TG Collective are an eclectic British-based ensemble, evolving from the successful acoustic guitar trio, Trio Gitano, in 2006. The TG Collective are based in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England. Their sound draws on many influences, in particular

Flamenco Flamenco () is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the Gitanos, gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Region of Murcia, ...

Gypsy Jazz Gypsy jazz (also known as sinti jazz, gypsy swing, jazz manouche or hot club-style jazz) is a musical idiom inspired by the Romani people, Romani jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, Jean "Django" Reinhardt (1910–1953), in conjunction with the Fr ...

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

and contemporary

Classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

, with interchanging shapes and sizes of ensemble within a performance. The group is centered on two

guitarists A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

, set alongside a core of

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

and

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

, whilst also featuring flamenco dance in some performances. The band issued an album, ''Release the Penguins'', in 2012, their first since their previous 2005 release as Trio Gitano. Release The Penguins has received plaudits from

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

Jazzwise ''Jazzwise'' is a British monthly magazine focused on jazz, launched in 1997. The magazine covers a range of jazz sub-genres and provides news coverage, a national gig guide, a jazz-on-film page, feature articles, and a review section that evalua ...

Songlines A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal cultures of Australia. They mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dr ...

FRoots ''fRoots'' (pronounced "eff-Roots", originally ''Folk Roots'') was a specialist music magazine published in the UK between 1979 and 2019. It specialised in folk and world music, and featured regular compilation downloadable albums, with occas ...

, Time Out and

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

. The album has been played internationally, including

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

KEXP-FM KEXP-FM (90.3 FM) is a non-commercial radio station in Seattle, Washington, United States, specializing in indie music programmed by its disc jockeys. KEXP's studios are located at the Seattle Center, and the transmitter is in the city's Capi ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, USA. Having toured extensively around the UK, TG Collective have appeared several times at the

Cheltenham Jazz Festival Cheltenham Jazz Festival is one of the UK's leading jazz festivals, and is part of Cheltenham Festivals' annual festival season, also including the Science, Music and Literature Festivals in Cheltenham Spa. Introduction and history The Chelten ...

; Kings Place, London; live on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

television; Jamie Oliver's Big Feastival; the

Manchester Jazz Festival Manchester Jazz Festival is an annual 9-day-long festival focused on showcasing contemporary jazz from the North West of England and beyond. History The Manchester Jazz Festival was created in 1996 as a one-day showcase and has grown into a 9-da ...

; a live session for Jazz FM and London's

Pizza Express PizzaExpress (Restaurants) Limited, trading as Pizza Express (also called Pizza Marzano or Milano), is a British multinational pizza restaurant chain. It has over 500 restaurants across the United Kingdom and 100 overseas in Europe, Hong Kong, ...

Jazz Club in Soho, in addition to touring in Ireland, France, Spain, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Members

*Jamie Fekete (

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

s) *Sam Slater (

oud The oud ( ; , ) is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument (a chordophone in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have ...

) *Percy Pursglove (

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

) *Holly Jones (

, alto flute) *Lluis Mather (

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

) *Kit Massey (

) *Joelle Barker ( cajon, riq, percussion)

Trio Gitano 2001–2006

The UK based acoustic guitar trio Trio Gitano was formed in 2001 by three 'graduate' members of the Birmingham School's Guitar Ensemble – Sam Slater, Jamie Fekete and Sophie Johnson. The Trio was directed by composer, pianist and guitarist Bryan Lester, who still writes for The TG Collective. After performing together throughout their time together at The University of Birmingham, the Trio signed to The Birds Recording Company

indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media *Independent media, media free of influence by government or corporate interests *Indie art, fine arts made by artists independent of commer ...

label in 2004 to release their debut album – ''Who Ate All The Tapas?'' in August 2005, and was voted as one of the Records of the Year by ''

''. The album also received notable reviews in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', ''Jazzwise'' Magazine, ''Songlines'' Magazine, ''The Metro'' and coverage on BBC Radios 3 and 4. During the summer of 2006, Sophie Johnson left the

Trio Trio may refer to: Music Groups * Trio (music), an ensemble of three performers, or a composition for such an ensemble ** Jazz trio, pianist, double bassist, drummer ** Minuet and trio, a form in classical music ** String trio, a group of three ...

, with multi-instrumentalist Percy Pursglove joining the group, adding new dynamic drive and direction on

, which paved the way for the formation and basis of the TG Collective in September 2006. Pursglove had previously studied jazz at Birmingham Conservatoire and The New School in New York.

Associated acts

* Percy Pursglove * Joelle Barker * Kit Massey * Lluis Mather * Sam Slater * The Destroyers *

Katy Carr Katy Carr is a British singer-songwriter and musician known for her songs about Polish history. A fan of the 1930s and 1940s, she plays vintage instruments and wears clothing and hairstyles from the period. Although she was born in England, sh ...

Awards

*''Who Ate All The Tapas?'' was No.4 in the Sunday Times' Records of the Year in 2005

Discography

* ''Who Ate All the Tapas?'' Trio Gitano (Birds, 2005) * ''Release the Penguins'' (Stoney Lane, 2012)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tg Collective English jazz ensembles Flamenco groups English classical music groups Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands British world music groups