Guildhall Artist Masters

Application reference number: 2410356

Getting Somewhere (Ian Latham)

Footprints - piano solo

Reds'n'Blues

Something Different - An Eclectic Brew of Musical Styles

A short piece of music inspired by watching the a video of the great musician Eddie Parker practising his moog over a Mahavishnu Orchestra riff.

The groove is inspired by sabar drumming of Doudou Ndiaye Rose, the genius master musician from Senegal.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/25/doudou-ndiaye-rose.

The Druid

The Druid - Synths Over A Sabar Groove

This piece starts with in a pensive, melancholy mood, and goes a few places before heading into a lively salsa party.

Vamos A La Habana!

Robert Miles's Children was such a big hit in the 90s. His recent passing made me revisit this classic tune. It made me want to try writing something relatively repetitive. This composition owes as much to composers such as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Joe Zawinul.

Trance Dance

Sun Maester's Theme

Noches Tropicales - Miramar

Latin Spirits - solo piano composition by Ian Latham. Recorded at BBC Maida Vale.

This was the second of Ian's solo piano compositions.

Latin Spirits - Composition for Solo Piano

Poem about Los Angeles by Bertolt Brecht set to music by Ian Latham 1996. I was read the poem by Peter Sellars at UCLA. The musical style is inspired by the speech music experiments of Hermeto Pascoal and Steve Reich. Also influenced by Steve Coleman's M-Base jazz.

Los Angeles, the City of Angels. Poetry of Bertold Brecht set to M-Base jazz.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2415006142067486905/822299132708577773

 

Ian Latham’s music biography
I was born and grew up in North London to English and Malaysian Chinese parents. I started piano lessons aged 5 and clarinet aged 13. My school UCS promoted weekly jazz which gave me an early window into world class live jazz (Charlie Rouse, Jean Toussaint, Adelaide Hall, Jason Rebello, Bobby Shew, James Moody, etc). Here I met Barak Schmool who became an early musical mentor who introduced me to Loose Tubes, Django Bates and Ian Ballamy and world music (Samba, salsa, Ewe drumming).
Royal Academy of Music jazz summer schools. Met Steve Coleman at Nice Jazz Fest.  Studied sitar with Wajahat Khan 1992.
Music degree at York 1993-6. Ethnomusicology at UCLA 1994.
Sound and Lights engineer at Jazz Bakery, Los Angeles (George Coleman, Yusef Lateef, Benny Carter, Ahmad Jamal, Kevin Eubanks etc).
York Composition folio 1996 led to Ravi Coltrane introducing me to Elvin Jones. At this point I started working in finance so music went on the back burner. Solo piano compositions c.2000. Logic compositions 2017.
The pandemic of 2020 gave me the opportunity to reconnect with music. I started jazz piano lessons over Zoom with Greg Spero July 2020.
Joined Open Studio 2022 after seeing Peter Martin perform with Christian McBride at the North Sea Jazz Festival. Masterclasses with Geoffrey Keezer and Emmet Cohen. 
In 2024, I started a Master's degree in Jazz Piano at the Guildhall  and was appointed as a Trustee at Serious Trust. I was appointed a Director of the Vortex Jazz Club in 2025.

Outbrow

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