The Jay Rayner Quartet/Sextet
Restaurant critic Jay Rayner, undoubtedly the best jazz pianist in Britain of all the judges on MasterChef, leads an ensemble of top flight musicians through a compelling and vivid night of the very best of song-writing and jazz.
Expect blistering performances of iconic tunes from jazz greats like Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver and Dexter Gordon, through to song-writing legends including Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Joan Armatrading. All of this comes liberally seasoned with extraordinary, often outrageous, sometimes filthy stories from Jay’s life in the worlds of food and journalism. He may also rant about chefs serving food on slates. Jay really hates food served on slates.
Since forming the Jay Rayner Quartet in 2012, the band have played some of the most prestigious music venues in Britain, including Ronnie Scott’s, King’s Place and Snape Maltings. They’ve performed live on BBC Radio 3, been supported by Will Young (kind of; he played after them) and have made a point, while on tour, of eating better than any other jazz ensemble in the UK, courtesy of Jay encouraging top restaurants to send their best dishes backstage ahead of the show. In 2022 they celebrated ten years of gigging by becoming a sextet and launching a new repertoire of arrangements celebrating the chart hits of the 80s which had jazz in their bones, songs by Sade, Matt Bianco, Everything But The Girl, Swing Out Sister and more.
A night spent with the Jay Rayner Quartet promises great music, killer stories and often quite inappropriate laughter. With the bassist Robert Rickenberg, saxophonist Dave Lewis, singer Pat Gordon-Smith, guitarist Chris Cobbson and drummer Sophie Alloway.
Jay Rayner, Piano
Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, musician, journalist and broadcaster with a fine collection of floral shirts. He has written on everything from crime and politics, through cinema and theatre to the visual arts, but is best known as restaurant critic for the Observer. For a while he was a sex columnist for Cosmopolitan. He also once got himself completely waxed in the name of journalism. He only mentions this because it hurt. Jay is a former Young Journalist of the Year, Critic of the Year and Restaurant Critic of the Year, though not all in the same year. Somehow, he has also found time to write four novels and seven works of non-fiction. His most recent full-length book is My Last Supper, One Meal A Lifetime In The Making, published in 2019 which was followed in 2021 by Chewing The Fat, a collection of his cult Observer Food Monthly columns. He chair’s BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, is a regular on British television, where he is familiar as a judge on Masterchef and in 2019, launched Out To Lunch, the hit podcast in which he has interviewed the likes of Mel C, Richard E. Grant, Guy Garvey and Dita Von Teese over a fabulous meal. Jay regularly performs live, both in his one man shows and as the pianist in his jazz quartet.
Pat Gordon-Smith, Voice
Singer with the Jay Rayner Quartet since its inception, Pat Gordon-Smith has trained with the likes of Liane Carroll and Clare Foster, and has performed everywhere from the Crazy Coqs, to King’s Place, and at numerous festivals from Cockermouth, to Bury St Edmunds.
Robert Rickenberg, Bass
A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music, Robert has been an established bassist for almost twenty-five years. He came to prominence with the Sheena Davis Group and the great American saxophonist Spike Robinson. With his “stalwart support & top-notch solos” (Allaboutjazz-US) Robert has played alongside numerous British & American jazz greats including Danny Gottlieb (Pat Metheny Group), Will Gaines & Mark Murphy. He has also played and recorded for a wide range of projects outside the jazz field including David Bedella (Jerry Springer-The Opera), pop divas Kylie & Dannii Minogue, Westlife, the Fun Lovin' Criminals, opera singer Kim Criswell, comedians Punt & Dennis, composer Howard Blake (The Snowman), and is the bass tutor at Tring Park School and Brunel University.
Dave Lewis, Sax
An alumni of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Dave Lewis has played and recorded with John Martyn, Lamont Dozier, Jim Mullen, Bryan Ferry, Joan Armatrading, Tommy Chase, John Mayall, Eric Clapton and the Blockheads. He now leads his own hard grooving ensemble, 1Up.
Sophie Alloway, Drums
Sophie Alloway is hugely in demand on the London jazz scene where she has played with the likes of Jason Rebello, Mornington Lockett, Yazz Ahmed, George Melly, Shez Raja, Vimala Rowe, Geoff Eales, Nigel Price, Tony Kofi and US actor/comedian Jason Kravits, among many others. She has toured with rapper Roots Manuva, pop singer Gala, Blue Note pianist Chihiro Yamanaka, and the Michael Jackson musical ’Thriller’. At the rockier end she plays with Paul Stacey (Oasis/The Black Crowes) and John Hogg (Roger Daltrey), and backs soulful singers including Leee John (Imagination), Kenny Thomas and David McAlmont. For nearly a decade she has been the drummer in original fusion band Lydian Collective whose first single amassed a million streams. TV credits include Later with Jools Holland, Glastonbury, the MTV Video Music Awards with Clean Bandit, a Sky advert, Gareth Malone’s Christmas specials, and Adrian Dunbar’s upcoming ITV/PBS drama Ridley. Sophie’s featured tracks on ‘Abbey Road Masters: The Drum Sessions’ have been used on radio and TV across the world.
Chris Cobbson, Guitar
Guitarist Chris ‘Santo’ Cobbson was born in Ghana and grew up in West London. His father played guitar and his uncle was a teacher of Ghanaian percussion and music. Chris was fortunate enough to attend a secondary school that had a large music department including four big bands. His love of Jazz led him to study firstly at Goldsmiths College then the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. However, it was mainly through listening and transcribing the recordings of the great jazz masters that Chris received his jazz education. He has played with Osibisa, Courtney Pine, The JBs (Maceo Parker, Pee Wee Ellis, Fred Wesley), Monty Alexander, Andy Sheppard, Clifford Jarvis, Jean Toussaint, Ronnie Scott’s Big band, Shelia Ferguson, S.E Rogie, Gasper Lewal, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Jim Mullen, Ray Gelato, David Newton, Omar, Curtis Stigers, Imelda May, Ebony Steel Band and many others. He has also performed in various theatre productions including West End shows such as Grease and Soul Train. He has played all over the world including festivals in South Africa, Singapore, Japan, Zanzibar, Dominica and Ghana. More recently Chris has been the guitarist in London’s Ivy Club house Jazz trio and a member of the Courtney Pine ‘House of Legends’ tour. He is a prolific songwriter and arranger, and is currently working on both his debut solo album and an original musical.