On this page you can access hi res photos, download an A4 poster which can be overprinted with your gig details and access some copy and quotes for promotional purposes.
Please contact me to book:
Deirdre Cartwight Group – plays mainly my original music,
Remembering Emily a guitar duo with Manchester based guitarist Kathy Dyson who play swing, Latin and bebop invoking the spirit of the great American jazz guitarist Emily Remler who died in 1990 at the age of 32.
We can be booked as a guitar duo or quartet (with bass and drums).
Picnic New 60?s style groove jazz quartet Picnic features the trombone of Annie Whitehead playing a mixture of jazz standards and originals with some latin and South African flavours. Deirdre Cartwright (guitar) Annie Whitehead (trombone)Alison Rayner (bass) Winston Clifford (drums)
There’s also the Deirdre Cartwright Trio (gtr, bass, drums) or Deirdre Cartwight and Alison Rayner as a duo where we play standards. Please go to Blow the Fuse if you’d like to look at other bands and musicians I play with.
notes – brief
Deirdre Cartwright embarks on a series of live dates to support the release of her latest album ?Tune Up Turn On Stretch Out? released to a sell out crowd at the Pizza Express Soho in February earlier this year.
‘If there is a more complete guitarist in contemporary music than Deirdre Cartwright- I’d like to know who it is.’
Dave Gelly, Observer April 2008
?Cartwright?s coolly undulating Grant Green shuffle groove is one of the understated pleasure of UK?s contemporary fusion?
John Fordham May 2008
?Her sinewy guitar fronts a sparse trio – with beatnik spoken-word injections from Sarah P who stretch out like a psychedelic 1960s blues band, but take the blind leaps of faith of improvisers. Highlights are the Nirvana grunge-fusion Smells Like Jazz and a sublime exploration of Kate Bush?s Wuthering Heights.?
Stewart Lee The Sunday Times May 2008
Imaginative guitarist and composer, who became well known by presenting BBC TV?s ground breaking series ‘Rockschool’
Described by The Observer as a ?a most remarkable musician, having an apparently effortless command of the instrument? and by The Guardian as ?a melodic, funky and hard swinging guitarist?, Cartwright’s live set includes 70?s fusion and funk, pop covers as well as straight ahead jazz with spoken word and vocals.
deirdre cartwright group
- Deirdre Cartwright – guitars
- Alison Rayner – electric & double bass
- Buster Birch – drums
- Sarah P – vocals and spoken word
notes – fuller
Always regarded as an imaginative guitarist and composer, Deirdre Cartwright has spent years honing her skills as a consummate guitar player.
She became well known in the 1980?s as a result of presenting the BBC?s ground breaking series Rockschool, which attracted audiences of 2 million viewers every week in the UK and was subsequently shown worldwide. She then went on to compose and perform with the Guest Stars with whom she recorded three albums and toured the world.
Since forming her own group in has toured extensively in the UK and abroad including representing Great Britain at the European Jazz Festival in Mexico City and her trio featuring in a concert and live radio broadcast at the Warsaw International Guitar Festival.
Her live set includes 70?s fusion and funk, original takes on pop covers as well as straight ahead jazz with spoken word and vocals.
?She?s a terrific player?. her strength lies in her ability to absorb the huge variety of modern approaches to the instrument, without copying any of them?.
The Observer?Intensely hip, groovy, accessible and atmospheric. Get out and see them?
Musician magazine
Chris Parker, reviewing for the Vortex, London 2007
? Cartwright is as adept at the funky shuffle somewhat reminiscent of Grant Green as harder-edged, multi-textured playing, and her compositions draw on everything from 1970s fusion to grunge music and the straightahead jazz of the likes of George Benson and Wes Montgomery, but it is the unpretentious zestfulness of her approach, her clear enjoyment of the sheer variety of sounds her guitar can be made to produce, that is so infectious and which makes her playing so listenable.?