Randolph Matthews to celebrate the life of Walter Tull in Birmingham show
Acclaimed British vocal performer, composer and educator Randolph Matthews will bring his Walter Tull in B Major show to Birmingham next month.
The show will celebrate the life of iconic figure Walter Tull, with songs written and performed by Randolph.
Walter Tull was one of Britain’s first black footballers, and the first black army officer.
Born in 1888 in Folkestone, Kent, the son of an English mother and a Barbadian carpenter – himself the son of a slave - Tull was orphaned at the age of eight and raised in a children’s home in east London.
He went on to work at a printing yard and enjoy an amateur spell at a local club, Clapton F.C, before signing for Tottenham Hotspur in 1909, aged 21.
Snapped up by Northampton, Tull was about to sign for Rangers F.C when war broke out and he enlisted in the two Footballers Battalions, rising through the ranks and fighting at the Battle of Somme as a sergeant.
Cited for bravery under fire after leading his company of 26 men to safety in Italy, he never received the Military Cross recommended for him. Tull was killed in action in France in March 1918, aged 30. His body was never found.
“Walter was an extraordinary Edwardian figure whose legacy is slowly being acknowledged,” says Matthews.
“Jazz was originally political music. Our music. Music that expressed our truth and functioned as therapy, that took the revolution out into the audience and beyond.
"The jazz medium allows me to respond to the life of a person who rose above prejudice a century ago, and whose life has clear parallels with my own.”
Matthews has worked with the A-list likes of Herbie Hancock and Mulatu Astatke and won accolades including a Best Live Performance nomination at the 2018 Jazz FM Awards along the way.
Randolph Matthews comes to Birmingham's Pizza Express on November 9.
For more information and to buy tickets, click here.
