The Alan Broadbent Trio

Composer, arranger, conductor and pianist Alan Broadbent brings his Grammy-winning talents to SkyCity Theatre for a night of jazz rarely seen on kiwi shores.

After a five-year absence, New Zealand’s premier jazz musician Alan Broadbent is coming home to play at Auckland’s SkyCity Theatre on Sunday, September 28, in a trio show which also features Frank Gibson and Tim Dennison.

Broadbent has resided in the United States for more than forty years having begun performing professionally at the tender age of 15. He attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music and also studied improvisation with the legendary Lennie Tristano in New York.

After graduating, Broadbent embarked on a three-year tour as arranger and pianist for Woody Herman, earning Downbeat Magazine’s ‘Best Arranger’ award in 1972, before earning his first two Grammy Nominations in 1975 (Children of Lima) and 1978 (Aja). Since then he has worked with such renowned names as Nelson Riddle, David Rose, Johnny Mandel, Henry Mancini, Linda Ronstadt, Diana Krall, Elvis Costello and Natalie Cole.

Broadbent won his first Grammy Award in 1997 for his arrangement of ‘When I Fall In Love’ for Natalie Cole, and his second for ‘Lonely Town’, which he wrote for Charlie Haden’s Quartet West featuring Shirley Horn and Strings. He has also received nominations for his own recordings including the albums ‘You and The Night and The Music’ and ‘Round Midnight’.

After such an illustrious career it is little surprise that Broadbent also became this year a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit and will officially receive the award when he returns to his native shores this month. Broadbent says the award is an honour as he has always been considered a kiwi wherever his travels have taken him.

“I have lived in the states for more than four decades but the amazing thing is, whenever I travel in America, Canada or in Europe I am known as the New Zealand jazz pianist Alan Broadbent, so to receive this honour as a New Zealander is definitely very special,” he says.

The 28 September show will allow New Zealand fans to see Broadbent and his trio for the first time in a decade and it promises to be an evening to remember.

“It will be an evening of improvised jazz based on the great jazz standards so essentially it will be a ‘classical’ concert with a ‘jazz’ trio”, he says.

Praise for Alan Broadbent is never hard to find. In fact, The Penguin Guide to Jazz says his music is filled with ‘insights so profound that one is left at a loss for words’ while Downbeat claims ‘The New Zealand-born pianist sparks highly original conversations between his hands’.

Those looking for a taste of what jazz followers around the world have long savoured can secure their tickets from Monday 1 September.