Love & Life Chip Wickham

• 1 Space Walk 06:05
• 2 Love & Life 06:26
• 3 Seven Worlds 07:07
• 4 Slow Down Look Around 06:59
• Total Runtime 26:37

Info for Love & Life

“Life is nothing without love. Love is the force that drives our journey in life. Life is love and love is life.”

UK jazz master Chip Wickham follows last year’s brilliant soulful long-player Cloud 10 with a deftly crafted, reflective EP of beautiful spiritual jazz influenced by the soulful sounds of Yusef Lateef. Chip’s music has always drawn on a broad world of influences: from hip-hop to Roland Kirk, and from classic funk to the ‘60s Brit-Jazz of Tubby Hayes. But Love & Life finds him foregrounding his wonderful flute playing, producing a perfect four-tracker of reflective, peaceful jazz that elevates and inspires as well as a trademark slice of boppish soul jazz – the jaunty Space Walk.

Elsewhere lead single Love & Life is a joyous jazz waltz with an uplifting, bouncing groove and Slow Down Look Around is introspective and intimate, featuring Chip’s signature flute with a beautiful solo from UK trumpeter Malcolm Strachan. Chip explains that the track presents “a big lesson for us to learn as the world changes around us with such speed. The technology changes but our human needs remain the same: peace, tranquillity and time to think.”

Chip Wickham

Chip Wickham
is a jazz musician and producer who divides his time between Spain, UK and the Middle-East and who has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard swinging spiritual jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahih Shihab, alongside the music of British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more contemporary sounds of Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Robert Glasper.

Originally from Brighton, Chip studied in Manchester and became involved in the 00’s UK jazz, soul, trip-hop and funk scenes, working with the likes of The Pharcyde, The New Mastersounds and Nightmares On Wax as well as playing with Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra. And his relationship with Gondwana Records goes right back to the very beginning as he played on Halsall’s 2008 debut Sending My Love.

Phil Wilkinson
was born in 1978 in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He started fooling around with the keyboards at age four and, as of 1985, studied organ -his main instrument- for seven years.

He became interested in Jazz in the early nineties, alternating piano and organ, and by the time he was twenty he was teaching piano and improvisation at the Clarendon (Nottingham) University.

Phil later met Darius Brubeck, son of the legendary Dave Brubeck. He studied with Darius for one year, and had the opportunity of playing several two-piano concerts with him.

Wilkinson then moved to London, developing a successful career as a freelance musician, and appearing with some of the City’s finest musicians in clubs and concert venues such as The Vortex, The Jazz Cafe (Camden), The Royal Festival Hall, Pizza Express and The Purcell Room.

After a two-year stint in Ethiopia, where he taught piano at the Addis Ababa Conservatory, Phil moved to Spain in 2006, first living in Barcelona and later getting established in Malaga, where he presently resides. In 2010, Wilkinson had the opportunity to tour Europe with Grammy-nominated guitarist Will Bernard, replacing John Medeski.

Phil is also an accomplished bass-guitarist in the idiom of jazz-rock fusion, and has worked, on that instrument, with Brian Jackson (Gil Scott Heron), Mark Adams (Roy Ayers) y Joseph Bowie (Defunkt).

In later years, Phil has returned to his main instrument, the Hammond organ, and to straight-ahead Jazz. Between 2012 and 2013, Wilkinson has had the opportunity to work with Jazz legends like Larry Coryell, Alvin Queen, Mark Whitfield, Ulf Wakenius, Phillip Catherine, George Braith or Christian Escoudé.

Ton Risco
Although he’s been lately focussed in the vibraphone, Ton Risco has been always a drummer and percussionist.

Taking his first steps at the age of five under the guidance of his brother Fernando Risco, later he will study in different conservatoria in Galicia and with teachers like Marcos Vázquez, Federico Elías, Angel Celada or Pedro López.

In 1999 he moves to Holland to study at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, where he obtains bachellors in both, classical percussion and jazz vibraphone, with highest marks and special mention, in 2004 and 2006, respectively. There he studies with the vibraphonist Frits Landesbergen, the percussionist Ali N’Diaye Rose, from Senegal, and with percussion teachers from the comtemporary music area like Wim Vos, working directly with composers like Steve Reich, György Kurtág or Reinbert de Leeuw.

In 2013 takes lesson from the vibist Joe Locke in New York, as well as from Dave Samuels and Tony Miceli at the Delaware University (New Jersey), or David Friedman in Berlin.

Educated in classical and jazz, his eclectic character leads him to collaborate with a broad range of artists like Metropole Orkest (Amsterdam), Vince Mendoza, Kenny Werner, Asko Ensemble (Amsterdam), Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices, Galician Jazz Orchestra, NARF, Timbila Muzimba, Cristina Pato, X. Manuel Budiño, Nova Galega de Danza, Iago Fernández, Roberto Somoza, Paco Charlín, Víctor Prieto Trío, LAR Legido, Marcos Pin Factor E-Reset, Jacobo de Miguel, among others.

He also participates in festivals such as Zeltsman Marimba Festival (Wisconsin, USA), Holland Festival, Steve Reich Festival or Tai Pei International Percussion Convention (TIPC), in Taiwan.

During the last years, he focusses his activity in improvised music as a vibist and drummer in different projects as a freelance, combinning all this with teaching at the Conservatory in Santiago de Compostela.

Jon Scott
has spent the last ten years cementing his reputation as one of the most creative and flexible drummers on the UK and European jazz scene. With a broad range of stylistic influences and a restless desire to push into new musical territories, he is in constant demand as both an empathetic sideman and creative collaborator, in live and studio settings.

Jon currently tours the world with Mercury-nominated GoGo Penguin and Ethio-Jazz legend Mulatu Astatke. He performed with Shabaka Hutchings' renowned Sons of Kemet, co-leads the group Dice Factory with Tom Challenger and Tom Farmer, and is currently working with long-time musical colleague Michael Chillingworth on his new project. He works regularly with the progressively-minded pianists Ivo Neame and Alexander Hawkins, as well as elder statesmen of UK jazz such as Henry Lowther, Pete Hurt and Jim Mullen, and legendary LA-based singer Dwight Trible.

Jon spent ten years as the drummer for MOBO Award-winning Kairos 4Tet, and has been a member of London-based groups led by Jasper Høiby, George Crowley, Hannes Riepler, Rory Simmons, Alice Zawadzki and more. He has featured on over 40 recordings.

This album contains no booklet.