See film from two marathon performances at Club Inégales devised by John Cumming in 2017, working with club director Peter Wiegold, for the festival’s 25th anniversary. Tonight offers highlights from the shows as a celebration of John Cumming, who sadly passed away earlier this year. The project symbolises the breadth of inspiration and imagination that John Cumming brought to the festival and everything he was involved in. An amazing array of artists took part in ‘Expect the Unexpected’ from right across the UK jazz scene, including past participants in the Serious’ Take Five scheme. The project symbolised the breadth of inspiration and imagination that John Cumming brought to the festival and everything he was involved in.

24 new ‘one-page’ scores were commissioned by Serious and performed spontaneously, without rehearsal, over 8 hours of shows, Peter Wiegold directing the performances using ‘conduction’ signs. 22 of the guest musicians also played in the splendid evolving big bands for one or two sets alongside 10 of the resident Club Inégales band.

This video features excepts from these magical shows introduced by Peter Wiegold and including an interview with John from one of the sessions.

Composer/performers who took part were:

Alice Zawadzki, Heidi Heidelberg (voices)

Byron Wallen, Kim Macari (trumpets)

Cath Roberts, Raymond MacDonald, James Mainwaring (saxes)

Hyelim Kim (taegŭm flute)

Mauricio Velasierra (flute)

Rob Luft, Ant Law, Jaak Sooaar, Anton Hunter, Chris Sharkey (guitars)

Alex Hawkins, Matthew Bourne (piano)

Olie Brice (bass)

Kuljit Bhamra (tabla)

Mark Sanders (percussion)

Orphy Robinson (direction/electronics)

Pat Thomas (piano/electronics)

..with further scores from Helen Papaioannou and Alex Roth

.. and joined by Jackie Shave, Max Baillie, (violins), Torbjorn Hultmark (trumpet), Christian Forshaw (sax), Jon Banks (accordion), Joel Bell (guitar), Martin Butler (piano), Ben Markland (bass) and Simon Limbrick (percussion) from Club Inégales.