PAT McCARTHY with the WENDY KIRKLAND TRIO

The Pat McCarthy Quartet recorded two albums - Hetty's Dance featuring Dave Newton and Art's Blues featuring Phil Ware. The quartet worked continuously for several years, often backing the great and the good from the UK jazz scene. The quartet also formed the nucleus of the John Warren project - an eight-piece band which performed the music of Canadian composer John Warren. Under John's leadership they performed with Kenny Wheeler and Andy Sheppard. More recently he's been working with vocalist Shannon Reilly. They've recorded a couple of albums and toured several times for Jazz North and NRTF. Pat also worked with Alan Barnes on two projects - Fish Tales and Requiem. He shared the writing of the themes for both projects and Alan arranged all the music for a great line up of players including Gilad Atzmon, Mark Nightingale, Dave Green, Sebastian De Krom, Dean Masser, and Neil Yates. 

Pat has a great backstory which he sets out on his website."I began playing the guitar at 12 years old. I had already played the violin for several years. One Christmas, i was taken to visit my Great Uncle Ted Symonds at his hairdressing shop in Rutland Street, Grimsby. He opened the case of an arch top guitar.He took out a beautiful instrument and played a few bars of a Charlie Christian tune. I loved it.

I left school at 16 and served an apprenticeship as a roof thatcher, before becoming a working musician with my first pro band, an Elvis Presley tribute act called Raving Rupert. I went on to do a cruise, a summer in France and a couple of years' residency in the Café de Paris in Leicester Square. I toured Europe for a couple of years with Belgian singer Cindy Nelson, returned to the UK and studied classical guitar with Ada Greetham. In Grimsby I met drummer Paul McGrath and joined his quintet. The Rick Woolgar/Pat McCarthy Group and the Pat McCarthy Quartet were a natural progression from Paul's band.  T

Pianist and singer Wendy Kirkland is "One of the Great Unsung Heroines of British Jazz" The Jazz Man.