Spitz Jazz every Friday, 6pm - 9pm
Kings Place foyer, free
future lineups

90 York Way, N1 9AG   Station: Kings Cross

"...sharp, soulful...Spitz Jazz Collective lick the blues like there's no tomorrow" - The Guardian

'Vive la Spitz' - Time Out, 2008

THE SPITZ

Events

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SPITZ EVENTS


March 14 at Spitz@ Kings Cross Social Club

ONE MINT JULEP + SON OF KIRK
+ HELENA WARD + SPITZ DJS

Sunday, March 14 One Mint Julep is a new quartet made up of four of London's most talented musicians. They've come together to rediscover the classic sound of jazz and blues from the early thirties.

Led by vocalist Emine Pirhasan who evokes the sound of smoky jazz clubs from the 30's at the same time as drawing from contemporary influence. Also featuring award winning drummer Jim Hart, Fred Thomas on bass and Sam Crowe on keys - all of whom have success with their own original projects.

Son of Kirk "... alternative blues swagger meets delicate folk reverie. Shimmering acoustic guitars, boisterous National Steel riffs, upright bass and authentic, enchanting, Great Plains vocals" - Spitz

 

Spitz@ Kings Cross Social Club
2 Britannia St, WC1X 9JE
Station: Kings Cross
DJs from 5pm, live music from 6pm
Free


March 21 at Spitz@ Kings Cross Social Club

PARKBENCH + more

Sunday, March 21 After a year and a half in San Francisco 'Parkbench' is back in town with more "darkly sophisticated slabs of lonesomeness" (Time Out).

"There is jazz here, and blues, and country, and roots, and nothing that you can pin down to a genre or a style! But is it all good! Takes you in direction after direction." - Blues Matters, 2008

"An outfit blending pastoral strumming and jazzy urbanity with the timelessly stylish blues gloom of Michael J Sheehy." - Time Out

myspace.com/parkbenchfromthechinamen

 

Spitz@ Kings Cross Social Club
2 Britannia St, WC1X 9JE
Station: Kings Cross
DJ from 5pm, live music from 6pm
Free


March 28 at Spitz@ Kings Cross Social Club

KATY CARR + more

Sunday, March 28 Katy Carr is a London based performer and songwriter who plays with her group 'The Aviators'. She has self-released three albums on her label Deluce Recordings. The most recent 'Coquette' has received nothing less than 4/5 star reviews in the mainstream and music press during Nov and Dec 2009 with a 5/5 star review from Music Critic, "Quite simply a masterpiece".

Herself a qualified pilot with a lifelong fascination with all manner of aerial things, Katy Carr weaves her fascinating storysongs from a unique perspective. Born to a Polish mother and English father, early dalliances with her Catholic ancestry were replaced by an obsession with the wonders of flight. An RAF scholarship followed and Katy was soon soaring through the skies and gaining a whole new outlook on the immensity (and, conversely, the triviality) of things. References to flying and celestial matters are rife throughout her compositions and the songs.

Carr's "bald subject matter distances her from the kooky crowd." Q 4/5 ****

"This is Carr's most fully-formed music yet." MOJO 4/5 ****

Coquette is in Q's top 50 downloads, November 2009.

"Undoubtedly, Katy Carr has a sound all of her own." MAVERICK 4/5 ****

myspace.com/katycarrmusic

 

Spitz@ Kings Cross Social Club
2 Britannia St, WC1X 9JE
Station: Kings Cross
DJ from 5pm, live music from 6pm
Free


 


Spitz@ Kings Place atrium

SPITZ JAZZ

Every Friday, 6pm-9pm

Kings Place continues to host Friday evening Spitz Jazz in the building's popular atrium.

Friday, 12th Mar:

  • Jim Mullen – guitar
  • Shabaka Hutchings – sax, clarinet
  • Nick Kacal – double bass

Friday, 17th Mar:

  • Jay Phelps – trumpet
  • and friends

Past lineups

 

Spitz@ Kings Place
90 York Way, N1 9AG
Station: Kings Cross
6pm - 9pm
Free


Listen to Kings Place's audio recording of John Crampton's entire performance at their Spitz Blues evening on 4 Sept 2009:

Or browse Christopher Tribble's photos of John Crampton, Tom Rodwell, Sister Mary & the Choir Boys, Mr Black and Blues:

Or sample the same wonderful evening via video clips of John Crampton and Sister Mary & the Choir Boys:


A sample from the film Polar Bear Live at The Spitz:

Polar Bear - TOMLOVESALICELOVESTOM (a Rub Recordings Production, 2009)
myspace.com/rubrecordings

SPITZ RECORDS

MR BLACK AND BLUES

Spitz Records in partnership with Breakneck Records present his new album, The Morning Light.

Available from:

PARKBENCH: "VERSUS BLACKOUT"

Spitz Records' first release.

Available from:

More details
> read Time Out's review

A Great Night In The Spitz

a film documentary
52min | UK | 2008 | Dir: Gea Russell & Ken Kamanayo

The Spitz music venue opened in 1996. Over 11 years The Spitz hosted more than 3000 concerts featuring the best in cutting edge music. It was forced to close in 2007 due to re-development of Old Spitalfields Market. This is a music documentary of the last ever event held at the Spitz on 27th September 2007; a concert over two floors featuring some of the best of London's contemporary music scene... A Great Night In The Spitz.

A Great Night In The Spitz was inspired by Art Kane's 1958 photo A Great Day In Harlem which featured the top jazz musicians of 1950s New York. A Great Night In The Spitz was shot entirely over the last 48 hours of The Spitz's existence and portrays some of London's top musicians with a special focus on the elite of London's Black jazz musicians.

Director Jane Glitre said: 'So much of The Spitz was about to become an invisible, silent memory. I felt it was essential to try and encapsulate some of that spirit by documenting the last night in 109, Commercial Street.'

Based around an open live concert, key members of the UK's music community dropped by to pay their last respects and to celebrate 11 years of great music.

Featured artists include: The Spitz Jazz Collective, Soweto Kinch, Gwyneth Herbert, Seb Rochford and Terry Edwards.

'MOJO magazine is distraught at the thought of the Spitz closing its doors for good and all. It has served a world of vibrant, genuinely alternative music virtually single-handed.' MOJO

 

See a slideshow of the last night at The Spitz on YouTube » www.youtube.com/gideonmendel

SPITZ RECORDS



 


Check out the first commercial release on Spitz Records,
PARKBENCH: "VERSUS BLACKOUT", released on June 30th, 2008.

"Darkly sophisticated slabs of sax-seared lonesomeness ... this is the first commercial release from Spitz Records, a label whose advent can only mean great things for London's leftfield acts." - TIME OUT > read review

Treasured by many and missed by even more since its epic closing night bash on 27th Sept 2007 featuring the likes of Beth Orton, Terry Edwards, Seb Rochford and Gwyneth Herbert, the SPITZ has been working away to ensure that the many years of graft, grind and damn fine times do not go to waste. Now, to add to their regular gigs in other East London venues under the 'Spitz presents' moniker, comes the first in a series of releases by artists related to the legendary venue.

PARKBENCH is basic, original, earnest song-craft informed by an unflinching devotion to the spirituality of every day events; universal, human emotions; moods and moments burning bright or smouldering quietly; words liike white-hot cinders stoked by the tension and drama of real life situations; and the unique and creative force of a trapped, self-reflective, curious and longing soul.

Expressed honestly, without agenda or pretence, PARKBENCH heralds a return to the simple and beautiful classic songwriter criteria – compositions of inspired subject matter and creative survival techniques (how to get by life using the power of your own imagination to transform negative energy and draw good things from bad; and how to conjure up psychological imagery that is ultimately more functional and satisfying in describing 'the truth' than style pieces about individual love sickness or ready-made, borrowed genre thematics. The PARKBENCH modus operandi is in a sense a way of life, yet it is rendered with moderation and humility, an approach perhaps similar to the line infamously engraved upon Charles Bukowski's tombstone in Rancho Palos Verdes: "Don't Try."

"An outfit blending pastoral strumming and jazzy urbanity with the timelessly stylish blues gloom of Michael J Sheehy." - TIME OUT

Buy PARKBENCH: "VERSUS BLACKOUT" from:

myspace.com/parkbenchfromthechinamen

Dhafer Youssef playing at the Spitz.

What the critics said about The Spitz

"Always on the out-there side of cutting edge" - Independent on Sunday

"Tomorrow's lineups today." - flavorpill

Saving the Spitz - Why the Spitz was important

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