Jazz on the Cliffe // Danny Maddocks & Martin Longhawn (1)

Danny Maddocks started his musical journey aged 8 studying the trumpet with encouragement from his father who was a pianist. He then later moved on to discover the guitar. After playing mostly classical and rock Danny then went on to develop a passion for jazz, studying with like minded musicians up in the wonderful city of Newcastle.

A successful start to his music career, Danny played for many artists as a guitarist and has been fortunate enough to have played at some of the UK’s most prestigious venues such as Birmingham Symphony Hall, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and Latitude Festival to name a few.

Still currently active as a freelance guitarist Danny is regularly invited to perform with high profile groups such as Opera North, Sheffield Pops Orchestra and also a recent guitar session for BBC's Songs Of Praise. Danny is also a tutor at Sheffield University and with over half a million YouTube views the interest in Danny’s music is growing daily.

Now ready to jump in head first to the world of original music, Danny has harnessed his talent and versatility to blur musical genres with his unique take on Jazz, Soul and Pop. Already with comparisons to Michael Buble, Jamie Cullum and armed with a mixture of heart felt ballads and infectious groove based songs Danny’s potential is huge.

The current quartet line up is an exciting group of South Yorkshire based musicians featuring the sublime piano playing skills of Jon Trier (also musician for Sheffield’s Richard Hawley) combined with the infectious grooves of Ian West (drums) and Jeremy Ashby (bass)

Recently featured on BBC Radio Sheffield Introducing and due to release his long awaited first EP in easter 2016 which will hopefully be combined with a string of local and UK dates over the summer.

Martin Longhawn is a piano player based in Leeds. He performs regularly with a variety of jazz ensembles including the Firebird Quartet, Svarc/Hanley/Longhawn, Kate Peters Quartet/Septet and Krzysztof Urbanski’s Urban Jazz Society.

Having graduated from Leeds College of Music with First Class Honours in 2011 (studying jazz piano under Mark Donlon), Martin has built up a busy career as a performer and teacher in schools, universities as well as privately around the north of England. Martin is equally at home in other styles, performing regularly blues musicians Tom Townsend and the Dave Hanson Band as well as pop/jazz singer AJ Brown, the later performing at festivals around the UK and Europe to critical acclaim.

Influences include jazz musicians Larry Goldings, Jason Rebello, Robert Glasper, Terrance Blanchard through to pop rock artists including Bruce Hornsby, Booker T. Jones, The Roots. Blues musician Jon Cleary is also a very big influence along with countless others.