Wellington composer and saxophonist Lucien Johnson will be playing Hastings Community Arts Centre on Saturday, September 4.
Wellington composer and saxophonist Lucien Johnson will be playing Hastings Community Arts Centre on Saturday, September 4.
Lucien Johnson is a Wellington composer and saxophonist whose music has taken him around the globe.
After living in Paris for six years during the 2000s, he has since found himself in eclectic musical situations: touring India with a musical circus group, learning about voodoo drumming in Haiti, putting togethera band of Brazilian musicians for a music festival in Belo Horizonte, being sent to live in New York for a year on an Arts Foundation scholarship, tracking down Ethiopian jazz great Mulatu Astatke in his club in Addis Ababa, as well as several world tours with New Zealand bands The Black Seeds and Lord Echo.
On top of all that, Johnson's still found time to compose for the NZSO, the New Zealand Dance Company and script write and compose his own theatre works, which have been performed at the New Zealand Festival with the company he co-directs, Borderline Arts Ensemble.
His latest album, "Wax///Wane" which came out last year on Deluge Records, earned him the crown of Apra NZ Jazz Composer of the Year as well as being nominated for Jazz Artist of the Year.
It's also been met with rave reviews in the international press, with London Jazz News describing it as "mystical, a touch retro and increasingly spellbinding" and France Musique calling it "bewitching and astonishing," with his music being heard on the airwaves from the BBC to Baltimore.
Johnson has assembled an outstanding quartet for a 15-date tour of the country including a rare appearance at the Hastings Community Arts Centre on Saturday, September 4.
Joining him on double bass will be Tom Callwood, bassist for the Phoenix Foundation and Little Bushman; upcoming drummer Cory Champion; and, on piano, jazz great Jonathan Crayford, who has been a familiar face to Hawke's Bay audiences since his longstanding association with Bruno Lawrence.
Johnson draws upon his global knowledge and experience as inspiration for his music and will deliver what promises to be a sumptuous evening of mesmerising sonic landscapes from some of Aotearoa's finest musicians.
