Kickstarter

One year on and Abram's rhythm section and I returned to Oxford on Friday 5th April to remember the beginning of the Abram Wilson 2012 tour, a celebration of 10 years in the UK.

The evening was a truly special one, filled with the sound of Abram's music and his spirit. The band (Reuben James on piano, Dave Hamblett on drums and Alex Davis on bass) did him proud and delighted an initimate audience of fans and friends, old and new, including the prolific jazz photographer David Redfern and his long-term partner Suzy Reed.

You can check out some images from the night, thanks to Benjamin Amure, HERE. 

The winners of the all important raffle were:

Max Mason - signed unedited limited edition CD of Philippa

Steve Smith - signed unedited limited edition CD of Philippa

Joseph Taylor - signed unedited limited edition CD of Philippa

Robert Abbot - one-off, signed, framed photograph of Abram by Edu Hawkins

We raised a nice, tidy sum of just over £300 thanks to the overwhelming support of Max Mason and his team at the Big Bang Restaurant in Oxford and of course the extraordinary photographer Edu Hawkins.

Upcoming Dates

5th May 2013 - You can catch the trio again at Cheltenham Jazz Festival on Sunday 5th May at 3pm in the Parabola Arts Centre where they will be joined by the gorgeous Zara McFarlane. Book tickets HERE.

4th June 2013 - And on Tuesday 4th June at Birmingham's Symphony Hall, where they'll be performing from 5pm in the foyer. This will be our only public event to mark one year since Abram passed on 9th June 2012 and entry will be free.

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

Till soon!

Love

Jennie x

Photo credit: Benjamin Amure

Tomorrow we'll be remembering the beginning of something. Exactly a year ago today Abram's band and I started a 20-date tour that would be cut short two months later due to cancer. It hardly seems any time at all that Abram and I were preparing for his quartet to perform at Pizza Express Jazz Club on 4th April 2012. Two days later we headed off to the Oxford Jazz Festival excited and high off a 4**** review in the Guardian by John Fordham who described the Philippa Project as "a work in progress that will be fascinating to follow". 

I remember chasing one of the organisers of the Oxford Jazz Festival back in 2011, trying to persuade him to book Abram's quartet. He kept emailing me saying he'd bear it in mind - never a good sign in my opinion! But it turned out I was wrong and Oxford became the second of a string of dates that would become more memorable than I could have ever imagined. 

On 25th May the tour ended abruptly, and two weeks later Abram lost his life to a very short battle with cancer. He never got to go back into the recording studio as we'd planned, or develop the Philippa Project into a jazz theatre piece. But it's worth bearing in mind that during what would turn out to be his last year with us, he wrote some incredible new music. There were three other projects besides the Philippa tunes that he'd premiered in public between April 2011 and May 2012 and we could all see that Abram was really starting to come into his own, both as a performer and a composer. 

Yesterday I read the author Iain Bank's personal statement explaining that he has cancer and his life will end in a few months. It was beautifully written, simple and very honest. It struck me that his experience almost runs parallel with Abram's. The time lines are very similar, just a year later; Banks began noticing pains in January but put it down to work before finally paying a visit to his GP in mid-February which is exactly when Abram went to see his doctor. When Banks was recently informed that he had late stage gall bladder cancer and there was nothing they could do, he asked his long-term partner to become his 'widow'. 

The only difference between Iain Banks and Abram is time. More time to live, Banks is 59, more time to be with his partner, six years instead of three, and more time to acknowledge that time has run out. When Abram was told it was terminal and he only had a few weeks left to live, he said that he still had so much he wanted to do. I am sure it is exactly the same for Banks. Time is relative after all, and no matter how much you get, you will always want more. 

I'm grateful for the time Abram and I had together; we didn't have much but we had enough to focus on the important things which is what Banks is doing now - spending his last remaining months with his family and friends. Banks' work is done now, as was Abram's before he passed; Banks' final book has been written and Abram's last piece of music was finished on 17th April 2012. But as another author, Mitch Albom, once wrote "All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time". 

Tomorrow we will be remembering the beginning of the end, an ending which turned out to be the start of something very special, the Abram Wilson Foundation for Creative Arts. It is my new beginning and one that I'm happy to share with Abram's band - Alex Davis, Dave Hamblett and Reuben James as well as the lovely people of Oxford, Max Mason and the staff at the Big Bang Restaurant, photographer Edu Hawkins who documented the Oxford Jazz Festival gig last year and of course my rock solid new trustees, Laura Palmer, Laura Vakil (née Biddlecombe) and Flo Butler.

I very much hope to see some of you there. 

Address: The Big Bang Restaurant, 42 Oxford Castle Quarter, Oxford, OX1 1AY 

Doors: 7pm

Tickets: £10 each which includes a raffle ticket 

Prize: One-off signed photograph of Abram performing at the 2012 Oxford Jazz Festival by Edu Hawkins

All proceeds from the raffle will go directly to the Abram Wilson Foundation. 

I just want to finish by leaving you with a classic Marvin Gaye tune, How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) which I'd like to dedicate to Iain Banks and his new widow, Adele. I hope they make the next few months count. 

Till soon!

Love

Jennie x

Photo credit: Benjamin Amure 

I'm delighted to announce that Abram's rhythm section will be returning to Oxford, 12 months since they performed together at the Oxford Jazz Festival as part of Abram's quartet in 2012. It will be their first gig together this year. The evening will be in memory of Abram and our first small fundraiser for the Abram Wilson Foundation.

The performance will take place on Friday 5th April at The Big Bang, a restaurant owned by one of the Festival organisers, Max Mason. Entry is £10 per person, and includes a £5 raffle ticket which will be entered into a prize draw on the night. 

The prize will be a unique photograph of Abram performing at the Oxford Jazz Festival on 6th April 2012. Featured here, the image was taken by the highly respected music photographer, Edu Hawkins. 

Edu has kindly donated the one-off piece, printed using the hand-made process of applying silver leaf to photographic prints. When asked about the image, Edu had this to say:

"Beyond fantastic musicianship, Abram Wilson’s performance at the Oxford Jazz Festival was a demonstration of the depth of his knowledge and appreciation of history, as well as his passion and talent for sharing it with others.

Sometimes the most telling moments in a musical performance are the ones when nothing happens. This image is an example of such an ‘in between’ moment, a visual representation of focus, contemplation, intelligence, integrity and sincerity, a few of the qualities Abram Wilson had to offer, and ones that the work of his Foundation seeks to remind us of."

Max Mason is equally reminiscent:

"Abram Wilson's appearance at the Oxford Jazz Festival was outstanding, a tremendous artist with heart and soul to inspire the next generation and Abram clearly loved doing just that. With this raffle and performance, in our own very small way, we celebrate a life, a talent and the continuation of his work through the Abram Wilson Foundation."

When: Friday 5th April 2013
Where: The Big Bang, 42 Oxford Castle Quarter, Oxford, OX1 1AY
Doors: 7PM
Reservations & Dinner: If you would like to reserve a table for dinner please call the restaurant on 01865 249413
Entry: £10 (includes x1 raffle ticket worth £5)

All funds collected from the raffle tickets will go directly to the Abram Wilson Foundation. We hope that some of you will be able to join us to mark this special occasion in remembering an extraordinary musician.

Please note that the prize does not include postage and packaging : )

Till soon!

Love
Jennie x

Good afternoon!

Where to start? Some amazing progress has been made over the last few weeks and it's really beginning to feel like things are moving ahead.

The big news is I finally managed to get my trustees together last Monday to open a bank account for the Abram Wilson Foundation for Creative Arts (its full name). Woo! Part of me couldn't quite believe it had taken so long, but I felt a bit better when I was assured by friends and colleagues who have set up charitable organisations in the UK that it is a very slow, painstaking process. My experience has been no different. We were all super happy, having spent an hour and a half in the bank, that the paperwork had finally been sent off. All being well we should have an account next week.

A few days later, one of my trustees accompanied me to none other than the U.S. Embassy for a screening of a new American series, Finding Your Roots (a bit like Who Do You Think You Are? in the UK). The episode we saw focused on childhood friends Harry Connick Jr and Branford Marsalis, the eldest of the Marsalis clan. It was an interesting programme, but the highlight for me was when they had an opportunity to talk about the roots they were laying down in their home town of New Orleans through The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music located in the Musicians Village of the Upper Ninth Ward. It was fasinating to hear about it and the many benefits being experienced by the local commnunity, now that music is a staple in their life.

Branford attended the event and I had an opportunity to meet him at the end. He knew Abram and once he realised who I was gave me a great big Marsalis hug. Whenever I meet the musicians that inspired Abram, particularly those from New Orleans, I am always overwhelmed and moved by their immense generosity of spirit. They share so many of the wonderful qualities that Abram had, and a special unbreakable bond like nothing I have encountered before. The musicians of New Orleans are truly a very special breed indeed.

And finally, the tour! We have taken some steps forward and things are shaping up very nicely at the moment. You'll see from the images HERE that we have a pretty good looking bunch of musicians who will be bringing all their talent, passion and flair to a venue near you later this year. I'm very excited about it, as it will be a fantastic opportunity for Abram's rhythm section to play with two incredible saxophonists, Keith Loftis and Jean Toussaint. Of course, as well as learning on the job (so to speak), they'll also have a chance to get to know Keith who was a great friend of Abram's whilst he was living in New York.

Et c'est tout! More to follow in the coming weeks. Thank you for your ongoing support and interest, you are awesome.

Till soon!

Love

Jennie x

It's been a wee while since my last post. I've spent January settling into the new year, finding my bearings and figuring out what to do next. It turns out that 'next' is a lot, I currently have a to do list longer than the River Thames (plus a full-time job!). This has been a bit overwhelming but I'm starting to figure out ways of slotting everything in.

Progress is being made on all fronts. I'm about half way through the process of setting up a charitable foundation. It's been difficult getting my trustees in one place at the same time, as we're all pretty spread out and super busy, but we are definitely moving forwards.

The Philippa Project is temporarily on hold as our fabulous director, Pia Furtado, directs a show for the Scottish National Opera (naturally). We are still on the hunt for a composer to take Abram's work forwards, but we always knew this part was going to take a minute. Finding a replacement for Abram was never going to be an easy task.

The live recording which I want to release as a posthumous album exists as an MP3 but we're still trying to figure out if there is a master copy. There was an assumption that there was one, but the person responsible for recording the gig has been a bit elusive of late. Either way, we will find a way to make the recording accessible to everyone who made a donation. It just might not be exactly how I imagined it and may take a little longer to sort out, but one way or another it will happen.

Other projects include getting Abram's band back on the road. We're planning to book a UK tour for late November/early December where they'll be joined by Abram's old friend and bandmate, New York based saxophonist, Keith Loftis and Jean Toussaint, also on saxophone, who performed as part of the Abram Wilson Septet last year. We're all massively excited and can't wait to get some gigs in the diary.

If you want to see these guys blow you away at your local club later this year then please drop me an email.

There are a gazillion other things going on, some awesome and fun, others less so. The most challenging part is doing all this without Abram. We were a great team, and I really miss my team mate. But then I remember why I'm doing this, and more importantly why I want to do it. Abram challenged me and inspired me to do more, he had incredible vision and taught me that any idea, no matter how crazy it sounded, was possible.

With that in mind I'll leave you with a wonderful video of one of Abram's final education projects, Time I Met The Blues. As the newly appointed Jazzlines Associate Artist of Birmingham Town Hall & Symphony Hall, he had been commissioned to write a 10 minute jazz piece, consisting of five notes, for 300 school children from the Ladywood area of Birmingham. This video, posted by Town Hall & Symphony Hall, is them learning the piece for the first time in March last year, three months before Abram passed.

One of Abram's big aims was to get the kids to improvise, a scary prospect when there's 300 of you. But Abram's motto gave them confidence and encouraged them to go for it, "No fear!" he would call out, "No fear!" they'd respond. Today it acts as a constant reminder of why I loved Abram and how he changed my life.

No fear.

Till soon!

Love Jennie x