NQ Jazz: Andre Canniere

Andre Canniere is an acclaimed trumpet player, composer and educator currently based in London. Originally from rural Pennsylvania, Canniere spent the first five years of his career in New York City where he worked with artists such as Maria Schneider, Becca Stevens, Donny McCaslin, Kate McGarry, Ingrid Jensen and Darcy James Argue. He has toured widely throughout the United States and Europe with performances at Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Barbican, Birdland, the London Jazz Festival, The Hague Jazz Festival, The Manchester Jazz Festival and the Rochester International Jazz Festival.

In February 2020, Canniere followed up his acclaimed 2016 album The Darkening Blue with  Ghost Days, reuniting with singer Brigitte Beraha and saxophonist Tori Freestone, whilst introducing a new, all-star rhythm team of Rick Simpson (piano) Tom Farmer (bass) and Andrew Bain (drums). Six of the album’s seven original compositions were inspired by a unique collaboration between Andre and the poets/writers Malika Booker and Rebecca Lynch. Each piece had a poem as its starting point, defining the overall mood and the rhythm and phrasing of the melody, and the emotional message of the lyrics is beautifully delivered by Beraha to create a unity of atmosphere throughout the album.

As a composer, Canniere has been described as an “imaginative newcomer” whose music is “audaciously crafted” and “shows glimpses of an unusual fluency and freedom within the context of a dense and rhythmically intricate contemporary-jazz sound” (Guardian). Jazzwise Magazine states that “Canniere’s compositions contrast breezy folky jazz elements with a darker harmonic language that draws from Radiohead and a rawer rock-ish groove-based approach straight out of the New York alt jazz scene”. Canniere’s music has been played on radio stations across the world including BBC Radio 2 and Radio 3 (UK), RTE Lyric fm (Ireland), Radio Cardiff (Wales) and Radio Bremen (Germany).

Andre Canniere // Trumpet

Brigitte Beraha // Voice

Tori Freestone // Saxophone

Rick Simpson // Piano

Tom Farmer // Bass

Andrew Bain // Drums