On 26 March 2026, the jazz quartet Billy Marrows Band exhibited two ethereal sets. The music consisted mainly of music from their debut album Dancing on Bentwood Chairs which was released in February earlier this year.

By Hannah Brown

Photos by Stuart Duthie

The band’s contemporary jazz fusion draws influences ranging from funk and Brazilian to folk and classical. Billy Marrows himself draws ideation from classic jazz artists such as Wayne Shorter and Hermeto Pascoal. They harness both an improvisatory style combined with electronic Blooper loop pedal use to compliment the melodious tones emitted from their innovative jazz palette.

Each member of the band’s accomplishments glinted delicately, and their impeccable playing was hugely enjoyed. Billy Marrows, who studied jazz guitar at the Royal Academy of Music, is also a multi-award-winning composer and his new album demonstrates his quick-witted artistic talent.

Chris Williams’ sax playing ranged from thrillingly breathless to smooth and mellifluous. Huw V Williams grounded the grooves with earthy bass lines and took on the limelight in certain atmospheric numbers, such as Capel Fawnog. Jay Davis’s rippling drum patterns invigorated the more rapid tracks with complex pulses.

A standout aspect of the music was Billy’s ability to entwine personal narratives and elaborate worlds into his compositions. The Protagonist soothed and tranquilised the audience with its lilting chord changes and satisfying harmonies, grounded by a cottony loop pedal effect. The band members gradually build momentum over this spiralling groove with skilful embellishments. These accumulations metaphorically demonstrate the development of a protagonist, evolving into a more fleshed out character as time passes.

It is as though Billy Marrows’ creative process flourishes before our eyes. Anthem for W.O. marks Wilfred Owen’s hundred-year anniversary; shifting preconceptions of light jazz into dark, uncertain realms.

The first part of the piece begins with anthem-like phrases by the sax before its sound buffers with tremor and trill-like extended techniques. Its sound seems to falter, perhaps representing Wilfred Owen’s mercurial state of mind.

The second half of the song is spacious and contemplative with gentle surges from the sax, wave-like trembles from the drums, and fast finger-picking alternations from the guitar. The track’s introspection is highly immersive and interesting.

Marrows interspersed numbers with amusing anecdotes which had inspired him. Nature came across as an overarching theme, permeating tracks such as Speedwell, in homage to the plant, and Capel Fawnog was introduced as being inspired by the expansive Snowdonia landscape.

The former tune resembles a kind of laid-back funk feel with a captivating melody. The latter conveyed a rich, mountainous countryside with an ornate kind of dialogue between the guitar and saxophone.

The concert transported us into a whimsical, inward terrane that drew me in as a listener who is new to the world of jazz.

Billy Marrows Band played at The Basement at City Screen Picturehouse in York on Thursday 26 March 2026. Dancing On Bentwood Chairs is out now, and you can listen to it below.