DAVE NEWTON has become well known in Fleet over the last few years, having performed at the club twice before tonight and at Christ Church three times with various Alan Barnes groups. (He appears there again in the Christ Church Crookham 175th Anniversary Festival on September 30.)
After graduating from Leeds College of Music in 1979 David Newton freelanced around Yorkshire and became a resident musician at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough for two and a half years. A move to Edinburgh followed where theatre work using local musicians quickly led to an established position on the Scottish jazz scene but after some four years there, his old roommate from college, Alan Barnes, persuaded him to move to London where he rapidly became a much sought after pianist teaming up with Barnes, guitarist Martin Taylor and saxophonist Don Weller.
His recording career had begun in 1985 with Buddy De Franco and Martin Taylor and his first solo album was released in ’88. In ‘97, Newton and Barnes teamed up and made four CDs for the Concorde label. In the 90s, he often worked with singers such as Marion Montgomery, Tina May, Annie Ross and Stacey Kent. His music can be heard on many television productions; in the US over twenty TV movies feature his scores. He has also worked often with Alan Aykbourn at Scarborough. Among his recent CDs are two trio recordings, one with Andrew Cleyndert & Colin Oxley, ‘Out of this World’, and with Matt Skelton and Tom Farmer, ‘Big Screen’.
David Newton was voted best Jazz Pianist in the British Jazz Awards for the thirteenth time in 2014 and was made a Fellow of Leeds College of Music in 2003.
Fleet Jazz Club 