Mumbles Mostly Jazz and Blues Festival

The Laurence Cottle and Mornington Lockett Quartet

The cream of British Jazz talent! Swansea-born bassist Laurence Cottle joins forces with Mornington Lockett (sax) and the Stacey brothers Paul (guitar) and Jeremy (drums).

Where: Ostreme Centre
When: Saturday 2nd May
Time: support band the Dave Jones Trio starts at 8pm, followed by two sets from Laurence Cottle and Mornington Lockett; concert ends at 11pm

Laurence Cottle

Swansea-born Laurence is back by popular demand after he and his Big Band blew the town apart at the 2007 Admiral Mumbles Mostly Jazz and Blues Festival. He has played with many of the world’s great monosyllabic musicians such as Sting, Cher and Seal, and nearly monosyllabic artists such as Eno and Jaco. And, working with Michael Kamen, he has recorded for films such as ‘Lethal Weapon’ and ‘Mr Holland’s Opus’. Yet while that celebrity stuff is all cool and groovy, when left on his own Laurence often ventures into the world of jazz and its surrounding planets.

So how would you define “musical versatility”? How’s this: playing bass on ‘Headless Cross’ with Black Sabbath and the Hanson Christmas album? The soundtrack for Britney Spears’ movie ‘Crossroads’? And if you still need persuading, how about other big names like Eric Clapton, the Bee Gees, Procul Harum, Mike Oldfield and many others who have played and recorded with Laurence?

Mornington Lockett

Born in London, Mornington Lockett grew up on the Isle Of Wight, where he began playing jazz, sitting in with local traditional and mainstream bands while attending Cowes High School. At Dartington he studied saxophone with Bobby Wellins, classical clarinet with Lorna Lowe and the North Indian sitar with Armanath Misra. He persuaded the college authorities to allow him to take Jazz Saxophone as a first study and became the first person in the UK to gain a degree qualification on the instrument in 1983. He moved to London in 1984 to study at the Guildhall and has lived and worked in the London area ever since.

‘Time Out’ said about Mornington that he is “one of the country’s most accomplished contemporary improvisers... with a fearsome technique and an advanced harmonic approach,” while Noel Gallagher, succinct as ever, said he “sounds like Hendrix on sax.”