Gareth Roberts
Last updated: 19 November 2008
Jazz trombonist Gareth Roberts has been playing in and around the south Wales area for many years now. He plays in a wide variety of different Welsh bands including the Wales Jazz Composers Orchestra, the Heavy Quartet, Steve Waterman's Jazz Orchestra and his own quintet, for which he writes all the material himself.
The Gareth Roberts Quintet have been playing together for many years and have built up a large following with their own, unique, exciting brand of jazz. The members of the quintet are all acclaimed bandleaders in their own right but they got together under the leadership of Gareth on Easter Sunday 2006 to record their long-awaited debut album The Attack of the Killer Penguins, which was launched that year in Café Jazz, Cardiff.
Gareth recently won a Jazz Services award to finance a UK tour for his quintet in spring 2009 which will include dates in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle as well as gigs in Wales.
Brought up near Aberystwyth in mid Wales, most of Gareth's early musical experiences came playing the euphonium in brass bands. He later switched to playing trombone after discovering jazz and realising that there wasn't much popular demand for jazz euphonium players.
After leaving school Gareth went to Nottingham University to study civil engineering and later returned to Aberystwyth to take a PGCE course in maths. He moved to Cardiff in 1998 and worked full time as a maths teacher for five years until a lack of sleep caused by too many late night gigs forced him to leave.
He took a postgraduate diploma in jazz at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, where he studied with Paula Gardiner and Keith Tippett among others. He also had regular trombone lessons from Mark Bassey at Trinity College, London.
Gareth is much in demand as trombone player. As well as playing with many different bands he also receives regular bookings for television and radio work.
Heavily involved with music education, he teaches music part-time in a Welsh language comprehensive school in Cardiff, conducts two school jazz bands and is employed by many different organisations to run music workshops for pupils of all ages.
Gareth cites Charles Mingus as his main influence as a composer, along with Horace Silver and Dave Holland. His favourite trombonists are Jimmy Knepper and Gary Valente, whose solo on an Andy Sheppard recording persuaded him to take up jazz after his early experiences of playing euphonium in brass bands.
