MUSIC

Tony Benjamin meets the SW’s hottest sax star.

There’s a great story about the young Alfred Ellis in the late 50s catching the train from his Washington home to New York City and bumping into jazz legend Sonny Rollins in the street. The young beginner cheekily asked the saxophone colossus if he would give him lessons and the great man agreed, thus giving the first boost to a career that would take ‘Pee Wee’ Ellis round the world as musical director for James Brown and Van Morrison. Cut forward some 40 years to Frome in Somerset and a woman catches sight of a sax player practising in the local graveyard. Her 13-year-old son has just been given an alto for his birthday so she goes over and asks the man if he would give the boy some lessons. Pee Wee (for it is he) agrees and thus begins the apprenticeship of Josh Arcoleo, one of the most promising young jazz talents to have come out of the South West for a generation. “We had no idea who he was,” Josh recalls. “When we found out it was like ‘Wow!’”

Five years ago the Bristol and Bath jazz scene was buzzing about young Josh Arcoleo. Just 17 years old, he was popping up at sessions and gigs all over the place, leaving a roomful of dropped jaws behind him. Josh remembers it well: “That year was amazing. I did so many gigs, made so many friends with people of all different generations – that’s the great thing about music. And I got to play so many different types of music, which there are in Bristol. I’m not the kind of player who only does one thing, and the Bristol scene was a massive part of encouraging that. It was great – I get more and more proud of being from round here, you know.”

After a busy 18 months he was accepted onto the jazz course at the Royal Academy in London – one of the most prestigious musical training grounds in the country. Academia was new to the young musician: “The crazy thing is I have no GCSEs or anything – though I did get a BTech in popular music from Bath College – but I was home educated from the age of seven, mostly by my mum. So once I started learning the sax it was pretty much music all the way, listening to jazz, practising and getting lessons from Pee Wee. The most valuable thing Pee Wee gave me was getting me to play with him. My first gig was in his band at the Blue Note in Milan when I was 16. After that there were so many gigs, and I was always playing with amazing musicians, but they just seemed to accept me so I didn’t really think anything of it at the time.”

So, at 18 years old and with an impressive musical CV already behind him, Josh arrived in London for his first experience of ‘proper’ education. “It was good to finally be with really great players of my own age as I’d always played with older people. And I’d never really questioned myself about music, I’d just done it because I loved doing it. The course made me look at that, question myself and then move on.” If Josh questioned himself, then the answer must surely have been ‘Yes!’ because this July he passed out of the Academy with not only a first class degree but also a handful of special awards, including the Principal’s Prize for exceptional studentship, the Yamaha Parliamentary Jazz Scholarship and the Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize. That latter one, named after the contemporary jazz trumpet legend, entitles him to a recording contract with Edition Records, the Cardiff-based label that’s fast emerging as the UK’s benchmark for top-quality jazz. It might be a daunting prospect but, happily, Josh left the Academy with a full set of his own tunes and a quartet made up of some of the hottest young names on the UK scene: Ivo Neame (piano), Calum Gourlay (bass) and James Maddren (drums) are a force to be reckoned with and Josh appreciates that: “I can’t believe I’m recording my own album with them and I’m still only 22!” But the fact is he’s proved his own worth and it’s no more than his due. Asked what else he’s doing, he mentions four separate gigs at this year’s London Jazz Festival and a possible trip to New York before the inevitable tour to promote that album in the spring. It’s an enviable workload and a daunting step up in his career, but this unassuming young star-in-the-making is not really fazed: “I’ve never really been bothered by performing, it just seemed like the thing I should be doing. I did it because people asked me. Being a bandleader does feel like another proposition but, when I think about it, I feel good, actually. I think it’s going to be fun.” And somehow you know it really will be just that.

FFI: WWW.JOSHARCOLEO.COM/

Copyright Tony Benjamin 2011