BASS player and composer Alison Rayner has been playing jazz and other styles of music since the mid-70s.

In the 80s she spent five years with the critically acclaimed jazz/Latin group the Guest Stars touring all the major international jazz venues and festivals, also recording three albums with them.

She currently leads ARQ, her contemporary jazz quintet, who have built a substantial and wide ranging audience over the past two years for their ‘deliciously upbeat, groovy and thoughtful jazz’ (Jazz UK). They released their acclaimed debut album August in 2014, with extensive national touring following and a second album A Magic Life in Autumn 2016.

Alison also plays and records with, amongst others, acoustic world trio Koral Society, the Deirdre Cartwright Group, trumpeter Chris Hodgkins’ quartet and vocalist Carol Grimes.

She has co-run Blow the Fuse Records and Blow the Fuse Jazz Club in London since 1989, performing with artists such as American jazz guitar legend Tal Farlow, New York jazz poet Jayne Cortez, Denardo Coleman, Ian Shaw and John Etheridge.

She composes for and examines for Rockschool International Exam Board, teaches on the Original Jazz Summer School in Cardiff and is an endorsee for Picato Innovation double bass strings.

ARQ play at the Barnfield Theatre, Exeter on Friday, March 24.