London
Charlotte Keeffe’s unique approach and passion for jazz, experimental and freely improvised music sees her performing regularly as a soloist and as part of a variety of different ensembles, including her own Quartet. Charlotte Keeffe(‘s) Quartet performed a sellout performance at Lancaster Jazz Festival in 2019 and their live recording from Jazz in the Round has been played regularly on radio stations around the world.
Charlotte is a member of several ensembles including the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO), Moss Freed’s Union Division and Calum Gourlay’s Big Band. She is a board member of the LIO, planning and promoting each monthly performance. She regularly plays with Alex Ward, Otto Willberg and Andrew Lisle in Alex’s Item 4 and 10. Charlotte is also part of Birmingham-based Andrew Woodhead’s Pendulums, and plays alongside jazz stalwart Annie Whitehead in The Brass Monkeys and jazz stars Rosie Turton and Jay Phelps in Dan Samsa’s Contours. Alya Al-Sultani’s opera, Two Sisters, sees Charlotte playing alongside Alice Zawadzki and Robert Mitchell. She also plays the role of Musician in Goblin Theatre’s production, The Legend of the Jazz Penguin and is a jazz trumpet professor at the London Performing Academy of Music.
She is a trustee of the Mopomoso Trust and is part of the team behind Mopomoso, which is the UK’s longest running concert series dedicated to freely improvised music.
Charlotte was the AMD of the London Gay Big Band in 2019, before focusing more on her own music making; exploring her composed material with free improvisation, inspired by the likes of Jamie Branch, Tomasz Stanko and Miles Davis.
Right Here, Right Now is Charlotte’s Discus Music (June 2021) release, featuring her improvised works for solo, duo, quartet and large ensemble. She is involved in several Discus Music projects as a composer and performer, including Anthropology Band and Hi Res Heart. She is also part of the Lonely Impulse Collective, releasing improvised pieces of music every ten days.
Further credits include performing at the WEF in 2019 as part of Marin Alsop’s Taki Concordia Orchestra. She has also accompanied the likes of Laura Mvula, Charlotte Church, Kate Nash and Liane Carroll in the Wilderness Orchestra.
‘…Charlotte Keeffe’s blood-red, rasping flugelhorn and trumpet blew breathy cadences and messages as if her lungs were burning with an electricity all of her own.’
- Chris Searle, MORNING STAR
‘…characterful beautiful-toned flugelhorn…’
- Sebastian Scotney, LONDONJAZZNEWS
‘Fresh on the scene, trumpeter Charlotte Keeffe is a whirlwind of extended techniques and tactile puzzles, removing the mouthpiece to elicit a windy howl, using her left hand as a mute in the bell of the horn and revelling in restless possibilities.’
- Daniel Spicer, JAZZWISE MAGAZINE
‘Keeffe performs with great assurance and inventiveness and her playing in this essentially improvised context is a revelation.’
- Ian Mann, THE JAZZ MANN
Alex Ward’s Item 4 - Where We Were (Relative Pitch Records - RPR1106)
‘So many artists have attempted to tackle Electric Miles™ but Archer and Keeffe go one better by inhabiting their music with the very spirit of ruthless experimentation that defined the era.’
- Lee Rice Epstein, FREE JAZZ BLOG/COLLECTIVE
Anthropology Band (Discus Music - 90CD)
Charlotte Keeffe’s tracks
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