Stride to Modernism: A Personal Journey Through Jazz Piano - Joe Webb

Joe Webb is coming to the Taliesin Arts Centre on Tuesday 10 November, for a lecture he's calling Stride to Modernism: A Personal Journey Through Jazz Piano. It runs from 18:00 to 19:30, so ninety minutes of him talking through his approach to the piano. The whole thing is part of the Richard Burton Annual Lecture series, run by the Richard Burton Centre for the Study of Wales in collaboration with the Cultural Institute at Swansea University, and it falls on the anniversary of Richard Burton's 101st birthday.

Webb is a Neath-born pianist signed to Edition Records, and he's built a name as one of the most formidable jazz pianists to emerge in Britain in recent years. His debut album, Hamstrings & Hurricanes, was shortlisted for the 2025 Mercury Prize, and he's played with the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, toured with Jamie Cullum, and appeared on Later... with Jools Holland, where Jools called him "the greatest new piano player in the world today."

His playing draws on the virtuosity of stride and the early jazz masters, but he filters that through a modern British sensibility, with a melodic instinct he says is shaped by his Welsh roots. The lecture title gives you a good sense of where he's coming from: stride is that old-school, left-hand-heavy style from the early days of jazz, and modernism is where he takes it from there. It's a look at how he connects those two worlds, and the personal journey he's taken to get there.

It's free to attend, so you don't need to worry about tickets. The lecture is at the Taliesin Arts Centre on Swansea University's Singleton Campus, SA2 8PZ, on Tuesday 10 November from 18:00 to 19:30.