London Jazz Award Nomination Beats and Pieces Big Band: ‘An explosive, 14-piece contemporary jazz band, led by the talented and energetic Ben Cottrell, spearheading the return of the big band into the 21st century hipster’s musical consciousness with swagger and style’.

Based in Manchester, the Beats and Pieces Big Band are the sound that we didn’t know we wanted but are now terribly greedy for, like pigs to truffles or the Kardashians’ to fame. An explosive, 14-piece contemporary jazz band, led by the talented and energetic Ben Cottrell, Beats and Pieces are spearheading the return of the big band into the 21^st century hipster’s musical consciousness with swagger and style. Eclectic, exciting and with a rapidly growing fan base, they deserve a place on your iPod in 2012. They’ve been anointed by jazz critics galore, praised by their contemporaries, and will be bursting into the new year with a tour and an album release. Excited, anyone?

The Guardian: ‘they...couple gale-force collective energy and confidence to startlingly original material...that acknowledges big-band traditions while radically modernising them.’