Tenor Madness is a piano trio project that takes Renaissance and Baroque themes and improvises on them in the modern idiom, much as all musicians of previous centuries would have done. Two musicians equally steeped in Renaissance, Baroque and jazz music - leading pianist, harpsichordist and composer David Gordon and bassist and broadcaster Sandy Burnett – join forces with multi-disciplinary drummer Tom Hooper to make up the trio. Committed to bringing the music of the past face to face with contemporary improvisation, their collaborative projects with choirs and other instrumentalists have brought fresh light to works by a wide range of composers including Carlo Gesualdo, Salamone Rossi, Henry Purcell, William Byrd, Johann Christoph Bach and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Tenor Madness have broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, the EFG London Jazz Festival, the Cambridge Jazz Festival and the Valletta Baroque Festival, Malta.

Their current project is entitled Preludes and Grooves: Bach Reimagined. After successful outings at the Cambridge Jazz Festival, Thwaites Commuter Jazz in Watford and the Valletta Baroque Festival in Malta, the project comes to Jazz Cafe Posk, London on Friday 7th February at 8pm - booking details are here. Enjoy this sample from Thwaites below:

At the EFG London Jazz Festival in November 2023 Tenor Madness were joined by improvising baroque violinist and gamba player Jenny Bliss Bennett for The Other Bird, an inventive reworking of the music of William Byrd in his 400th anniversary year. Watch the full concert below.