Fred Wesley & the New Jb's

Fred Wesley & The New J.B.'s bring a funk and jazz concert to Union Chapel in London, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1977 album A Blow for Me, A Toot to You.

Fred Wesley is an American jazz and funk trombonist and arranger from Columbus, who served as James Brown's musical director. As leader of The J.B.'s, the band behind Brown's recordings of the 1970s, Wesley helped shape the funk, disco and hip-hop sounds that followed. Members of that line-up included Maceo Parker, Jimmy Nolen, Clyde Stubblefield and John 'Jabo'Starks, and the group's horn arrangements and interlocking rhythms were later sampled by hip-hop acts such as Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim and De La Soul.

Wesley later joined George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic collective. His debut album, A Blow for Me, A Toot to You, appeared in 1977 under the name Fred Wesley & The Horny Horns featuring Maceo Parker, and was produced by Wesley with George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. This concert by Fred Wesley & The New J.B.'s celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of that record.

The evening is presented by AGMP Concerts and takes place at Union Chapel, a chapel on Compton Terrace in London that also hosts concerts, mainly in pop, rock and indie. The programme will appeal to listeners interested in the lineage that runs from James Brown's bands to funk, rare groove and hip-hop sampling.