RWCMD BIG BAND – A QUINCY JONES TRIBUTE, BLACK MOUNTAIN JAZZ, MELVILLE CENTRE, ABERGAVENNY, 30/11/2025.

Ceri Rees – Director

Yalena Verotsotska, Theo Winney, Anton Pavhivoski, Katy Rennie, Tegan Ellis, Daisy Starns - trumpets

Alex Bingham – tenor sax
Sofiia Bilovil – tenor sax, flute
Rhys Ponting – alto sax
Dylan Evans – alto sax
Alex Lloyd – baritone sax

Liam Belford, Owen Goodman, Emily Collett – trombones

Noah Carey – bass trombone

Tom Barber, Luke Sterry - piano

Bryn Llewellyn, Ron Wang – guitars

Ethan Evans, Nicolas Gwyn Williams - bass

Zach Johnson, Jimmy Yeung – drums

Elijah Jeffery, Isla Croll – vocals

I’ll let Kasia Ociepa, resident photographer at Black Mountain Jazz, set the scene for this sold out event at the Melville Theatre.  There literally wasn’t an empty seat in the house. On the BMJ Facebook page Kasia writes;

“What a night! I think it was the busiest evening at Black Mountain Jazz Club since I became the resident photographer almost six years ago. Not only was it a sold-out gig, but the stage was the fullest I’ve ever seen as well. And what a challenge it was trying to capture not only the amazing atmosphere, but as many faces as I could”.

Kasia’s photographs of the event can be viewed here;
https://www.facebook.com/BlackMountainJazz/

For those who may not know the initials RWCMD stand for Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, an institution that is based in Cardiff but which has always maintained close links with both the Black Mountain and Brecon jazz clubs. Indeed the RWCMD Big Band has visited BMJ before, but has never played to quite such a large audience as tonight’s.

These student musicians were fresh from a recent appearance at Penarth jazz Festival and were in terrific form under the baton of conductor Ceri Rees.

In addition to his teaching work at the RWCMD and leading the College Big Band Rees also plays alto and tenor saxophones and leads the popular Capital City Jazz Orchestra, a Cardiff institution that was first established in 2007 to play regular big band nights at the now defunct Cardiff venue The Four Bars Inn, later Dempsey’s. With a line up featuring some of the leading jazz musicians in South Wales the CCJO quickly established a loyal following and has appeared at the Brecon and Swansea Jazz Festivals and at the Welsh Proms. The CCJO was founded by Rees, who continues to act as the band’s musical director and leads the current line-up. Rees is also a member of Goodkatz, a quartet led by trumpeter Gethin Liddington specialising in the jazz of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

Tonight’s show represented a tribute to the musical polymath that was Quincy Jones (1933-2024), the American musician, composer, arranger, bandleader and record producer. There aren’t many jazz adjacent names bigger than Jones and the theme of tonight’s show may have helped boost the turnout.

Also the presence on the bill of guest vocalist Elijah Jeffery, an RWCMD graduate and a great favourite with BMJ audiences may have been a factor. And let’s not forget the tireless efforts of the BMJ team headed by Mike Skilton and Debs Hancock who have worked so hard to establish a loyal following at BMJ. 

The band kicked off with Jones’ arrangement of “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, ushered in by the piano and subsequently featuring an authentic big band sound with a concise trombone solo coming from Owen Goodman.

Jones was the arranger on albums variously recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Count Basie and it was these recordings that were homaged in tonight’s show.

In 1966 Sinatra released the live album “Sinatra at the Sands”, recorded at Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It featured Sinatra singing with the Count Basie Orchestra, with Jones acting as arranger and conductor. The repertoire included such Sinatra classics as “Come Fly With Me”, suavely sung tonight by guest vocalist Elijah Jeffery in an arrangement featuring the sounds of muted trumpets and trombones.

Jeffery handled some of the announcements himself and introduced “Angel Eyes” as “a ballad that Frank used to love singing”. Jeffery’s smooth, but never cloying, vocals were accompanied by a lush arrangement that again featured the sounds of muted horns, although the opening section featured Jeffery with just the rhythm section of piano, bass and drums.

Next a change in mood and tempo with a swinging arrangement of “Where and When” that was perhaps a little too strident, the sound of the band at full throttle threatening to drown out Jeffery’s voice at times.

The Jones composed ballad “The Midnight Sun Shall Never Set” was performed as an instrumental and acted as a showcase for the talents of lead alto Rhys Ponting, who featured with an orthodox jazz solo followed by an unaccompanied alto sax cadenza at the close. The arrangement was also notable for the addition of flute, played by tenor saxophonist Sofiia Bilovil.

Isla Croll, the second guest vocalist, effectively playing the Ella Fitzgerald role, joined the band for “Shiny Stockings”, a performance that also included solos for piano and trumpet. Croll is currently studying at the RWCMD in addition to pursuing a career as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. Her pop / soul single “Golden Skies” was released in August 2024. Check it out on her Facebook page here;
https://www.facebook.com/islacrollofficial/

Croll’s next song tonight was “Tea For Two”, which also included a trumpet solo from the Ukrainian born Yalena Verotsotska.

Written by Fats Waller “Honeysuckle Rose” was arranged by Quincy Jones for Ella Fitzgerald and was sung here by Croll, the intro featuring just voice and double bass only. This performance also included a convincing scat vocal episode from the young singer.

Some of the musicians were able to take a well earned breather during the course of a small band arrangement of “Them There Eyes”, another song recorded by Fitzgerald. The instrumentation featured just one trombone, one trumpet, Bilovil on tenor sax, piano, guitar, double bass and drums, plus Croll’s vocals, these including a further scat episode.

This proved to be Croll’s final song of this set and the band rounded off the first half with a lively rendition of “Jumpin’ At The Woodside”, which featured on Basie’s own “Live at the Sands” album. Introduced by a passage of suitably Basie-esque piano this featured a trumpet solo before tenor players Bilovil and Alex Bingham went head to head, trading solos as part of a big, bold, brassy arrangement, presumably penned by Jones.

Set two commenced with the swinging instrumental “Happy Faces”, arranged by Jones for saxophonist Sonny Stitt. This was another tune to feature the talented Bilovil as a soloist.

Croll returned as guest vocalist on an arrangement of the Duke Ellington composition “Satin Doll”, this followed by her singing of the ballad “My Last Affair”, which again featured the sound of muted brass.

Croll was also featured on the more upbeat “Sunny Side of the Street”, with instrumental solos coming from Verotsotska on trumpet and Emily Collett on trombone.

Performed as an instrumental the Jones composed ballad “For Lena and Lennie” acted as a feature for tenor saxophonist Alex Bingham who soloed against a backdrop of muted brass.

Jeffery returned to sing another Sinatra classic, “Fly Me To The Moon”, another piece that saw Bilovil doubling on flute.

Also from the Sinatra repertoire the classic “night ballad” or “torch song”, call it what you will, was brilliantly performed as a duet by Jeffery and pianist Tom Barber, the latter the son of the well known Cardiff based pianist Jim Barber. This performance acted as a taster for BMJ’s January 2026 event when Jeffery will return as part of a duo with pianist and composer Eddie Gripper to perform songs from their eponymous debut album, released earlier in 2024. The Elijah Jeffery / Eddie Gripper duo will appear at the Melville Centre on Sunday January 25th 2026.

The full band rejoined Jeffery for another Sinatra classic, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” with trombonist Liam Belford the featured soloist.

The evening concluded with Jeffery singing the final number on the “Sinatra at the Sands” album, “My Kind of Town”, fairly romping through this ode to Chicago.

The inevitable encore saw Croll returning to the stage to sing with Jeffery on Jones’ arrangement of “Ai No Corrida”, a song actually written by the English guitarist Chaz Jankel, of Ian Dury & The Blockheads fame. This was a funky offering that saw the two bassists working in tandem, one on acoustic, one on electric. This also applied to the guitarists and the drummers, who had also alternated up until now. So too the pianists, one on piano, the other on electric keyboard. Solos came from Bilovil on tenor and Verotsotska on trumpet, two of the band’s stand out instrumentalists.

This was a performance that was rapturously received by the Abergavenny public and one that represented a triumph both for the RWCMD Big Band and for director Ceri Rees, who had directed the band quietly but effectively and who had presented the show with a wry Welsh wit. I’m grateful to him for speaking with me after the show and giving me the full line up details. I wasn’t quite able to pinpoint every soloist but I’m pleased that every performer has received a name-check.

Of course the presence of an experienced performer in the shape of the very classy Elijah Jeffery was a huge bonus but Croll also exhibited considerable promise and she and Jeffery seemed to strike an immediate chemistry as they shared the vocals on the encore.

No doubt some of tonight’s performers will return to BMJ as leaders in the future, prolonging the strong links between BMJ and the RWCMD. Tonight was a huge success for both parties and I’m told that the band members were still buzzing about the event for days afterwards.

Well done to everybody concerned.

 

 

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