Steve Parry

Steve Parry

Steve Parry is a Welsh jazz musician from Liverpool, working as a drummer and trumpet player. He turns professional at the age of 17 and takes part in a wide range of musical settings, both as a performer and as a writer and musical director.

Performance work

He spends much of his career in theatre and live performance. He joins David Pugh’s West End production The Official Tribute to the Blues Brothers in January 1997 as trumpet player, becomes musical director later that year, and continues to appear in the West End and on tours across the UK and Europe. In that show he plays trumpet and drums, and occasionally keyboards and bass.

Parry also performs with jazz, latin, pop and function bands, and appears at venues including the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and Ronnie Scott’s. He performs in a range of large-scale events, including the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, millennium celebrations at the Millennium Dome, and the cricket World Cup final at Lord’s.

Collaborations and notable appearances

He plays in the band of Corinne Bailey Rae, appearing at events including V Festival, Glastonbury and Live Earth 2007 at Wembley Stadium, alongside Corinne Bailey Rae and John Legend. He also appears on stage with artists including The Real Thing, The Drifters, Rod Stewart and Dionne Warwick, and works with John Hurt, Liam Neeson, Richard E. Grant, Richard Griffiths, Kenneth Branagh and Roger Moore. He also collaborates with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

In 2004 he travels to Namibia to headline the first Cheetah National Arts Festival in Otjiwarongo under his own name. At the end of 2009 he makes his screen debut playing the Mercury Orchestra’s trumpet player in Richard Linklater’s Me And Orson Welles.

Writing, arranging and musical direction

Parry is also active as a composer and arranger. He writes music for West End and Broadway award-winning shows, as well as for Trinity College Big Band, NYJO and his own project Steve Parry and the Big Band From Hell. He works as arranger, musical director, co-writer and co-director of Simply Big Band, a show featuring a 26-piece orchestra, three singers and six dancers. He is also musical director for the girl band Angels in White.

Recordings and radio work

His recording work includes session playing on numerous albums and television commercials. Under his own name he releases the single It All Starts Here and the album The Organ Quintet Recordings. He also has jingles used on British national radio, including the Beat The Busby theme heard on Chris Evans’ drivetime show on BBC Radio 2.

Other musical projects

Parry’s wider work includes playing keyboards, trumpet, horn, clarinet, saxophone, percussion and backing vocals in Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Show, which he joins in 2010.