Personnel 

Philip Clouts (piano, composer)

Philip Clouts was born in South Africa and brought to Britain as a baby. His father, the poet Sydney Clouts, was a great fan of South African music and throughout Philip’s childhood the house resounded to the strains of Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba and township jazz. It was the pianists who particularly caught Philip’s ear, especially Abdullah Ibrahim and Chris McGregor, and that’s where it all started.

Philip Clouts is founder member, composer and pianist in Zubop ‘that spirited, hugely enjoyable jazz outfit, which takes the whole world of music as its home territory’ (The Observer). 4 CDs have been released on 33 Records and performances have been in a wide variety of venues and festivals in the UK and Europe, including WOMAD, Glastonbury, Berlin Worldbeat Festival, Brewery Arts Centre, Exeter Phoenix, Frankfurt Sinkkasten, London Vortex.

Zubop developed into ZubopGambia, a collaboraton with BBC World Music award winner Juldeh Camara and other West African master musicians, which has done two major UK tours and headlined at festivals. A concert at Ronnie Scott’s, London, where they “managed to raise the roof” (fRoots magazine) was released as a live album.

Philip has released a trio CD of his compositions entitled “Direction South”which was praised in Jazz UK as “An enormously enjoyable set of accessible but distinctive originals. Like the compositions, Clouts’ solos are thoughtful and persuasively structured”

More recently, Clouts has concentrated on his composing and on playing in the context of his quartet. The quartet’s album ‘Sennen Cove’ garnered many good reviews and was praised in Musician magazine for “consummate musicianship”; the album ‘The Hour of Pearl’ has also been very well received, with Jazzwise magazine celebrating its “pulsating groove-orientated music… distinctive… spiritual and soul jazz… strongly melodic themes”; and latest album ‘Umoya’ led to a Guardian review highlighting the band’s “precise ebullience and relaxed funkiness.”

Samuel Eagles (saxophones)

Samuel Eagles studied at Trinity Music College under renowned musicians including Jason Yarde, Mark Lockheart and Jean Toussaint, the latter continuing to mentor him for a further two years after graduation. Samuel has taken part in the flagship scheme 'Take Five' run by Serious Music.

He currently leads his own quartet whose critically-acclaimed debut album ‘Next Beginning’ was released on the F-IRE Label and launched as part of the London Jazz Festival. His sextet project, Spirit, released the album  'Ask Seek Knock' on the Whirlwind label, with longtime supporter Jean Toussaint as a guest. 

Tim Fairhall (double bass)

Tim Fairhall has toured internationally with world music star Yasmin Levy and has made many contributions to the UK jazz scene including work with the John Martin Quartet, the Markov Chain, and duo and sextet groupings with saxophonist Tom Ward. 

Ted Carrasco (drums)

Ted Carrasco has played with Gilad Atzmon and Alan Barnes at many great venues including Ronnie Scott's, Pizza Express Soho, the 606 Club and the Vortex. He also plays with Soul music titans The Baker Brothers.