Moore & Fairhall

Olivia Moore – Violin

Adam Fairhall — Accordion

Moore and Fairhall are a folk-jazz accor­di­on and violin duo, based in Manchester. They bring togeth­er Indian Ragas, Amer­ic­an Folk and jazz from all eras, res­ult­ing in music that is lyr­ic­al, pas­sion­ate and highly rhythmic. Adam and Olivia met when they were selec­ted for Edi­tion VI of Ser­i­ous’ pres­ti­gi­ous ‘Take Five’ Artist Devel­op­ment Scheme and this duo is the result of their shared interest in a jazz approach to folk and world traditions.

We have per­formed to enthu­si­ast­ic audi­ences at Matt and Phreds, Cloud­wa­ter Brew­ery, Manchester Buddhist Centre and at the Lescar in Shef­field. We are about to start record­ing our debut album.

Adam (Accor­di­on) is best known as the pian­ist in Nat Birchall’s acclaimed Col­trane-inspired groups, and for his trade­mark ‘rag­time-to-free’ eclecticism as a jazz pian­ist. Over the past sev­er­al years he has been work­ing intensely on his accor­di­on play­ing to get closer to the folk and roots music which has always informed his approach. The result is an accor­di­on style that incor­por­ates ostinato baselines, innov­at­ive rhythmic bellow tech­niques and free-flow­ing melod­ic improvisation.

“A hugely accom­plished instru­ment­al­ist” — The Wire.

“Adam is a total star”  - Inde­pend­ent on Sunday.

Unfurl

Olivia Moore – Violin

Jim Faulkner — Elec­tric Guitar

Gavin Barras – Bass

John Ball – Indian San­toor and Tabla

Jack McCarthy — Percussion

Unfurl achieve their own unique melange of styles, par­tic­u­larly that of Indian music and jazz and in this, they sound like no other band. Their music is access­ible for all and there is enough music­al con­tent and vir­tu­os­ity to sat­is­fy any avid music lover. As their track titles sug­gest, their music is influ­enced by the earth and nature. Through their heart­felt expres­sion, they take the listen­er on an uplift­ing jour­ney into the sublime.

Apart from being influ­enced by the jazz greats and vari­ous Indian legendary musi­cians and sing­ers such as Hari­prasad Chaur­as­ia, Kala Ram­nath and Zakir Hus­sain, Unfurl’s music is influ­enced by John McLaugh­lin and the Mahav­ish­nu Orches­tra. The band like to create rhythmic interest in their music, writ­ing many of the tunes in 7/4 and are keen on cross-rhythms and syncopation.

Unfurl have been enthu­si­ast­ic­ally received at numer­ous Jazz fest­ivals across the coun­try, includ­ing Manchester, Marsden, Marl­bor­ough, Brecon, Gateshead and London Jazz Fest­ivals as well as in numer­ous clubs and theatre venues across the country.

In 2013 they were awar­ded a tour­ing grant from “Jazz North” and an Arts Coun­cil Eng­land R&D Grant which allowed them to devel­op their mater­i­al. https://​www​.you​tube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​V​B​2​y​t​8​W​Z​VhM

“Dif­fer­ent” and “Refresh­ing”, Tony Dudley-Evans @ Birm­ing­ham Sym­phony Hall Foyer.

“Won­der­fully Eclect­ic Music” Scar­bor­ough Jazz.

“Unfurl are a won­der­ful group of musi­cians who com­bine incred­ible music­al sub­tlety and refine­ment with a real sense of music­al adven­ture and explor­a­tion”, Neil Camp­bell @ Liv­er­pool Jazz Festival.

Jim Faulkner is an extremely accom­plished gui­tar­ist and can be heard in genres as diverse as straight ahead jazz, world music, con­tem­por­ary clas­sic­al music and pro­gress­ive rock. He per­forms inter­na­tion­ally and is a busy edu­cat­or, hold­ing teach­ing pos­i­tions at LIPA, Chet­ham’s School of Music and gives reg­u­lar work­shops at the RNCM.

Gavin Barras is a per­man­ent fix­ture on the UK bass scene, acting as the bassist for Manchester based spir­itu­al jazz Trum­peter Mat­thew Halsall and Arun Ghosh and a pleth­ora of other artists in the North. He also teaches the double bass and the guitar.

John Ball, our tabla and san­toor player, is the other Indian expo­nent in the band. He is a reg­u­lar per­former both as a clas­sic­al soloist and is a member also of the fusion bands Mishra and Rafiki Jazz. He reg­u­larly tours with Indian dance com­pan­ies led by Balbir Singh and Jaivant Patel and teaches at Shef­field University.

Jack McCarthy, our new per­cus­sion­ist spent his form­at­ive years study­ing with master musi­cians in West Africa and Cuba and his drive to fur­ther his know­ledge has led him, more recently to South­ern Spain to explore fla­menco and Arabic per­cus­sion tech­niques. He has per­formed all over Europe with vari­ous artists, most not­ably the Drum and Bass legend ‘London Elektri­city’ and trum­peter Mat­thew Halsall. He cur­rently tours with The Lion King in the UK and Ireland.