"What a brilliant club" - Forbes 2025
THE VERDICT
APPJAG Jazz Venue of the Year 2024
The Verdict is a multi award winning grass roots music venue, the only full time Jazz venue outside of London in the south of England, it has been named as one of the best jazz clubs in the World by Star Insider. Weekly hosting the best in jazz music with Top International acts, playing blues, swing, funk, Latin Jazz and fusion.
5 Way Split
Modus Operandi is the incendiary new album from London-based five-piece instrumental jazz band Five-Way Split. A powerful statement of intent, the record captures a group at the height of its creative focus, delivering contemporary hard-bop rooted firmly in tradition yet driven by a modern edge.
Five-Way Split’s musical vision is to carry the torch lit by classic hard-bop ensembles of the 1950s and ’60s—groups such as Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers—while drawing inspiration from the contemporary US bop scene. Through vibrant original compositions and distinctive interpretations of swinging, groove-led material, the band brings a fresh and authoritative voice to today’s jazz landscape.
The group is a true collective of highly established musicians and Ronnie Scott’s regulars: trumpeter Quentin Collins, saxophonist Vasilis Xenopoulos, pianist Rob Barron, bassist Matyas Hofecker, and drummer Matt Home. Each member is an accomplished artist in their own right, having contributed to a wide range of successful projects across the international jazz scene.
Compositions by Barron, Collins, and Xenopoulos form the backbone of Modus Operandi, featuring snappy melodic hooks, rich harmonic language, and deep rhythmic drive. While the music clearly pays tribute to the hard-bop masters, Five-Way Split’s sound is shaped by decades of collective experience performing with artists as diverse as Al Jarreau, Kyle Eastwood, Stacy Kent, Harold Mabern, Barry Harris, and many others. The result is a classic jazz sound that feels confidently modernised rather than nostalgic.
Founded during the 2020 lockdown period, the band developed its identity through intensive rehearsal and collaboration at a time when live performance opportunities were scarce but creative energy was abundant. This period forged a rare level of cohesion, allowing the ensemble to function seamlessly as a unit while giving space for each individual voice to shine.
As Quentin Collins explains:
“Five-Way Split is a band 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.”
Following their critically acclaimed 2023 debut All The Way—shortlisted on multiple end-of-year ‘Best Of’ lists and nominated for Best Ensemble at the 2024 Parliamentary Jazz Awards—the band has performed sold-out shows at Ronnie Scott’s, PizzaExpress Jazz Club, and the 606 Club.
With Modus Operandi, Five-Way Split present their strongest recorded work to date: a confident, cohesive, and exhilarating statement from one of the UK’s finest contemporary jazz ensembles.
Roland Perrin's Blue Planet Orchestra
Roland Perrin - piano
Jeremy Shoham - sax and clarinet
Bob McKay - sax and flute
Paul Taylor - trombone
Emmanuel Oladokun - bass
Tristan Banks - drums
Roland is a musician and composer with a truly global musical voice — equally schooled in Latin, African, Brazilian and Jazz traditions. His work brings these influences together with a rare balance of craft and spontaneity, combining strong compositional narrative with the freedom, edge and surprise of improvisation. The result is music that feels both deeply rooted and boldly exploratory: a kaleidoscope of World Music grooves, rich harmonic colour, and uplifting rhythmic drive.
The Blue Planet Orchestra — a powerhouse ensemble drawn from some of London’s finest and most adaptable musicians. This is a band built for versatility: players who can deliver the most demanding contemporary scores with precision and sensitivity, and then turn on a dime into fearless, high-level improvisation. Whether the music calls for Afro-Cuban fire, Brazilian swing, African-inspired polyrhythms or straight-ahead jazz momentum, the Blue Planet Orchestra brings it to life with flair and authenticity.
Roland’s writing and arrangements are known for their imagination and joyful unpredictability. Alongside original compositions, the set may include striking re-workings of classic repertoire, reframed through unexpected cultural lenses — Charlie Parker filtered through a New Orleans street parade feel, Schubert transported to Jamaica, or The Beatles reimagined in an Afro-Cuban mood. These transformations are not novelty exercises, but deeply musical reinventions that reveal new emotional colours and rhythmic possibilities in familiar material.
Influences run wide and deep: the elegance and orchestral thinking of Duke Ellington, the spiritual lyricism of Abdullah Ibrahim, the melodic sophistication of Antonio Carlos Jobim, and the infectious dance-floor energy of artists such as Buena Vista Social Club and Eddie Palmieri. Yet the sound remains unmistakably Roland’s — vibrant, contemporary, and designed to connect.
Expect a performance that is dynamic and immersive: tightly written passages giving way to open improvisation, irresistible grooves underpinning lyrical melodies, and a band that plays with both precision and joy. Whether you come for the jazz, the global rhythms, or the thrill of hearing boundaries dissolve in real time, this is music that invites you in — and then takes you somewhere unexpected.
