Grew Quartet

Stephen Grew - piano
Matt Robinson - clarinets
Seth Bennett - bass
Phillip Marks - percussion

The Grew Quartet take you on a very spontaneous musical journey which ranges from cool, reflective lyricism, high velocity intensity redolent of Jimmy Giuffre/Paul Bley ensemble, through to more playful, jazz influenced melodic and rhythmic areas, taking in the atomistic, pinpoint energy of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble of the 1970s.

Stephen Grew and Philip Marks began working together in the Grew Trio in 2006. In 2009 the Grew Quartet was formed from the core of Grew and Marks, adding clarinettist Matt Robinson and bassist Max Sterling to the line up. A short burst of recording and the occasional concert followed, the results released in October 2013 as world line. Seth Bennett joined on bass at the beginning of 2013 contributing to their second album invisible hand, released in October 2013.

Stephen Grew has been playing piano and electronic keyboards for 25 years. His music is completely improvised. He creates spontaneous compositions with other musicians in the heat of the moment. He also performs as a soloist. He is based in Lancaster, UK, and has toured extensively, and also recorded, with many musicians from the free improvised scene in Britain and abroad including Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, Graham Clark, Pat Thomas, Howard Riley and many others. Long standing collaborators are his brother, Nicholas Grew, Richard Scott, David Ross and Philip Marks.

Matt Robinson is a busy session musician, composer, festival director, teacher and community musician. He runs Lancaster Jazz Festival, an annual contemporary music festival based around Lancaster. The rest of the time he can be found gigging around the north of England with everything from jazz groups to classical orchestras, Jamaican ska bands to French pop acts as well as occasionally doing large scale contemporary cross disciplinary works that mainly seem to consist of playing odd things in the rain with dance companies on cliff tops.

Seth Bennett was born and grew up in Sheffield, studying violin, piano and guitar, as well as singing in Sheffield Cathedral Choir. At the age of 18 he took up electric bass, which he studied and played for most of his early 20s. He recorded and toured extensively with punk bands while continuing his studies of jazz and folk music, until he took up the double bass. Currently living in Bradford, he combines his long term passion for jazz and improvised music with the study of contemporary classical and British and Eastern European folk music styles. This mixture of musical interests is reflected in his current musical activities, playing in the Jazz band IDST, Balkan/Roma music band Maquipucuna, Chamber improvisation band 7 Hertz, the Mary Hampton band, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, the orchestra Sinfonia of Leeds, and being co-director of the Bennett-Cole orchestra, as well as being active on the Leeds improvised music scene.

Phillip Marks was involved in the performance and organisation of innovative musical events in Manchester for many years until moving to Halifax in 2011. He plays with electro-acoustic band Bark! and has collaborated for many years with pianist Stephen Grew and saxophonist/bassoonist Mick Beck in several groups. He is currently a member of the Alan Tomlinson Trio, a trio with Dave Birchall and Olie Brice and he has also played with Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Tony Bevan and John Butcher, among many others.