One of the UK’s greatest music events closes this year’s Frome Festival.
The finale event sees Pee Wee Ellis’s Still Black Still Proud collective at the Cheese & Grain on Sunday 12 July.
Clockwise from top left, Pee Wee Ellis, Ty, Pee Wee Ellis, Mahotella Queens
Brighton Festival voted it the best music event of 2008. The show has also played to packed audiences at the Lincoln Centre in New York, the Chicago Jazz Festival and The Barbican in London.
Each show brings together the black music ouevre by inviting funk, rap and African artists to join saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis and his jazz band.
The Frome Festival event welcomes the legendary Mahotella Queens from Africa and London-based Ghanaian rapper Ty, who received a nomination at this year’s Mercury Music Awards.
Saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, who lives near Frome, co-wrote 26 songs with James Brown, including Say It Loud I’m Black And I’m Proud.
The band’s horn section includes two rising jazz stars from Somerset, Josh Arcoleo on tenor saxophone and James Morton on saxophone. Arcoleo, from Frome, is studying jazz at the Royal Academy of Music. Morton is a firebrand talent from Cheddar.
The 13-piece band also includes Bristol’s Dan Moore on keyboard, Gido May on drums and the ex-Joe Zawinul Band bass player Linley Marthe.
