“A legend from the London scene” Gilles Peterson on Sam Beste aka The Vernon Spring
Marking the passing of the seasons and celebrating the particular delights of each, Sam Beste, aka @thevernonspring hosts the Spring Edition of his quarterly event series titled “The Seasonal Spring”.
Each seasonal event brings together a selection of artists from the Lima Limo Records family. This one is a BIGGIE – performing on the night of the Spring Edition alongside The Vernon Spring will be the Mercury Prize winner and acclaimed musician and producer Dave Okumu and poet and piano connoisseur Rolf Dragstra. Amazing!!
Expect a generous, warming evening of renewal with ethereal piano solos, deeply soulful and emotive vocals, poetry and subtle electronics and improvisation.
The Vernon Spring
The Vernon Spring is the recording project of North London-born musician Sam Beste, whose journey traces various arcs across jazz, soul, ambient, and songwriting modes. At age eleven, a chance piano lesson set Beste in a pivotal direction, prompting an ongoing passion for improvisation that shaped his life’s trajectory.
Beste’s dedication and talent placed him in Amy Winehouse‘s orbit, whom he accompanied as her live pianist for the majority of her ascendent career. Their pairing paved the way for other significant and diverse collaborations, including work with Gabriels, Kendrick Lamar producer Sounwave, Beth Orton, Kano, Joy Crookes, Matthew Herbert, and MF DOOM.
After years of writing and releasing music with the alt-soul outfit Hejira during his mid-twenties, Beste helped form the Lima Limo collective and label, which offered a supportive community and inspiring creative foundation. By 2019, he began releasing solo music as The Vernon Spring, developing a voice that merged his jazz background with contemporary electronic production.
Dave Okumu
His work with Jessie Ware began in 2010 when he co-wrote and produced her Mercury Prize-nominated debut album Devotion (2012). Okumu was also among the Mercury Prize winners in 2009, when his band The Invisible were nominated for their debut album The Invisible. Other artists with whom Okumu has worked with include Adele, Amy Winehouse, Arlo Parks, Beck, Bilal, Connie Constance, Grace Jones, Ghost Poet, Jordan Rakei, King Sunny Ade, Lianne La Havas, Nilufer Yanya, Paloma Faith, Rosie Lowe, St Vincent, Theo Parrish, Tony Allen and Yoko Ono (!!!).
In 2018, the University of London awarded Okumu with an Honorary Fellowship of the College, in recognition of his significant achievements and contributions to music. Today, Okumu remains unrivalled in his ability to effortlessly span musical communities, genres, cultures and scenes.
Rolf Dragstra
Rolf Dragstra, born 1952 on the German side of the Dutch border, has been living in North London for the last 35 years, married with two sons. He’s had two parallel educations: both as an academic (science, philosophy, languages, cultural history) and a craftsman, in his father’s trade: tuning and repairing pianos, first in Berlin (15 years), then here – always trying to keep a balance between mental and practical work, and to keep his heart in the right place. He’s always enjoyed reading poetry, in different languages, always enjoyed the challenges of translation. A good twenty years ago, he started writing poems – in English.The Common Sense Poems are the first coherent result of his efforts.