This weekend we attended Denys Baptiste‘s Now Is The Time…Let Freedom Ring! rehearsal in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London where this project will be presented in a month’s time. It was a great rehearsal – thanks to Southbank Centre’s production team for facilitating this – and, oh my, our audiences are certainly in for a treat with this one!

It was brilliant to see some of the musicians who played on Let Freedom Ring! back in 2003 – musicians like Giorgio Serci (guitar), Satin Singh (percussion), Jenny Adejayan (cello) and Omar Puente (violin) – now 10 years older and a good bit wiser! We also saw Jazz Jamaica’s trombonist, Harry Brown in the musical director’s chair for the first time on one of our projects (nice one, Hazza!).

Now Is The Time is Denys’ new suite in four movements that preludes Let Freedom Ring! There’s plenty of classic jazz, blues and gospel in there, plus some Afrobeat and some properly groovin’, funky elements as well. Denys certainly knows how to write great tunes – we’ve already started humming the piece after just one rehearsal. Can’t wait to hear Now Is The Time with the choirs. It’s going to be absolutely amazing!

Could this be another Denys Baptiste classic? Very possibly… ! Check out the tour dates and find out when you can hear this wonderful new music.