Biography

Tom Bancroft is a drummer, composer, bandleader and educator.

He trained as a medical doctor at Cambridge but now makes a living from playing, composing, teaching and creating music education resources. He has played with many great musicians ranging from Sun Ra & Martyn Bennett to Tommy Smith, Tom Cawley, Branford Marsalis, Billy Jenkins, Geri Allen, Marilyn Crispell, Satoko Fuji, Keith Tippett, Ganesh & Kumaresh, and Bill Wells.

He is a co-leader of the bassless Trio AAB which closed the inaugural Delhi Jazz Festival to 10,000 people in April 2011, and leads his own projects: His big band Orchestro Interrupto released a critically acclaimed album in 2009  “memorably rich multi layered big band music (4 stars)“ The Guardian and led a new big band project ‘Band of Eden’ in summer 2010 **** “the music was always absorbing and often exhilirating” The Scotsman.

Children’s project Kidsamonium has now been retired but from 2005-10 went from strength to strength, receiving a Herald Angel award in the Edinburgh Fringe in 2007, touring Scotland to audiences of 800 or more in 2008, and playing in Festivals in Europe from Austria to Portugal.and selling out the Bimhuis in Amsterdam in 2009.

He also leads the sextet the Tom Bancroft 6 pack as well as playing in several other long term projects including the Dave Milligan Trio, and the Laura MacDonald sextet.

In 2004 he won the Creative Scotland Award and in 2007 he won the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation and a Herald Angel award for the performance of Kidsamonium in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He has led many large scale community and education projects, including 150 primary school kids performing at the London Jazz Festival, 200 at Perth Concert Hall with classical percussionist Colin Currie, and 100 parents, grandparents and children playing drums and percussion at the Big Stix project at Gateshead Jazz Festival, The Sage.

Tom is an active teacher and educator - from private drum students to teaching composition and leading big bands. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator. In 2001 he set up ABC Creative Music with his brother Phil, a company which develops music education resources for school teachers to increase the amount of creativity and music in their schools. This process has involved a lot of work developing a set of underlying theories about music and the psychology of creativity and testing them in the classroom. ABC has developed a complete range of educational materials for teaching music and creativity in Primary Schools. The materials also promote the use of music for cross-curricular education. This includes developing the Global Citizenship for Music resource, now being used in hundreds of schools across Scotland, where children study music from Scotland, India, Ghana, and Cuba as a way of developing a sense of global citizenship and IT skills as well as composing their own music and selling CDs as an enterprise project.

Tom has always been active in setting up new ways to promote jazz and improvisation. He curated a series of mini festivals for UK and European musicians  inside the Glasgow Jazz Festival in the 90‘s called Clandemonium and Europhonium. He devised the comedy improvising music quiz show ‘Whose Solo is It Anyway’ which was a hit of the Edinburgh Fringe in 1997. In 1998 he set up Caber Music, the Scottish Jazz Record label that ran for 7 years and released 35 CDs to great critical acclaim, and now he runs music education company ABC Creative Music with his twin brother Phil and his own label Interrupto Music. He was very active in setting up the Scottish Jazz Federation, which he later resigned from for ....a set of reasons.......

In 2010 he was musical director of major dance show ‘Off Kilter’ which played in major venues across Scotland, toured Scotland with the Dave Milligan trio, and premiered the ‘Band of Eden’ male/female big band to great critical acclaim, and Clandemonium a jazz flash mob event that drew 1500 people to Edinburgh’s High Street all wearing colour coded tammies and singing, playing drums and kazzoos, and dancing.

In the Autumn 2010, in his role at ABC Creative Music, Tom launched the innovative new website ABC Creative Music Online to allow Scottish schools to teach creative music by interactive whiteboard..

see: www.abcmusic.org.uk

Biog (Long)

Life:

Born in London in 1967, Tom Bancroft is a drummer and composer. He began drumming aged 7 and started off playing jazz with his father and identical twin brother Phil. After studying medicine at Cambridge  University he spent a year studying composition and arranging at McGill University in  Montreal. Qualifying as a doctor in 1992 he then worked as a jazz musician and composer,  supporting his income with locum work as a hospital doctor until 1998, when he began starting companies.......He is married to singer Gina Rae and has two children - Sam and Sophie. In 2004 he received the prestigious Creative Scotland Award.

Drums:

As a drummer he has studied with Jo Morello, Joey Barron and Andrew Cyrille and played with many great musicians including Sun Ra, Joakim Milder, Charlie Mariano, Hamiett Bluiett,  Lianne Carroll, Oliver Lake, George Colligan, David Berkman,Tommy Smith, Julian Argüelles, Emil Vicklicky, Martin Taylor, Sheila Jordan, Shooglenifty, Karen Mathieson, Reid Anderson, Mick McGoldrick,  Billy Jenkins, Geri Allen, Mr McFall’s Chamber, Branford Marsalis, Fraser Fifield, Raymond MacDonald, Satoko Fuji, Marilyn Crispell, Ganesh Kumaresh, Bill Wells and Martyn Bennett. He is currently the drummer with the Dave Milligan Trio, Trio AAB, and occasionally plays in a crazy improvising duo with Italian guitarist Enzo Rocco.

Bands:

He is drummer and co-leader of Trio AAB, whose first album ‘Cold Fusion’ Caber 004 was  named an album of 1999 by BBC Radio 3, and whose second album ‘Wherever I Lay My Home  That’s My Hat’ Caber 021 was an album of 2001 in The Guardian, and picked in a list of 100 essential all time jazz albums by MOJO magazine in 2001.

As a band leader and composer he has led Orchestro Interrupto (formerly the Tom Bancroft Orchestra) (contemporary jazz big band) producing a CD ’Pieology’ Caber 001 in 1998, many festival performances, a UK tour, and a live concert broadcast on BBC Radio 3. In 2004 the band toured the Uk with US piano star Geri Allen ( one of Bancroft’s musical hero-ines) and the tour was broadcast on Radio 3, received 5 star reviews in The Guardian and The Scotsman and was voted jazz gig of the year in Manchester’s City Limits and London’s Time Out magazines. He has also composed for and led the Orange Ear Ensemble (octet), and Kilt Couture (collaboration with French group ARFI).

In 2006 he launched the new Tom Bancroft 6 Pack as well as a spin off kids focussed band from the Orchestra called Kidsamonium , featuring trombone playing mystic chickens, which premiered at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival at The Sage Gateshead and also was a gigantic hit at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in 2006.

In 2007 Tom Bancroft won the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation and, along with the Kidsamonium show, won a prestigious Herald Angel award for being one of the best performances in all the Edinburgh Festivals.

In 2008-9 KIdsamonium toured Scotland to audiences of 800+ and played in European festivals from Austria to Portugal.

Orchestro Interrupto released a CD ‘Ballad of Linda & Crawford’ to great critical acclaim “memorably rich multilayered big-band music **** “ The Guardian.

Compositions and Dances:

Bancroft’s compositions have been used in radio, film, dance, TV and theatre. He has been commissioned by BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 3, Glasgow International Jazz Festival, Assembly Direct, Birmingham Jazz, and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland. He has ‘danced’ (sic) in, played and composed music for ‘Life on the Planet's Surface’ with Kelsey Michael, and ' A Case for a Picnic Pt2,  ' Tracing Houdini' , and ‘hoOps hAtS & AcrObAts’with choreographer Ruby Worth.

In 2009-10 Tom composed the new original music for the major dance production ‘Off Kilter’ that was the centrepiece of the Edinburgh Hogmanay Festival and then toured Scotland - working with choreographers Jennifer Paterson, Errol White, Steinvor Pallson, and Priya Shrikumar,

Education

In 2000 Tom set up the music education company ABC Creative Music’ with this twin brother phil - see www.applebananacarrot.com. Tom and Phil have developed the unique Apple Banana Carrot Method for teaching music creativity and developed a range of music resources to help non-specialist teachers teach music and creativity to children  in mainstream schools. These resources are now being used in more than 600 schools in Scotland. IN 2007 and 2008 Tom and Philran education projects as part of the London Jazz Festival, and in 2008 Tom composed a piece for classical percussionist Colin Currie and 200 school children in Perth & Kinross as part of the SoundWaves project. In 2009 Tom led a project at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival at the Sage for 100 people in family groups  (parents , grandparents and children) which ws a big success,

Tom is an experienced teacher an educator for drum students, composition and large and small ensembles and is an Apple Distinguished Educator.

Discography - click here

Tom Bancroft won

the 2007 BBC

Jazz Award for Innovation