquitted herself very well.

During the interval I had spoken to the performers, gathering names in order that I could write this feature. Thanks for your time everybody. First names seem to be their preferred terms of address, so I’ll use these for the rest of this piece.

Next up was a song that was started by the three core instrumentalists, with funky electric bass and a Doors like electric piano sound representing particularly distinctive musical components. Singers Thalia, Vanity and Cinzia were subsequently joined on stage by mentor Dionne Bennett who added her powerful scat vocals to the proceedings, a brief reminder of Dione’s huge vocal talent.

With this notable exception Dionne was happy to let her protegees be the stars of the evening - and not just the vocalists. The next item was a fusion style instrumental that included an impressive keyboard solo from Charlie on his Nord Electro 3 keyboard that mixed electric piano and organ sounds. This piece was also a showcase for dynamic young drummer Daniel West who invited the audience to clap in reply to the beats that he laid down. As these became increasingly complicated we soon found the task nigh on impossible! Great fun, both for us and the irrespressible Daniel.

Seventeen year old vocalist Amelia Francis has been singing since childhood and delivered a stunning version of “I’d Rather Go Blind”, her vocals both powerful and soulful. It was an astonishingly mature and convincing performance.

But in their own way every vocalist impressed. Next up was Cinzia Palladino – and yes I did ask – she is the niece of the famous session bassist Pino Palladino, who has played with some of the biggest names in pop and rock and is perhaps best known for his association with The Who. The Palladinos are obviously a musical dynasty and Cinzia looks set to follow in uncle Pino’s footsteps.

Next to shine was Vanity Jay, who describes herself as a “soul & RnB singer from Wales”. Her soulful, gospel infused vocals are a vital part of the Tân Cerdd sound and she has already appeared as a guest artist on a number of cuts by various DJs and producers in South Wales and Bristol.

Meanwhile Thalia Ellice proved to be a lively charismatic stage presence and an inventive and imaginative vocalist with a talent for creating improvised lyrics, or ‘freestyling’ as she refers to it. Tonight she concentrated on her role as a soul / RnB vocalist but she also performs as a rapper under the name E11ICE and is a key member of the  Cardiff based community initiative Ladies of Rage.

Collectively Amelia, Cinzia, Vanity and Thalia proved to a highly effective vocal unit, the other group members complementing the lead vocalist on any given song with inventive and imaginative vocal harmonies. There was a strong sense of collective rapport and a willingness to support one another that suggested a real sense of ‘sisterhood’, all qualities very much encouraged by Dionne Bennett.

The four vocalists combined very effectively with the highly accomplished instrumental trio led by the experienced bassist Andy Brown. All three musicians had the chance to shine with a number of instrumental solos over the course of the evening. They also combined effectively as a unit and gave the singers excellent support, regardless of music genre, be it jazz, soul, funk or hip hop.

Guinean born guitarist Eric Martin Kamosi, a graduate of the University of South Wales,  also impressed with his numerous contributions. He is an accomplished guitar soloist who performs across a wide range of musical genres and who also works as an electronic musician and as a composer for dance, screen and theatre productions.

Eric was particularly impressive on the unaccompanied guitar introduction to the instrumental piece that opened the third and final set. This piece also included an electric bass feature for the excellent Andy Brown.

Amelia then delivered another wonderfully soulful vocal performance on an arrangement of the Dusty Springfield hit “Son of a Preacher Man”, the quality of her singing further enhanced by the imaginative harmonising of her three front line colleagues.

Also notable for the overall performance of the four singers was an Aretha Franklin inspired arrangement of the Beatles’ song “Eleanor Rigby”, with Vanity delivering a powerful and soulful lead vocal.

The four vocalists also combined effectively on the Anita Baker hit “Sweet Love”, with the equally soulful Cinzia on lead vocal.

And given the location of tonight’s performance the jazz fans weren’t entirely forgotten as Amelia and her keyboard playing partner Dan Honeyfield performed a compelling duo version of the Irving Berlin song “Blue Skies”. This was a reprise of a piece that they had also performed in the first set, but by all accounts this second version was the best, a sign of the growing confidence that had been exhibited by all the performers.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this event but it was far more enjoyable than I had anticipated. Although there were some similarities to a regular jazz club jam session the presence of a nucleus of singers and instrumentalists helped to give the evening a focus and the core septet, comprised of two already existing musical units, gelled remarkably quickly. There had been some rehearsal time for the singers beforehand and one sensed that with even more of this that tonight’s show could be developed into a very slick and professional production.

The four singers all have aspirations of becoming fully professional performers and one suspects that they have the vocal chops to succeed and in Dionne Bennett a mentor who can help them do just that. Equally it should be borne in mind that they’re probably aiming for mainstream success in what is a VERY competitive business. The talent and determination is there, but they’ll need luck on their side too.

My thanks to Andy Brown for chatting with me after the show and providing some set list details, although as I’ve said this is not intended to be a song by song account.

This   Tân Cerdd event represented something very different for Brecon Jazz Club but it was a great success and the music was very well received by a warm, responsive and supportive Brecon audience. Brecon Jazz Club organisers Lynne Gornall and Roger Cannon expressed themselves as being delighted with how the evening had gone and this looks like a collaboration that is likely to continue.

 

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