Performer:

Neil Maya LRSM ABRSM
Neil began playing music at an early age, taking up clarinet at age eight and piano age five. He progressed on to the saxophone as well when he was fifteen. Neil studied clarinet and piano at the Royal College of Music Junior Department up to the age of eighteen when he went on to study an unrelated degree. Throughout his degree studies Neil continued to play music on a frequent basis including playing principal clarinet with the Bedfordshire Youth Orchestra. During this time Neil became increasingly interested in playing jazz and other styles as well as classical music, especially on the saxophone. On completing his degree Neil embarked on a career of teaching and performing on clarinet and saxophone and has now been working professionally for the last twenty years.

Since moving to Devon in 2001 he has become increasingly busy as a saxophonist playing in many styles including classical and jazz throughout the South West including his own jazz quartet, The Neil Maya Quartet www.neilmayaquartet.co.uk, as well as The Drat Pack www.thedratpack.co.uk playing swing, soul motown and more, Lushlife www.lushlifedinnerjazz.co.uk playing background jazz at functions and Solar www.solarfunkymusic.co.uk playing funk, as well as other depping work. With his quartet he has played to much critical acclaim all over the Southwest of England and has produced three CDs; Out of the Woodshed (2006) and Bread and Circuses (2009) and the Brubeck Project LIve (2017). Neil also still loves to get back to his roots and play classical music whenever he can. Neil performed Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with The Dartmouth Orchestra in 2015 and in 2009 performed Concerto for Stan Getz by Richard Rodney Bennett with the Torbay Symphony Orchestra

As well as live performance Neil teaches clarinet, saxophone and improvisation privately. He also runs a number of groups including the South Devon Big Band and runs workshops on jazz improvisation including the East Prawle Jazz weekend as well as arranges and composes. Neil lives in Ashburton.

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THE BRUBECK PROJECT - With the Neil Maya Quartet (Tuesday)
www.neilmayaquartet.co.uk/brubeck-project

For many people, the sound of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take 5’ is the sound of jazz. This popular American pianist and composer who died just a few years ago did more than perhaps anyone to bring jazz into the popular mainstream.

Now South Devon based saxophonist, Neil Maya, brings his quartet back to the Bude Jazz Festival after many highly successful shows throughout the West Country and beyond over the last twenty years. Neil has put together a group of some of the finest musicians in the South West to authentically reproduce the best known Dave Brubeck recordings such as ‘It’s a Raggy Waltz’, ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk’, ‘Unsquare Dance’ and of course ‘Take 5.

The band features some of the most outstanding jazz musicians in the Southwest today, with Neil Maya on alto sax, Gav Martin on piano, Kev Sanders on double bass and Gary Evans on drums. This well- rehearsed and dynamic band has been touring with this fantastic project for the last eight years and has recorded an excellent live CD and DVD of the project which is also available for purchase.

Expect a great night of some of the best known and coolest jazz on the planet. You won’t be disappointed.

To find out more about the quartet check out www.neilmayaquartet.co.uk.

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CARTOON JAZZ: Neil Maya Quartet (Friday)
www.neilmayaquartet.co.uk/cartoon-jazz

From Bebop to Betty Boop, playing the best in jazz from the cartoons.

From Frozen to The Flintstones; Top Cat to Toy Story; The Simpsons to Sesame Street. It’s jazz – but not as we know it!

The Neil Maya Quartet takes tunes from the cartoons and gives them the jazz treatment creating a high quality, fun afternoon of wonderful music. Tunes include Spiderman, When You Wish Upon A Star,The Pink Panther, The Flintstones, Some Day My Prince Will Come, Alice In Wonderland, Sesame Street, You’ve Got A Friend in Me, Let It Go, Give A Little Whistle and many more.

The Neil Maya Quartet is one of the Southwest's finest jazz outfits and has toured extensively throughout the region and beyond over the last 20 years performing its own mix of compositions as well as its highly successful Brubeck Project, its 1959: the Golden year of Jazz Project and also more recently the Jazz Funk Emporium.

www.neilmayaquartet.co.uk/cartoon-jazz