Biography
Trish Elphinstone plays soprano and alto saxophone. She has a modal and blues style which has been distinctively influenced by the Kind of Blue album. Cannonball, Coltrane and Miles have been key inspirational players. She started playing the saxophone because she liked the sound and it was a useful way to relieve examination stress! She joined the Oxford Polytechnic (now Brookes University) big band in 1990.
After graduation in 1992, she helped set up a music project in Blackbird Leys and also joined the rock band 'Strangefruit’. Trish went on to play in an African King Crimson/Gong 'experimental' band and also jazz-flavoured hip-hop band in Blackbird Leys. Being in these bands gave room for improvisation and she wanted to know more.
Her involvement in the music project at Blackbird Leys went on for almost 10 years and helped young people to perform and produce their own music. The project enabled the development of the Sound works music studio which is still in operation today.
She attended a beginners' jazz course at Ruskin College, Oxford in the late 90's. At the end, she and some colleagues from the course formed a small jazz band and ended up gigging. She found out about summer jazz workshops, including the Aebersold and Glamorgan courses. Dissatisfied with waiting for the summer, she enrolled and completed the City Lit course and went onto to get a jazz degree from Middlesex University.
During her degree she wrote an analysis on Django Rheinhardt (www.gypsyjazz.org.uk) and an extended composition on gypsy music called Romany Road (www.gypsyjazz.org.uk/romany_
The Improvisers Orchestra was joined by musicians from a range of traditions including a sephardic singer, tabla and a darabuka player.
The programme culminated in a performance of Trish Elphinstone’s landmark work, Romany Road exploring musical aspects of the migration of gypsy and romany people from India into Arab lands, Spain, and Eastern Europe. Plus the added Bohemian sounds of the Oxford Improvisers Orchestra conducted by Pat Thomas.
Since graduation she has formed her own jazz band called the Trish Elphinstone Quintet. The band regularly plays at the Half Moon Pub, St Clements. In the Easter of 2009 the quintet played at the Oxford Jazz festival.
Trish has also worked with Dorothy Shaw, Della Thompson and Frank Hockney. The quartet recently played at the Big Bang in Oxford on the 8th of September 2009 . See http://www.
Trish is also member of the Oxford Jazz Composer's Collective. It is a seven piece band which plays original jazz compostions. The OJCC is playing the the Oxford Jazz Festival at the Northgate Hall on 23rd April 2011