Babel Artists - Arthurs

“Arthurs is already an incredibly accomplished player. A virtuoso, his sound is fat-toned and fluid… maturity is clear from the outset… it's as if he has nothing to prove” Jazzwise

'Arthurs is superb on both trumpet and flugelhorn... his tone pure, his range effortlessly wide... .' [John Fordham, The Guardian)

Tom Arthurs was born in 1980 in Northamptonshire. Since leaving City University with a First Class degree the trumpeter and band leader has been making a name for himself on the London jazz and improvised music scene. Winner of the Peter Whittingham Award 2001, Tom studied with Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano and Jim Black at Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada) in the same year. Tom's debut album of original compositions with quintet Centripede was released on the Babel Label in 2003. The album was launched with a highly successful Jazz Services tour and the band performed at the Cheltenham International Jazz Festival in the Jerwood Rising Stars series and was later nominated as Rising Star this time in the 2004 BBC Jazz Awards.

Tom has also writing for and performed with Freefall (with Azilut's bass clarinet virtuoso Lothar Ohlmeier, Julie Sassoon and Milo Fell) as well as Squash Recipe: a transatlantic collaboration with Toronto drummer Joe Sorbara and the sadly departed New York pianist Bruce McKinnon. Squash Recipe recorded and performed in Canada in Summer 2004 and an album was released on Babel in February 2006. Tom has also been writing for a new all-star 10-piece featuring Matt Bourne, Dylan Bates, Steve Davis, James Allsopp and members of the above bands!

Besides his own projects he has also been performing and recording with Timeline, Synergy (the F-IRE big band), Pete Wareham, Richard Fairhurst, Max de Wardener, Ingrid Laubrock, Justin Quinn, Jonathan Bratoeff, mbira player Chartwell Dutiro, JazzXchange Dance and Music Company, electronic music manipulators Icarus and Squint visuals and some comedy trumpet for BBC3's The Mighty Boosh! Tom is one of several artists who form the F-IRE Collective: other artists include Jade Fox, Timeline, Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear and Robert Mitchell's Panacea. The collective is committed to the presentation of music, language and movement with the holistic understanding of their unified source - hence the name Fellowship for Integrated Rhythmic Expression (F-IRE). He also recently appeared at the Bath Jazz Festival in 2005, and performed a few tracks broadcast live for BBC Radio 3's Jazz on 3.

Other projects include a UK trio Arthurs.H øiby.Ritchie , and an electronic music project with Icarus' Ollie Bown. Both bands have new releases on Not Applicable records.

Tom completed the recording of a duo album with Richard Fairhurst, Babel's Hungry Ants keyboardist/visionary and ex-BBC award winner for New Work. It was released on Babel in June 2007.

The Arthurs.Høiby.Ritchie trio also toured in the Autumn of 2006, hitting several venues across London, Aberdeen , Glasgow , Stirling , Birmingham , and Warwick . Besides this Tom has recently hooked up in a duo with legendary pianist John Taylor for the Electric Proms at the newly opened Roundhouse in Camden and consequently was booked for the 2007 Bath Jazz festival.

in 2008 Tom became only the second jazz musician and composer ever to become a BBC New Generation artist following Gwilym Simcock. He joins 6 other musicians who join the scheme each year for a 2 year period. As a result, Tom and Richard Fairhurst performed their Mesmer duo in the 2009 BBC Proms on 31 August. He also performed a commission for the City Of London Festival again in duo with Babel artist Richard Fairhurst inspired by the poems of Russian poet Pushkin. They performed again at the F-Ire Collective festival at the Soho jazz Pizza Express.

The Babel questionnaire

Tom Arthurs was interviewed for the September 2003 Babel club newsletter following the release of his debut Centripede album on Babel:

Discography