TBC introduces… Misha Mullov-Abbado

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? You come from a very famously musical background.

(Misha’s mother, Viktoria Mullova, is an accomplished violinist who grew up in and defected from the Soviet Union, and his father, Claudio Abbado, grew up in Nazi-occupied Italy and was one of the finest conductors of his generation). 

That’s right, I’ve been surrounded by music since before I was born, for which I’m extremely grateful. I spent my first few years travelling the world with my mum before settling down in London, where I’ve lived my whole life.

What was it like growing up in that environment - were you always surrounded by classical music, and how did you first get into jazz? Does your background in classical inform or influence the way you play and write jazz?

It has mostly been awesome and very inspiring to have been around so much top-quality music-making all my life. I started out listening to some of the finest violin repertoire on a daily basis, and later on, some more contemporary and genre-mixing music from having a stepfather cellist, who has always been testing the boundaries of classical music. He showed me much to do with how music can be arranged and recorded, and I feel like I began learning about other ways to make music besides classically from him. 

I started the piano aged five and the French horn aged seven, and always enjoyed playing orchestral music on the latter, but then I got into jazz much later, as I had a go at a bass guitar one day, and it straight away felt natural for me to play an instrument at the bottom of things harmonically.

This led me to join jazz bands at school, and I started to realise how much I enjoyed improvising. I had already been writing a lot of music in a classical sense for classical musicians, and so once I started to focus on jazz, I enjoyed being influenced by many different types of music in all the pieces I wrote for jazz groups.

Was it always the double bass for you, and what sort of stuff did you grow up listening to?

Settling on the double bass as a main instrument was the final piece of the puzzle of figuring out what type of musician I wanted to be. Despite always knowing I wanted to be one, it took until I was twenty and already playing jazz (and the electric bass) to start the double bass properly, and I had to work very hard during my first years in London on the jazz scene to get my technique up to scratch.

As for what I grew up listening to, just about anything, really. Mainly classical symphonic music, swing, Motown, that kinda thing.

You must be thrilled by the reception for your latest album, Effra. Has it been fun taking it out on the road this year?

I’m super happy with how much positive reception the album has had, both in writing and on mainstream radio. The gigs so far this year have been brilliant. The band lineup, particularly in the horn section, has been constantly changing, so it’s never the same lineup each time, but we’ve done so many gigs by now that pretty much everyone knows the music well enough that it’s getting super easy, and the gigs are getting more creative.

We also have four albums' worth of music in the pads now, so we easily have way more than enough music that we vary the set list from gig to gig hugely. It has also been fun on a personal note - whether doing the band for the first time this year or regularly for the last decade, these are some of my closest friends that I’m lucky enough to get to share the stage with.

The music feels fresh and contemporary, and is also a homage to the golden age of bebop (even reaching further back to New Orleans on some tracks). We’ve also read that it is, in parts, a celebration of the diversity of Brixton - hence the name Effra, which is the name of both a road and an ancient river that flows through South London. Can you tell us a bit about the album?

As is often the case when I release an album, the music comes first, and then I put it all together to make a record of all the music I’ve written for the band in the last five years or so. So while it wasn’t planned to be an album about Brixton, it ended up being that way mainly because I decided to name it Effra after one of the pieces, 'The Effra Parade'.

That, combined with some other pieces that are named after things to do with home (e.g. 'Nanban' is a restaurant that has closed down now, 'Traintracker' is about an LED circuit board I have of the London Underground, 'Cançao de Sobriedade' is about drinking too much during lockdown) resulted in it being fitting to make the collection of music about where I consider home, which is here in London.

Two of the pieces are dedicated to my wife Bridget (whose middle name is Rosemary) as all the music on the album was written in the time we have been together, and so it is also fitting to make the album a celebration of my family too, since we have a daughter now (who was born a month before the album came out).

Who are your main influences now, and can you give us your top three players?

Just limited to bass players, I straight away think of Ray Brown, Charlie Mingus, Christian McBride, Scott LaFaro, Avishai Cohen, and Paul Chambers.

I can’t really say I have any specific influences right now, just generally that I am listening to and playing different music every day (sometimes by peers of mine) and find that to be the best influence and inspiration of all.

Can you give us a heads up on an album or an artist you like that you think we might not have come across and should check out?

The first thing that comes to mind is Nils Frahm’s All Melody. It’s a mostly electronic album, but the sophistication combined with the pacing of some of the tracks has been a huge influence on me, particularly for some of my more minimal and slow-burner tunes.

You’ve played and produced music with some great people in lots of different formats. Who’s in your sextet, and what is it about this music that lends itself to this format?

I have had a regular touring band for the last twelve years that has been performing the music of my four albums. For the last decade, it has been this exact lineup of trumpet, alto sax, tenor sax, piano, bass, and drums. I love having a horn section of three, as it is enough to be able to write and arrange for very creatively, but not too many that when they all improvise together, it gets too crowded. 

Tom Smith and George Crowley are the current regular sax players in the band, who have become so just this year, and Miguel Gorodi is playing with the band on trumpet for the first time ever. 

The rhythm section, on the other hand, has been the same for a decade now - Liam Dunachie on piano and Scott Chapman on drums, who I trust with my music more than anyone else.

Misha joins us with his sextet on Saturday 8 November 2025