Sunday 2nd February saw the extended Warriors family gather at the Jazz Café in Camden for Gary Crosby’s Big 70th Birthday Jam.
The venue opened specially in the afternoon to re-create the legendary jam sessions that Gary started in 1991 and that would go on to spark a new musical movement and become the foundations on which Tomorrow’s Warriors was built.
It turned out that this wasn’t going to just be a ‘big’ birthday jam… this was enormous!
Tomorrow’s Warriors House Band started proceedings and they were followed by Gary’s improvised quartet featuring the man himself on bass with Denys Baptiste (saxophone), Jason Rebello (keys), Moses Boyd (drums), and Annette Walker (tap).
And then the fun continued, with Gary inviting everyone to join the jam. It was difficult to keep track, but at the last estimate, there were over 60 musicians who took to the stage!
With musicians spanning five decades of Gary’s involvement on the UK jazz scene, including young musicians from our Young Artist Development Programme and Emerging Artist Programme, each new line-up on stage was a genre crossing collaboration. This was the very spirit of what Gary had envisaged some 30+ years ago.
A standout highlight was the ‘procession of bassists’. With Gary kicking off a solo, a queue of fellow bass players lined up across the Jazz Café stage to hand the groove from one to the next, a relay of rhythm that brought cheers from the crowd and was a perfect example of the Warriors ‘each one, teach one’ ethos in action.
This wasn’t just a big birthday party for Gary. This was also a celebration of his lifetime contribution to the UK jazz scene with musicians and music fans alike coming together to afford him due recognition.
Happy birthday Doctor Gary Crosby OBE and THANK YOU!
