The Jazz Champions

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Cat No: SHR004

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Release Date: 05 December 2025

Label: Stray Horn Records

Packaging Type: Digipak

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 5052442030027

Genres: Jazz Contemporary

Description

Drummer Clark Tracey leads a group of outstanding quality featuring saxophonists Art Themen and Simon Allen, pianist Dave Newton and bassist Andrew Cleyndert, performing new arrangement of music by Chick Corea, Jimmy Heath, Bobby Wellins, Stan Tracey and Freddie Mercury.
"In April last year I had a 24 date UK tour booked - but no band. I turned to some of my oldest and most trusted friends, and we've been playing to sold out houses ever since.
I've known saxophone legend Art Themen for over 50 years; we began playing together in 1978. Simon Allen, a remarkable musician I first met in the mid-1990s, later joined my Father's ensembles until 2013. Dave Newton, the UK's most awarded pianist, and I first worked together in the early 1980s and have shared many stages since. Andrew Cleyndert, our outstanding bassist, joined my first group as a teen and later my Father's bands in 1995.
Unwilling to call yet another band "The Clark Tracey Quintet", I wanted to show off the fact I now had the cream of a generation nearer my own. I eventually settled on "The Jazz Champions". It was later that I was listening to Freddie Mercury's lyrics on "We Are The Champions", when it dawned on me that his simple words had a poignancy to my predicament at that time. I decided to ask Simoon to write a modern arrangement of it and invite a vocalist to sing it for us for a recording. Sylvia McEwen is someone I was aware of and, knowing she'd cut it superbly, I was delighted that she agreed to record it with us."
Clark Tracey: drums
Art Themen: reeds
Simon Allen: reeds
Dave Newton: piano
Andrew Cleyndert: bass
Sylvia McEwen: vocal (track 6)
Tracklisting