Billy Marrows is a London-based award-winning guitarist and composer/arranger. He leads the Billy Marrows Band, the Billy Marrows Big Band and a new chamber jazz ensemble Grande Família. Billy is a member of projects across a broad spectrum of the London jazz scene such as Huw V Williams’ Di-Cysgodion, OK Aurora and the Tom Ridout Quintet. He has toured in the UK and Europe with Chelsea Carmichael, the Tom Barford Group, Patchwork Jazz Orchestra and Tom Ridout and has appeared on a number of albums, including Amsterdam-based Sam Newbould’s Bogus Notus and Tom Barford's Bloomer, released on Edition records.

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With all proceeds going to World Child Cancer and so far raising over £5,600, Billy's debut album Penelope was recorded as a surprise for his mother during her struggle with pancreatic cancer in summer 2023 and released in January 2024 in her memory. The album features Billy’s latest group, Grande Família, both as a 12-piece ensemble and in smaller combinations, interspersed with intimate solo guitar vignettes. It received critical acclaim, including 4 stars and Editor's Choice in the magazine, and the album launch at Pizza Express Jazz Club Soho sold out over two months in advance. This gig was released as a live album on Discus Music on 28th March 2025 with a sold-out two-night launch at Pizza Express Jazz Club Soho, part of a nine date UK tour with Grande Família. The album, entitled 'The Penelope Album Live' received 4 stars in both Jazzwise and All About Jazz, who noted that it "magnifies the invention, charm and compositional strength of the original while being different enough and strong enough to stand on its own". 

 

Billy also released an EP 'Mount Tibidabo' with a sextet version of Grande Família in November 2024, receiving 4 stars in Jazzwise and described by Ruth Fisher on Jazz FM as "a superb follow-up to his debut album Penelope, the EP features some of the UK’s finest up-and-coming talent”.

 

Billy won the 2019 Eddie Harvey Jazz Arranger of the Year Award as well as both the small ensemble and big band category of the Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition in 2016 and 2018 respectively. His composition Genmaicha was released by Patchwork Jazz Orchestra on their record The Light That Shines and he has been commissioned to write compositions/arrangements for singer-songwriter Hohnen-Ford and Berlin based Fabia Mantwill Orchestra. He wrote a suite for his octet inspired by gamelan for the 2016 Lancaster Youth Jazz Commission and his music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and JazzFM. In 2018, Billy studied with Vince Mendoza on the Metropole Orkest Arrangers Workshop in Holland; his arrangement of Man in the Mirror was performed at the Lantaren Venster Rotterdam by the Metropole Orkest and Becca Stevens.

An alumnus of the Royal Academy of Music in London, Billy graduated with a first-class degree in jazz guitar performance in 2017. During this time he studied improvisation and composition with many UK and international jazz luminaries including Mike Walker, Pete Churchill and Gareth Lockrane. Billy is also involved in a range of music education work including for Guildhall Young Artists, the National Youth Jazz Collective Summer School and lectures jazz guitar at Morley College.

Billy is grateful for the support of Help Musicians UK, the Sir John Barbirolli Memorial Foundation Grant and the Richard Turner Fund.