Jeremy Monteiro Sextet
Lineup
About the Event
Known throughout Asia as the "King of Swing," Monteiro was awarded Singapore's Cultural Medallion in 2002 — the nation's highest artistic honour — and the Public Service Medal in 2021. He remains the only Southeast Asian artist to have released an album on the legendary Verve label.
London audiences know him well. Monteiro has appeared at the EFG London Jazz Festival six times, including two performances at PizzaExpress, and has played major festivals and concert halls across Europe, Asia and the United States. He has recorded more than fifty albums as leader and sideman, with four recent releases charting in the Top 50 of the US Jazzweek chart — a rare achievement for an artist based outside America.
Beyond performance, Monteiro's contribution runs deep. He co-founded the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore in 1988 and serves as its Chairman, and is Executive Director and Music Director of the Jazz Association (Singapore). His book "Late Night Thoughts of a Jazz Musician" won two literary awards.
For this Chelsea date, Monteiro brings together his International Sextet — a transatlantic gathering of players he has long admired.
Alan Barnes (alto saxophone) is one of Britain's most decorated jazz musicians, a multiple British Jazz Award winner with an encyclopaedic command of the tradition. Henry Lowther (trumpet) is a giant of the British scene, his career spanning jazz, session work and his own celebrated ensembles. Calum Gourlay (bass) is among the most in-demand bassists in the UK and a mainstay of the London scene.
They are joined by Sean Hong Wei (tenor saxophone), a Jazz Association (Singapore) scholar now based in New York, where he performs at the highest levels of that city's jazz scene, and Thai drummer Hong Chanutr Techatananan (drums), one of Southeast Asia's finest rhythm players.
The programme draws on swinging standards, pulsating bossa novas and original compositions, including a piece written jointly by Monteiro and Alan Barnes, alongside selections from his recent chart-placing recordings.
Fifty years in, Monteiro plays with the fluency of a master and the appetite of someone still discovering the music.