Platform South Showcase 2019 was produced in partnership with Colston Hall and Bristol International Jazz & Blues Festival, supporting Jazz South to launch its inaugural programme for artists and promoters across the South. 

Bristol audiences flowed into Colston Hall free-stage foyer to see the six selected bands and we were delighted that a couple of reviewers also popped in to sample the music.

Sunday offered a bonus free stage back in the Colston foyer, organised by Jazz South, which was opened by Kate and Mike Westbrook’s Granite Suite, a swerving collage of musical stylings built around Kate’s Dartmoor-themed poetry. Kate’s vocal trademarks were there – growling and howling one moment, stately declamations the next, while the jazz rock music jumped through Hendrix flavoured metal, Weillian cabaret and free jazz blowing. (Tony Benjamin, Bristol 247)

The still-functioning foyer space hosted a Jazz South band showcase including [Iain] Ballamy’s quartet, with [Huw] Warren standing in for regular pianist Jason Rebello. Their short set confirmed impressions from earlier shows in Bristol and Bath that this foursome – with Percy Pursglove on bass and sought after Bristol drummer Mark Whitlam – is an exciting new unit that deserves a long life. (Jon Turney/Peter Slavid, London Jazz News)

Images – Glen Jevon  (except for Soweto Kinch – Tamsin Mendelsohn)