ARQ

Alison Rayner has been playing jazz and other contemporary styles since the mid-70s. She spent five years in the 80s with critically acclaimed Latin-jazz group The Guest Stars, touring all major international jazz venues and festivals across seventeen countries and recording three albums. She leads ARQ, widely celebrated from six years of extensive UK and European touring and critical acclaim for their first two albums ‘August’ (2014) and ‘A Magic Life’ (2016), receiving national and international radio play and four and five-star reviews in jazz and national press.

 
ARQ’s third album Short Stories (released Oct 2019 on Blow the Fuse Records) is now receiving extensive radio play and press acclaim, with one of the pieces receiving an Ivor Novello Award. The ‘Short Stories’ album and tour is supported by ACE and PRS Foundation Women Make Music. Rayner also performs and records with, amongst others, guitarist Deirdre Cartwright, trumpeter Chris Hodgkins, vocalist Carol Grimes, Latin-jazz quartet Chico Chica and US-based singer-songwriter Zoe Lewis.

Line Up:  Alison Rayner - bass, Diedre Cartwright - guitar, Steve Lodder - piano,  Diane McLoughlin – sax & Buster Birch - drums