Neil Maya with 1959, the golden year of jazz

1959 is often considered an extremely influential year in the development of modern jazz with a number of new sub genres within jazz coming to the fore in this year. 1959 spawned some of jazz’s finest albums of all times including of course Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Dave Brubeck’s Time Out.

The concept of creating a performance focusing on the music of this seminal year has been developing for Neil over the last couple of years. This is due in part due to his interest in the music of Dave Brubeck due to the band’s very successful Brubeck Project. Neil also has come to realise he has a real affinity with the ‘50s approach to jazz of which 1959 seems, to Neil, to reach a high point. As a jazz educator Neil is also interested in the different approaches to improvisation that the new compositions in 1959 introduced.

www.neilmayaquartet.co.uk, 1959