I spent last week in Helsinki on an Efpi Records ‘business trip’, visiting Sam and doing a gig with ‘Beats & Pieces Finland’ – a big band made up of some of the cream of Helsinki’s young jazz talent. There’s a tour diary with pictures of our fun in the snow over at the Efpi site, and I’ve uploaded some photos from the Cafe Mascot (with Sagolik) gig below and to the Gallery.
Thanks to everyone who came to the gig and especially to those who gave up their time and effort to play in the band – it was great to meet and play with you all! Hopefully it won’t be the last gig for the ensemble…
Posted by on 23/12/2009 at 21:01 in beats & pieces, gigs and tagged beatsandpieces, beatsnpieces, cafe mascot, efpi, finland, gallery, gig, helsinki, photos, sagolik. Leave comments here.
The new EP received 4/5 stars in a review by Mike Butler in yesterday’s (11th December) Manchester Evening News – great news, cheers Mike! Full review is posted below…
Posted by on 12/12/2009 at 14:29 in beats & pieces, news and tagged beats, beats & pieces, beatsandpieces, beatsnpieces, efpi, ep, haq, manchestereveningnews, mikebutler, review. Leave comments here.
Take a look at this article from today’s Guardian – basically some guy in the audience at a jazz festival in Spain called the police to complain that a gig by a saxophone player called Larry Ochs wasn’t jazzy enough… And the police agreed! Check out the band’s music below.
This got me thinking about how difficult it is to classify contemporary music nowadays, as musicians bring together influences that are so wide ranging – from classical to rock to world and everything in between. I remember reading articles about the Portico Quartet recently, for example, where the authors and even the quartet themselves were bemoaning the fact that their records were classified as either ‘jazz’ or ‘world’ whereas in reality its somewhere in between.
When I’ve been promoting the Beats & Pieces Big Band, I sometimes find it difficult to describe exactly what the music is – I’d say its definitely jazz (but even then, what is jazz?! A whole other can of worms…) but in places its also rock, electronica, minimalist classical etc etc… And I also play many free improv gigs, at the Noise Upstairs or with Token Otter for instance; how would that music be classified?
To be honest I’m not really sure what the point I’m trying to make is, so I’m not too sure what I’m trying to say – just thought it was an amusing article that also raises lots of questions. So go on, discuss!
(Also for the record, I’d disagree with the Spanish Police and say Larry Ochs’ music was close enough to jazz. Kinda reminds me of Tom Arthurs’ Centripede group, based on this clip at least…)
UPDATE: I read this post by Kit Downes where he talks about the word ‘jazz’ as being a creative process rather than an end product… Kinda answers some of the questions I was posing above, and its a great read in itself.
Posted by on 10/12/2009 at 20:22 in misc and tagged centripede, crimes, guardian, jazz, larryochs, noiseupstairs, police, tokenotter, tomarthurs. Leave comments here.
Anton and I are excited to be off on an Efpi Records ‘business trip’ to Finland on Sunday to visit Sam an do a few gigs, including an Efpi Showcase on Thursday 17th featuring the Hunter/Andreae Quartet and Beats & Pieces Finland – an ensemble featuring some of Helsinki’s finest jazz musicians performing the Beats & Pieces repertoire, including all tracks from the recent EP…
Just checked the weather though, here’s the BBC forecast for next Monday…
Good job I’ve been shopping today!
Posted by on 09/12/2009 at 23:32 in beats & pieces, gigs, news and tagged beats, beats & pieces, beatsandpieces, beatsnpieces, efpi, finland, gig, helsinki. Leave comments here.
I’m delighted to announce that the debut EP from the Beats & Pieces Big Band is now available to purchase and/or download via the Efpi Records website! You can buy a physical CD as one of a limited edition run of 100 unique handmade packages, or download the EP as high quality MP3s under the ‘honesty box’ model where you choose how much to pay (free if you feel like…). It contains 5 tracks weighing in at just over half an hour’s worth of music, and we’re really proud of it. Tracklisting is as follows:
1. bake
2. yafw (part iii)
3. toan
4. djimi
5. broken
The band features the cream of Manchester’s young improvising talent, many of whom have now moved away to pastures new and are making a mark on jazz scenes in major cities across the continent. The band is as follows:
Ben Cottrell : musical director
Sam Andreae, Kenji Fenton, Sam Healey, Jo McCallum : reeds
Tim Cox, Simon Lodge, Owain Roberts, Paul Strachan : trombones
Owen Bryce, Chris Snead, Graham South, Nick Walters : trumpets
Anton Hunter : guitar
Patrick Hurley : piano, Rhodes
Nick Blacka : bass
Finlay Panter : drums
Hope you enjoy listening to the EP as much as we enjoyed making it!
Posted by on 04/12/2009 at 12:55 in beats & pieces, news and tagged beats, beats & pieces, beatsandpieces, beatsnpieces, efpi, ep, pieces. Leave comments here.
Thanks a lot to everybody who managed to make it down to our EP launch held at Odder last night, we really enjoyed the gig and it was great to see so many friendly faces! It was also good to speak to lots of people about the band, some of whom had just stumbled across the gig and really enjoyed the music which was brilliant to hear. If you bought an EP then do get in touch and let me know what you think of it!
Photos from the night will be uploaded to the gallery soon…
Posted by on 03/12/2009 at 19:31 in beats & pieces, gigs and tagged beats, beats & pieces, beatsandpieces, beatsnpieces, ep, ep launch, odder, party, pieces. Leave comments here.
Beats & Pieces EP
Available now from Efpi Records
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