Finn - Keeble Group

Abbie Finn – Drums
Harry Keeble - Tenor Saxophone
Jamil Sheriff – Piano
John Pope - Double Bass

This North East group is co-led by the renowned jazz couple, Abbie Finn on drums and Harry Keeble on sax, also featuring hugely admired performers, John Pope on bass, and Jamil Sheriff on piano.

Their original compositions form a set of highly energetic and engaging contemporary jazz, performed by some of the finest musicians in the North. These highly established players deliver top-drawer performance, with deep roots in improvisation, and extraordinarily high-quality musicianship that will be a surprise to no one who knows the work of these artists as individuals.

Abbie Finn is a North East drummer who gained a First Class Jazz degree from Leeds Conservatoire and a Master’s from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She leads the Abbie Finn Trio and also performs with the Finntet and the Finn-Keeble Group, regularly working with visiting artists including Vasilis Xenopoulos, Andrea Vicari, Alan Barnes and Simon Spillett. Featured in Jazzwise as a “one to watch” and praised as a “crucial member of the thriving North-East scene,” she has released four albums with her trio, described as “Exceptional British Jazz” by Chris Phillips of Jazz FM. .

Harry Keeble is a jazz saxophonist from East Sussex, now based in the North East, known for his strong tone and wide-ranging influences from Joe Henderson and John Coltrane to Chris Potter and Allan Holdsworth. He regularly performs with the Abbie Finn Trio, whose fourth album (January 2024) prompted The Jazz Mann to describe him as “a remarkably versatile and assured musician.” He is also saxophonist for the Finn-Keeble Group, the Finntet and the Russ Morgan Quartet, appears with the Zoe Gilby Quintet and the Strictly Smoking Big Band, and has performed with leading musicians including Alan Barnes, Andrea Vicari, Art Themen and Greg Abate. He also leads the Harry Keeble Quartet, who released the EP The Beacon in 2021 and are currently working on their first full album.

Jamil Sheriff is Programme Leader of the Jazz course at Leeds Conservatoire. Born in Bolton in 1977 to Pakistani father Asgar Sheriff and Lancashire-born mother Carol Sheriff, he and his sister Naadia studied at Bolton School of Music under Richard Eastham. His early music education also included Canon Slade School and St Peter’s Church. At 18, he studied Jazz piano and composition at Leeds Conservatoire under Joe Palin and Nikki Iles.

Jamil has created music for ensembles including his Octet, Big Band, Trio, and Rafe’s Dilemma, and performed with artists such as Ingrid Jensen, Dave Liebman, Terell Stafford, Baptiste Herbin, Lukas Oravec, Pete King, Henry Lowther, Gareth Lockrane, Josh Kemp, Richard Iles, Neil Yates, and Colman Brothers.

John Pope is an improviser and composer based in Newcastle, playing double bass, bass guitar, musical saw, and occasionally dictaphone. His diverse practice draws on jazz, funk, rock, pop culture, and mysticism through the lens of free improvisation. He has performed and recorded with folk artists, jazz-fusion musicians, free improv legends, and at least one rock star.

John leads his own chordless jazz quintet and is one third of garage-jazz trio Archipelago. He has collaborated with Roger Turner, Mick Beck, Rhodri Davies, Greg Spero, Field Music, Anton Hunter, Chris Biscoe, Joe McPhee, Laura Cole, and others. He also works extensively as an educator, lecturing at Newcastle University (where he completed an MMus in 2010) and facilitating Jazz North East’s ‘Improvisers Workshop’.

Sunday Pass: £40
Purchase tickets for SwanNek, Ben Crosland’s Threeway, Finn - Keeble Group and Modern Vikings for £40 (discount applied when tickets for all events are added to basket).

Weekend Pass: £60
Purchase tickets Alexia Gardner Quintet, Celebrating Wes Montgomery and Chris Coull’s Porgy and Bess on Saturday and SwanNek, Threeway At Twenty One, Abbie Finn Quartet and Modern Vikings on Sunday for £60 (discount applied when tickets for all events are added to basket).