The St Margarets based Julian Costello Quartet plays contemporary music that incorporates a range of different grooves, moods and colours, its textures both tuneful and melodic. Some of the tunes are really structured and scored while others are more free-flowing and left to chance. Playing tenor and soprano saxophones and composing all the music. Julian sees the group as his heritage to ‘jam’; improvise and see what happens. The rest of the quartet feature very much as equals rather than as accompanists, and Julian tries to think of his solos as conversations with the rest of the group rather than traditional solos with rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment. To date the group has released a number of recordings, their most recent being Edge of Distinction and Cake and Consequences.

“Costello is an extremely moody player on both saxophones and his compositions cover many musical areas…an emotive and soulful tenor player” Jazzwise magazine

“Delicate and melodic… saxophone led original material with nods to Jan Garbarek and Ralph Towner” Time Out

“Brilliant music… I am very impressed” Gilad Atzmon

Upcoming dates

The line up

• Julian Costello - tenor and soprano saxophones As well as playing the saxophones, Julian Costello composes all the music for the group, and has released four CDs to date; Edge of Distinction (May 2011) Der-Da-Di-Da (2009) Cake and Consequences (2004) and Tea and Scandal (1996). The Guardian describes him as “left leaning and having a bubbly Charles Lloyd like tone”, and his CDs have been praised in Time Out, Jazz Journal, Jazzwise magazine and Crescendo. His music has been played on BBC Radio 2 and Jazz FM, with one of his tunes used on a Channel 4 News documentary. London born and bred, Julian studied at the Trinity College of Music.
• Patrick Naylor - guitar Patrick Naylor performs extensively as a guitarist and bandleader. He has released two critically acclaimed albums (his debut album was chosen as Jazz CD of the week in the London Evening Standard) and completed four Jazz Services tours of the UK. Patrick has recorded and gigged with Soundial, Viper’s Dream, Sara Mitra, David Beebee, Julian Costello, Ian East, Eddie Parker, Kate Dimbleby, Firefly, Julie Mckee, Tim Giles, Orla Murphy, Julie Walkington and Julie Sassoon. He has recorded pieces for film, TV and radio including: 2 series of Maigret for BBC Radio 4 and with composer Daniel Teper including Things to do Before You’re 30 - a major feature film starring Billie Piper and Jimi Mistry.
• Alex Keen - double bass Alex Keen is an excellent double bass player much in demand. As well as playing for the Julian Costello Quartet he has toured with Theo Travis, appeared on Radio 3 with Philip Clouts and he plays with the Gypsy Jazz group Vipers’ Dream.
• Milo Fell - drums Milo Fell began his career in Manchester and has gigged and recorded with Tim Whitehead, Patrick Naylor, Andrew Coleman, David Beebee, Karen Lane, The Homemade Orchestra, Tony Woods, The Cinematic Orchestra, Freefall and Dutch group Dalgoo with whom he has toured in Russia, Poland, Germany, Belgum and Holland.