The "Undivided" project has been 25 years in the making… 

 

In 1988, years before he became a worldwide star of the Irish flute, Michael McGoldrick asked a young British jazz trumpeter, Neil Yates, to put together a brass section for his band Toss the Feathers. He had no idea Yates was already a devotee of Irish tradition, listening to and copying Matt Molloy and Seamus Ennis with the same curiosity that most trumpeters have for Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie. When he heard Neil playing traditional tunes on trumpet while warming up he saw the potential for something very new. The seed was sown for the music you're about to hear.

 

Over the next two decades Michael cemented his place as the worlds most exciting traditional flute player and a primary innovator in Irish traditional music. His seminal cross-over albums Fused, Wired and Aurora, for which Neil again provided exciting brass arrangements, inspired a generation and changed the direction of Irish traditional music forever. Meanwhile, Neil flitted between the jazz and folk worlds, playing with Johnny Dankworth one night, Kate Rusby the next. He released two internationally acclaimed crossover albums of his own, New Origins and Five Countries, both running the boundaries of the two genres, both paving the way for a new genuinely sound and influencing young jazzers everywhere. The two joined forces many times over the next 25 years, cementing a deep musical understanding across the generic divide.

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In December 2016 Prof. Jeff Kunkel of Montclaire State University in New Jersey USA invited Neil to America to rehearse and perform the suite with the students Jazz Ensemble, along with the cream of New York's Irish Musicians. The venture was a great success, with all participants and audience citing a "culturally unique experience".