Ice-T and Gilles Peterson Barbican dates

Gilles Peterson presents Kamasi Washington, GoGo Penguin, Lynne Page
Saturday 14 November 2015 / Barbican Hall / 7.30pm
Tickets: £15 – 25 plus booking fee

BBC 6Music DJ Gilles Peterson gives audiences a glimpse at the future of Jazz, with a double bill of artists that will take apart preconceptions of what Jazz even means.

Guesting on Kendrick Lamar records, touring with Snoop Dog, and putting out albums on Flying Lotus's Brainfeeder label, Kamasi Washington takes Jazz from the shelf of relics and makes it into something unexpected again. Performing here in his London debut and following the release of his kaleidoscopic record The Epic on Ninjatune/Brainfeeder, his blistering sax and luscious orchestrations are steeped in jazz tradition, whilst at the same time pushing in new directions.

Closer to home, but equally at the cutting edge, Manchester trio GoGo Penguin – newly signed to Blue Note – take a spin in a different direction. They collaborate with the brilliant choreographer Lynne Page (whose CV spans everything from working with Kanye West to grand opera), to create a very contemporary response to the 80s phenomenon of Jazz dance – the underground movement that ruled the dance floors of the UK's club culture.

Ice-T and Ron McCurdy – the Langston Hughes Project
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz
Saturday 21 November 2015 / Barbican Hall / 3pm & 7.30pm
Tickets: £15 – 40 plus booking fee

Rapper and actor Ice-T joins musical director and trumpeter Ron McCurdy in a brilliant 21st century realisation of Langston Hughes' creative masterpiece – his jazz poem suite Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz.

A seminal figure in African-American cultural history, Hughes devised the poem in the early 1960s and dedicated the work to Louis Armstrong. Unperformed at the time of Hughes' death in 1967, Ask Your Mama recreates the journey from the Harlem Renaissance through the beat poets and the birth of bebop, to the looming explosion of black performance art in the 60s – from the blues, gospel and New Orleans to bebop and beyond.

A vivid visual backdrop as part of the two Barbican performances evokes the life and times of an American icon, illuminating Hughes' vision of the struggle for freedom in the 60s – with a message that resonates as strongly today as ever.


ALSO COMING UP SOON

Keith Emerson: Three Fates
With the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Terje Mikkelsen
Friday 10 July 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets £45 – 65 plus booking fee
Find out more

Station to Station: A 30 Day Happening
A project by Doug Aitken
Saturday 27 June 2015 – Sunday 26 July 2015 / Barbican Centre
Tickets: Free, with special ticketed events every Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening in the Art Gallery and Concert Hall
Find out more

Burda: The Asil Ensemble featuring Karima Skalli
The Music of Umm Kulthum and Mustafa Said
Presented by Shubbak – A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture and Abu Dhabi Festival
11 July 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:00
Tickets: £20 - 35 + booking fee
Find out more

Dan Penn + Spooner Oldham
Tuesday 14 July 2015 / Union Chapel / 19:30
Tickets: £25 plus booking fee
Find out more

Sly and Robbie meet Nils Petter Molvaer
Featuring Eivind Aarset and Vladislav Delay
Friday 17 July 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £15 – 25 plus booking fee
Find out more

Terry Riley
Saturday 18 July 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £17.50 – 25 plus booking fee
Part of Station to Station: A 30 Day Happening
Find out more

Walthamstow Garden Party
Saturday 17 – Sunday 18 July 2015 / Lloyd Park E17 / 12:00
Tickets: Free
Find out more

Transcender
Thursday 24 September – Sunday 27 September 2015
Barbican Hall, Union Chapel, Village Underground, LSO St Luke's
Tickets £17.50-£45 plus booking fee
Find out more

King Creosote
10 October 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £15 - £20 plus booking fee
Find out more

Jeff Mills: Light from the Outside World
Featuring BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Christophe Mangou
Saturday 24 October 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £20 – 30 plus booking fee
Find out more

Love & Other Crimes:
The Songs of Lee Hazlewood
Sunday 25 October 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets £20 – 25 plus booking fee
Find out more

Apparat: soundtracks and more
Saturday 7 November 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £20 – 25 plus booking fee
Find out more

Blood & Roses: The Songs of Ewan MacColl
Monday 9 November 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Find out more

Jazz Voice
Celebrating a Century of Song
Friday 13 November 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £15 – 35 + booking fee
Part of EFG London Jazz Festival
Find out more

War Work: 8 songs with film
Composed and directed by Michael Nyman
Thursday 10 December 2015 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £17.50–25 plus booking fee
Find out more

COMING UP IN 2016

Henry Rollins
Thursday 14 & Saturday 16 January 2016 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £17.50 – 25 plus booking fee
Find out more

Voices Appeared
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
with live soundtrack by The Orlando Consort
Friday 29 January 2016 / LSO St Luke's / 20:00
Tickets: £20 – 25 plus booking fee
Find out more

Drawing Life
Composed by Jocelyn Pook
Saturday 30 January 2016 / Milton Court Concert Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £10–20 plus booking fee
Find out more

Kodo One Earth Tour 2016: Mystery
The 35th Anniversary
Monday 15 February 2016 / Barbican Hall / 19:30
Tickets: £20 – 30 plus booking fee
Find out more

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
International Associate residency at the Barbican
Thursday 18 – Saturday 20 February 2016
Find out more

Black Arm Band: dirtsong
Featuring original text by Alexis Wright
Music of the Australian Indigenous experience
May 2016 / Barbican Theatre
Find out more