New Jam with Joe and the Jazzaholics

Tonight is the first night of a new jazz jam session taking place at Shaftesbury Tavern, 534 Hornsey Road, N19 3QN. The house band is Joe Bickerstaff and the other Jazzaholics, so it's sure to sound great as well as being very welcoming!

(Oh dear I let my blog slide into disuse again. Will try to keep it going in future...!)

Happy Everyday!

I recently scored some music for Happy Everyday!, which is running at The Lion and Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town until Saturday 12th June. It's a comedy by acclaimed Estonian playwright, Jaan Tätte. Come along! Tickets..

Here's a short sample of my music..



(Player doesn't appear above? Click here instead.)

more gigs

Tomorrow, 31st May, I'll be MDing the John Ongom Big Band, playing at the White Hart, 1 Mile End Road. Featuring singers Gabrielle Ghray and Barry Vegas. Starts about 7:45pm, free entry!

Thursday, 4th June, I'll be sitting in with Eileen Hunter at the 606 Club.

Forthcoming gigs and things

Sunday 29th March, John Ongom Big Band at the White Hart (isn't Google Street View marvellous?), 1 Mile End Road. Featuring singers Gabrielle Ghray and Barry Vegas. Starts 7:30pm, entrance free!

Monday 30th March, Dan Spanner's Big Band at the Cross Kings - starts 8:30pm. (Don't know much more about this one.)

Wednesday 1st April, Dance with The London Swingfonia at Jitterbugs - click for more details. Featuring singer Harry Martin.

Saturday 4th April, John Ongom Big Band at the Heathcote Arms, 344 Grove Green Road, Leytonstone. Featuring Mark Jennet on vocals, starts 8pm, free entrance!

Also, the new series of Primeval starts this Saturday on ITV - though the first episode which I contributed music to is the second one, to be shown (presumably) 4th April. Oh crap that means I won't be able to watch it cos of the JOBB gig (above) :(

trombone fun

Went to the Chicken Shed last night to hear the inaugural gig The Bone Supremacy (what a great name!) It's a group made up of five trombones plus rhythm section. Great sound they had, like being wrapped in a warm blanket, but with a punch when required. Great improvising too - I particularly enjoyed Ian Bateman's solos.

So all this was very inspirational for my own efforts on trombone. Had my first practice this morning - actually feels pretty promising, embouchure-wise and sound-wise. Played my way through a few pages of Tune a Day - but without any great style! Just need to do it a lot to get used to the feel of the different notes. Funny how quickly you get used to a big mouthpiece so that when I went back to trumpet - the instrument I've been playing for decades - it feels strange!

yes i'm still alive

Sorry for lack of posting (as if anyone cares). Been a bit busy for months and months on a big TV project. I understand that I will get an 'Additional Music' credit on this one which is very exciting for me! Though it will probably be on screen for about 0.2 of a second. Don't want to jump the gun in talking about the show so I'll remain enigmatic for now.

At the moment I'm keeping fairly busy (but not too much to be honest!) MDing the big band, teaching a bit, and just practicing quite a lot.

Also, my big plan is to learn trombone! Our big band is always short of bones, so often I play 1st or 2nd on trumpet - then it occurred to me that if I could sort out the embouchure (perhaps no small task) then I could play valve trombone! Only problem is that there's virtually no second hand market for valve trombones, and I'm reluctant to fork out lots of money on a new one and then perhaps find that I can't get to grips with it. So the current plan is to borrow a slide trombone from my lovely, talented and beautiful friend, hopefully develop a reasonable sound on it, then get a valve bone. Having said that, I'm told by another lovely, talented and beautiful friend that slides are much sexier, so perhaps I'll stick with that. Anyway I've gone out and bought Tune A Day for trombone and hopefully will have the instrument in my hands tomorrow! Oh my poor neighbours.

Today I'm off to First Class Brass in Luton to retrieve my lovely Eclipse trumpet which I asked Leigh to do a couple tweaks to. Also he's been sorting out my Yamaha flugel which had seized up due to lack of use - oops. Must play more in future!!

Wine, Women and Westminster

Obviously I'm completely failing to update this regularly.. seems I'm either not at all busy and there's nothing much to write about, or I'm horribly horribly busy and I've got no time at all to write anything.

I'm glad to say that it's been a case of the latter recently, as I've been working hard on the next series of ITV's Primeval. I've got more of that work coming up soon, but right now I'm doing the music copying for a new Marple film. Add to that gigs here and there and it's a pretty busy time at the moment.

Anyway, just wanted to give a quick plug for my Dad's new book, Wine, Women and Westminster. It's a collection of funny stories from my Dad's 40 year career as a political journalist in Westminster, and travelling the globe with Thatcher and Major. He's going to be on Loose Ends with Clive Anderson on Radio 4 tomorrow evening at 6:15 talking about it.

MaxMSP Course

Had a bit of a gloomy time recently as I cracked an arm and a rib playing footie and had to lay off playing for a while :( - however, I'm pretty much back to normal again now.

Last week I went on the Introduction to MaxMSP course at Goldsmiths College. Max is a graphical programming environment for music, audio and other media. I actually bought this software ages ago, worked through a few of the tutorials, but never really got any further than that.

The course was taught by Tim Ward. We spent two days looking at some of the real basics of Max: cabling objects together, getting audio in and out, getting midi in and out, etc. Then the following two days were spent looking at some more advanced ready-made patches and trying to figure out how they worked. There was also plenty of time for exploring and messing around with Max and building whatever we liked.

Tim also talked about ways to send/recieve audio and midi to and from other applications, such as Logic, Live etc, and quite a lot about creative ways that people have interfaced Max with the outside world. I particularly liked this scary piano soundboard thing.

Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this knowledge... There are some really good free patches available online (e.g. www.maxobjects.com) so perhaps one or two of those will be useful to me. Hopefully I'll also find time to get better at programming Max myself and be able to create my own stuff..

Thing's Ain't What They Used to Be

Ahhh... Clark Terry, one of my absolute favourite trumpet players! I love this clip - absolutely fantastic plunger technique, and so much joy in his playing and his singing.

Forthcoming gigs, E17 Jazz etc.

A couple of interesting E17 Jazz events coming up: tomorrow evening Adam Bishop is playing with his quartet at the Rose and Crown, 55 Hoe Street, starts 8pm.

Then on Saturday evening, there's a Silent Film Night at the Victoria (186 Hoe Street, E17), where there will be live improvised music to a couple of films from the 1920s. Starts 8:30pm and is free entry.

Finally, on Sunday - though not under the E17 Jazz banner - I'll be MDing the John Ongom Big Band at the White Hart, 1 Mile End Road. Featuring Gabrielle Ghray and Barry Vegas on vocals. Free entry, starts 7:45.

Hello Dolly!

I'll be playing in the pit for Hello Dolly! this week, put on by Geoids.

Performances at 7:30 from Wednesday to Saturday, plus 2:30 matinee on Sat, at the London Oratory Theatre, Seagrave Road, SW6 1RX. £13/£10 concs/£6 children.

New sampler

At long last I've got some new music up on my website: a sampler of some of the music I've done in the last.. well, since the previous sampler, really. It includes some stuff I wrote for various film trailers, plus from some short films I scored. Anyway, here it is:



[edit: Player doesn't appear above? Click here instead.]

E17 Jazz - Rachel Musson

This Thursday's E17 Jazz gig is Rachel Musson with her new band - a quintet with a two tenor front line, and features all original material. It's at the Rose and Crown pub on Hoe Street, starts 8:30, £4.

Unfortunately, I'm working that night so probably won't make it :( Sorry, Rachey.

big band gigs

I'll be directing the John Ongom Big Band tomorrow night (Sunday March 23rd) at The White Hart, 1 Mile End Road. Featuring Gabrielle Ghray and vocal trio Toot Sweet. Starts about 7:45pm, entry free!

Then on Wednesday April 9th, I'll be directing the London Swingfonia at The Arts Depot, Finchley. Featuring Harry Martin on vocals. 7:30pm, £16/£14.

E17 Jazz

E17 Jazz is a fairly recent initiative to get some more live jazz happening around Walthamstow. Unfortunately, Thursday nights are a bit busy for me, but I did manage to make it to The Plough the other week to see the Brigitte Beraha Trio, which was really nice - the same line up (vocal, piano, trumpet) as Azimuth, and often a similar mood.

Next gig is (according to the myspace site) Third I, at The Rose and Crown on the 20th (which is different from what it says on the flier), then there's Carlos Lopez-Real at The Plough on the 27th.

Equally important, there's now a jazz football game on Sunday mornings at 11am at Aveling Park, adjacent to Lloyd Park. All abilities welcome!

OMG it's a new post!

Oh dear... there's been precious little blogging going on around here recently. Still, it's not like I have a regular readership (just about six random people every day looking for videos about making trumpets) so I don't suppose anyone gives a hoot.

But there has been quite a lot of blog-worthy material in the past couple of months - including buying trumpets, Primeval stuff, workflow things and so on - but it seems a bit crap to try to catch up with it now.

At the moment I'm busy writing a big band arrangement of Sunny Side of the Street, based on Dizzy's version on Sonny Side Up, and am also helping my Dad a little bit with a book he's written. It's full of funny stories from his decades as a political reporter. Maybe I'll post one or two here (but I'll have to ask first...)

I've also recently discovered StumbleUpon, which is definitely a bad thing if you want to do anything useful with your time. Here's today's find, and my other favourites.

How to Make a Trumpet - 3

Hooray! Yet another trumpet making video! This one is a bit more detailed about the making of the bell in particular. I believe it's the Getzen factory.

Primeval starting tonight!

The second series of Primeval starts tonight, at 7pm on ITV. As with the first series, I've worked with composer Dominik Scherrer on the score, orchestrating and programming for several episodes (although not tonight's one), and playing trumpet (on all episodes I think).

I must say, I'm a bit of a fan of Primeval, so have really enjoyed working on it!

Oh Come All Ye Tasteless

To put you in the festive mood, here's a beautiful Christmas carol brutally murdered by an unidentified gang of trumpeters. Enjoy.

(Another clip purloined from here.)

Forthcoming Big Band gigs

Tomorrow night, I'll be conducting the John Ongom Big Band at the Heathcote Arms pub, 344 Grove Green Road, E11 4EA. Featuring vocalists Gabrielle Ghray, Barry Vegas and the Toot Sweet trio. Starts 8pm, admission free.

Then on Sunday night, I'll be playing with the London Swingfonia at the Marie Lloyd bar of the Hackney Empire. 8:30pm start I think, also free!