This month: Laura Jurd
The trumpet player and composer Laura Jurd belongs to a new generation of hard-to-pin-down British jazz musicians who are as likely to draw on Bartók as Basie in their art.
Jurd leads the widely lauded improvising jazz quartet Dinosaur but is also in demand as a writer for contemporary chamber groups and orchestras. She somehow fits in teaching composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, and trumpet at Goldsmiths.
Jurd attributes her free-ranging appetite to an inspirational classical piano tutor, Pam Edwards, who taught her from age five to 18, growing up in Hampshire. ‘Improvising and writing little tunes was something I always did,’ she says, ‘and Pam pointed me in the direction of jazz and the theory behind it all.’ She started playing trumpet at primary school and later joined youth ensembles, including a jazz orchestra.
As a student at Trinity Laban, Jurd’s jazz trumpet teacher Chris Batchelor was a huge influence: ‘I learned so much about improvising from him. When he plays, there’s a constant compositional excitement about it. He’s also explorative about the sounds you can make on the trumpet.’ It was around this time that Jurd released her extraordinary debut, Landing Ground, leading an ensemble of jazz musicians and members of the Ligeti Quartet through a programme that combined improvisation with classical themes and European folk.
The recent lockdown has made it impossible for Dinosaur to tour their new album To The Earth, but Jurd has kept busy in her musical bubble: ‘I teach composition and I’ve been able to keep that going online. I’ve also taken on a couple of composing assignments that I might otherwise not have done.’
One commission was for the Festival of New Trumpet Music in New York, taking place online in September: ‘I’m getting more interested in brass music in general and starting to write for instruments like tuba and euphonium. In lockdown I bought a vintage cornet and I’m enjoying getting the feel of it.’
Landing Ground combined improvisation with classical themes and European folk