The prodigiously gifted Andy Sheppard famously took up the saxophone at 19, inspired by Coltrane, and played his first gig with it three weeks later and was soon touring and recording with Bristol-based band Sphere. After a period in Paris where he worked with groups including performance art band Urban Sax, he returned to the UK in the mid-80s, recording the album "Andy Sheppard" for Antilles/Island, with Steve Swallow as producer, the beginning of a long musical association. Since then Sheppard has recorded for labels including Blue Note, Verve, Label Bleu and Provocateur and played and written trans-idiomatic music for ensembles of every size (his Saxophone Massive project has included 200 sax players) as well as for theatre, film, dance and mixed media. Collaborators over the years have ranged from Nana Vasconcelos to Han Bennink, from Joanna MacGregor to Keith Tippett, from L. Shankar to Kathryn Tickell. He has played with numerous key jazz artists, including the exceptional composers George Russell, Gil Evans and Carla Bley. Sheppard has recorded extensively with Carla Bley for the ECM-distributed WATT label and can be heard on her albums "Fleur Carnivore", "The Very Big Carla Bley Band", "Big Band Theory", "Songs with Legs", "The Carla Bley Big Band Goes to Church", "‎4 x 4", "Looking for America"‎, "The Lost Chords‎" ,"Appearing Nightly", and ‎"The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu".Sheppard recorded his first ECM leader date in 2008. "Movements In Colour", featuring an international line-up with John Parricelli and Eivind Aarset on guitars, Arild Andersen on bass, and Kuljit Bhamra on tabla, was warmly received by the press: "A subtle and well-balanced showcase ... featuring music which is elegantly performed and sonically mellifluous. ... Sheppard's natural melodic sense and textural skills are in their element in a sequence of pieces which range from gentle folkiness and Latin lilt to a yearning, quasi-symphonic approach" (BBC Music Magazine).