Sarah Ellen Hughes
Sarah was a professional singer for 12 years, during which time she sang principal vocals for The National Youth Jazz Orchestra, amongst other bands.She also won the international jazz singing competition ‘Jazz Voices‘ in 2011. She has released 3 albums and sung for various people including Cleo Laine and Quincy jones.
Andre ‘Saxman’ Brown 
Jon Herring
Phil Wain 
J Fashole-Luke
Jonathan Fashole-Luke is a multi instrumentalist who is in high demand particularly for live piano performances. He has performed all over Europe (including Montreaux, North Sea and Vienna Jazz Festivals and in across the UK at Glastonbury, Bestival, 
Boomtown and The Isle Of Wight Festival),. During this time Jonathan has accompanied members of Bassment Jaxx, Jurassic 5, Sugar Hill Gang, Tomorrow’s Warriors and All Saints. In 2010 he was invited to perform for Royalty at the 2010 International Jewellery Exhibition in Bahrain. Jonathan Has also appeared at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and performed live on BBC2s Later With Jools Holland. Most recently he has been working with Chart topping UK vocalist Alexandra Burke.
Melvin Reeves
Some very sad news. Our dear friend and band member Melvin Reeves passed away in Nov 2020. We will greatly miss him. He was such a character and we all consider it a privilege to have known him and performed with him on this project! We have many fond memories of him and we look forward to when we can jam with him again in the new creation!
Melvin Reeves, Actor/Musician played the Trumpet from the age of nine, studying with Hardy Matthews of Kansas, USA. He performed with or shared the stage with an array of international artists including “The Dells” of Chicago, Roy Ayers, Diana Ross and Ray Gaskins (on whose Shady Lane award-winning 
album he played trumpet and trombone). Performing with numerous bands and at Jazz venues in Washington DC, USA, including “One Step Down”, “Takoma Station”and “Twins”, Melvin has also performed extensively with Hugh Masekela and at Jazz venues in London including Ronnie Scott’s, Pizza Express, Toulouse Le Trec and Oliver’s Jazz Bar. He continued to study Jazz improvisation with New York’s Barry Harris and credits his trumpet style also to the geniuses of trumpeters Clifford Brown, Booker Little, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie. An Actor also, Melvin performed for 12 consecutive years in the hit West End show, “Buddy”. A band leader in his own right, Melvin led the Jazz Knights Quintet. In addition to performing with Roots of Jazz, Melvin performed regularly with Celebrate the UK band specialising in the music of Kool and the Gang, which performed regularly around the UK.
Ray Butcher
trumpet solo with US Christian artist Chris Tomlin and Martin Smith on the Billboard 200 number one album ‘Burning Lights’, for their joint song ‘Gods Great Dance Floor‘. His TV performances include performing in a jazz ensemble on ‘Landgirls‘.
Samuel Eagles
Having performed with the Junior Jazz Group at the Royal Academy of Music every Saturday he gained a wealth of knowledge and experience under Nick Smart. With this group he played at venues including Pizza Express Jazz club (Dean Street) and Ronnie Scott’s. He then became lead alto in ‘The Jazz Funk Collective’, touring with them for three years around London and Ireland performing at venues such as The Blue Note, The Boom Boom Room and Galway Jazz club. Soon after he was accepted onto the Jazz course at Trinity Laban, one of Europe’s top music college’s. For four years he studied under renowned musicians including: Russell Van Den Berg, Jason Yard, Mark Lockhart and Jean Toussaint. He currently leads his own group ‘The Samuel Eagles Quartet’ which performs regularly around London and the UK. His critically acclaimed debut album ‘Next Beginning’ has been released on the renowned F-IRE Label, launched at Pizza Express Jazz Club (Soho) in The EFG London Jazz Festival.
The Roots of Jazz 
Fantastic combination of gospel and jazz at Basingstoke last night. Wonderful atmosphere of joy and freedom
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My hands hurt from clapping 👏
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