’Ashia’ is a new album of solo piano music by British pianist/composer  Mark Donlon. It features 13 original piano pieces. Mark Donlon is well known to audiences in the UK and abroad, having appeared with artists such as Dave Valentin, Fred Wesley, Tito Allen, Roberto Pla and Mistura in venues such as the Jazz Café, Ronnie Scotts, the Vortex and the Barbican Centre. Mark will be appearing in Toronto in January 2007 to conduct a concert by the CUK Big Band with Kenny Wheeler and Norma Winstone in a programme which will include some of his compositions for Jazz orchestra. The music on the album  ‘Ashia’ is very lyrical and sonorous, reflecting Mark’s diverse and eclectic musical influences which include Western Classical music, the music of Jazz pianists such as Keith Jarret, John Taylor and Herbie Hancock as well as contemporary Latin Jazz. Mark Donlon is currently Senior Lecturer in Jazz at Leeds College of Music in Yorkshire.

Biographie

Since 1983 Mark Donlon has been very active and successful in pursuing a career as a professional jazz musician and composer. He has worked with many of the most important figures in the British contemporary Jazz scene such as Don Weller, Bruce Adams, Bobby Wellins, Dudu Pukwana, Jim Mullen, Christine Tobin, Tim Garland, and Dave O’Higgins. He has also performed with a number of prominent Jazz musicians from the U.S.A  such as Frank Wess,  Ali Ryerson, Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and legendary GRP Flautist Dave Valentine, in international festivals in the UK and abroad and at international Jazz venues such as Ronnie Scott’s, The Jazz Café and the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Theatre St Eustache ‘The Blue Morning’, ‘Java’ and ‘les Etoiles’ in Paris, The ‘Ritmo festival in Porto (Portugal) The Fabrica de La Polvera in Lisbon - The Blue Note Club in Tokyo - The Café Cantante,  and Theatro Nacional in Havana Cuba.

Since 1990 he has been intensively involved in Latin-Jazz and Cuban Music, working regularly with the leading Latin-Jazz and Salsa groups in the U.K. and Europe such as Mistura, and Orquesta La Clave. For a number of years he has held the piano chair in Roberto Pla’s Latin Jazz Ensemble, which is widely regarded as being the top Latin group in the U.K. He has also performed with a number of legendary Latin Music figures from the U.S.A, and Latin America such as Willie Gonzalez, Jesus Alemany, Tito Allen, Carlos Manuel and the legendary Brazilian drummer Dom um Ramao.

He released a commercial recording, ‘Cubano Dip’ on the EMI Blue Note label in1996. In 1997 he collaborated with Cuban Vocalist Carlos Manuel (a former member of Irakere) on a recording and composition project in Havana Cuba, under the auspices of the Cuban Government’s tourism promotion agency Havanatur, writing and recording original music for promotional films.

Since joining LCM in 2002, he has given performances with his own Trio, and has appeared at international festivals in the UK, Spain and Portugal with Roberto Pla with US saxophonist Kenny Garret and Mistura. He undertook a recent (2006) tour of International Jazz festivals in the Republic of Ireland with Sexteto Cafe, a prominent Latin Jazz group from Colombia. He has also performed with the experimental improvising group ‘Wonderful Trio’ • a collaboration with two Norwegian musicians -  Composer/Trumpet-player Didrik Ingvaldsen and drummer Stale Birkeland. ‘Wonderful Trio’ This trio have appeared on the album ‘Compact Transparency’ which was released in November 2006 in Norway.