The debut album from this all-star UK based Quintet, featuring the UK's finest jazz musicians. Five-Way Split is a new jointly led band which was formed in 2020 and features some of the finest contemporary jazz bebop musicians in the UK. Five-Way Split is fronted by internationally renowned trumpet star Quentin Collins, Greek saxophone phenomenon Vasilis Xenopoulos and the golden touch of pianist Rob Barron. Added to this is virtuosic double bassist Matyas Hofecker and hard-swinging drummer Matt Home. The band's vision is to carry on the lineage of groups like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers as well mirroring the New York contemporary-bop scene. From this inspiration, the band presents a sound that respects the tradition of the hard-bop era whilst also bringing it up to date for today's audience. With an extensive repertoire of carefully crafted and imaginative original compositions, along with cool, swinging material by greats like Jimmy Heath, Cedar Walton and Horace Silver, Five-Way Split delivers some of the swinging swinging and soulful music in contemporary jazz.
The band explains: "Five-Way Split is a group born in 2020 at a time when performance opportunities were scarce, but creative energy was strong, by musicians with a shared passion for continuing the lineage of contemporary bop music.
"We are thrilled to join the impressive Ubuntu Music roster. It also makes perfect sense for Rob Barron and Ubuntu Music co-founder Quentin Collins to continue their strong association with one of the best independent jazz labels on the international scene."
Martin Hummel, Director of Ubuntu Music, concludes: "It's a pleasure to be working with such a gifted group of musicians, who keep the contemporary jazz flag flying high and proud. I'm so happy to be back with Quentin Collins, my original label partner, and with Rob Barron, whose trio project we recently released and received exceptional critical acclaim. Five-Way split is a group of equal talents who deliver on their promise of great hard-bop jazz that is as good as it gets. We love to have these guys as members of the Ubuntu Music Family."