Beats & Pieces Big Band » gigs

mjf is coming…

Ben — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:51:05 +0000

Excited about the Manchester Jazz Festival next month! Check out the youtube video above for a preview of what the festival is about, and keep an eye on the website at manchesterjazz.com in the next few days as the full lineup will be revealed very soon. Pleased to officially announce that we’ll be playing on the closing night of the festival on Saturday 31st July at the festival pavilion in Albert Square – this will be a bit of a party for us too as it will officially end our tour, back at the scene of our first ever gig at the festival only two years ago… See you there!

frolics in south wales

Ben — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:16:50 +0000

Probably should have posted this a bit sooner (sorry…) but wanted to write to say what an amazing time we had in South Wales last Tuesday and Wednesday! Thanks to Alistair and the team at Dempseys in Cardiff and to Dave and everyone at Swansea Jazzland for having us, we really enjoyed ourselves and hope you and the audience did too – hopefully be back soon…

We spent the day in between the two gigs camping and hanging out in the countryside outside Carmarthen at Sam Andreae’s uncle’s amazing house (thanks again for hosting us Mike & Celia!), complete with ping-pong, pool, darts, bbq, campfire and lake – equipped with rowing boat and kayak. Hopefully more photos of our exploits to come, but these videos of Sam Healey (saxophone) and Paul Strachan (bass trombone) attempting to get to grips with the kayak should give you some idea of what we got up to!

Once again, cheers to everyone we met – can’t wait til we come back!

tour update & ep shortage…

Ben — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:57:41 +0000

So we’ve now kicked off the tour with gigs in Manchester and Camden which were awesome, and are looking forward to the next leg of gigs beginning this weekend! We’ll be taking in the Groove on the Green festival in Liverpool (Saturday 5th June, onstage 2.15pm til 3pm), before setting off to Dempseys in Cardiff (Tuesday 8th) and Jazzland in Swansea (Wednesday 9th). It’d be great to see you at some of the gigs – if the last two were anything to go by they’ll be amazing nights!

Also we’ve now only got 12 copies left of the limited edition run of 100 handmade EPs so if you’ve still not got one make sure you order one asap or you’ll miss out! No more will be made once we’ve sold all 100, and the EP will also no longer be available for free download. Order now here.

ps note that good friends Go Go Penguin (formally known as the Chris Illingworth Trio) will be playing at Groove on the Green on Sunday 6th so check that out too!

pre-tour party!

Ben — Fri, 14 May 2010 11:04:24 +0000

You may have seen cryptic messages on myspace & facebook referring to a secret gig somewhere in Manchester on Thursday 20th May… Well its finally time to let the cat out of the bag!

We’ll be playing in a big band double bill with the wonderful Alice Zawadzki who’ll be showing off her brand new 18 piece Sky Project, a collaboration with the equally wonderful Jo McCallum. You’ll also get to hear the exciting Sam Rapley/Adam Chatterton quartet.

The evening will be held at the West Didsbury Conservative Club, Burton Road, M20 2LN (map) and will begin at 8pm. Entry will be free, but we will be accepting donations if you enjoy the music!

See you there…

UK tour summer 2010

Ben — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:54:12 +0000

If you’re a subscriber to the Beats & Pieces mailing list you’ll already have heard about this from the latest newsletter but if not, I hope you’ll be as excited as we are about our upcoming tour dates all over England and Wales! Dates as they stand are as follows:

Friday 21st May – The Forge, Camden (info & tickets)

Saturday 5th June – Groove on the Green, Liverpool (info)

Tuesday 8th June – Dempseys, Cardiff (info)

Wednesday 9th June – Jazzland, Swansea (info & tickets)

Thursday 1st July – Bridgewater Hall (bar), Manchester (free gig after RNCM Symphony Orchestra perform music by Jonny Greenwood & Stravinsky – info)

Saturday 10th July – Marlborough Jazz Festival (info & tickets)

For more information check out the individual venue websites as listed below or the gigs page. You can also join the facebook group for the tour here.

We’ll also be playing with the Jo McCallum & Alice Zawadski Orchestra at a secret venue in Manchester on Thursday 20th May… Location to be revealed a few days before on this site, twitter, myspace and facebook – keep those eyes peeled!

It’d be awesome to see you down the front at one (or more…) of the dates, do come and say hi! We’re all well excited and counting down the days, not long now…

p.s. thanks again to the amazing Angela Guyton for letting us use her artwork again for the poster!

2010 gigs

Ben — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:14:51 +0000

I’ve just put up a couple of gigs that have recently been confirmed for the coming months… There’s a few more in the pipeline too so keep checking the gigs page for the latest news!

4/02/10 The Spin Off, Bar Santiago, Leeds

21/05/10 The Forge Venue, Camden

We’ll also be playing at the Marlborough Jazz Festival over the weekend of the 9th July – exact day to be confirmed but should be a good one!

beats & pieces helsinki

Ben — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:01:58 +0000

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…

The gig was recorded but unfortunately the sound engineer’s recorder ran out of memory a couple of songs into the set… If I can salvage anything I’ll upload it soon!

finland

Ben — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:32:45 +0000

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!

EP launch aftermath…

Ben — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:31:30 +0000

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…

ep launch poster

Ben — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:38:40 +0000

In case you haven’t heard, we’ve got an EP coming out soon (2 weeks today!!) and we’re going to be celebrating that with a launch party on Wednesday 2nd December in Odder Bar, Manchester. If you’re in Manchester, keep an eye out for this amazing poster that I’ve had done to promote the gig… (click for full-size image)

Its been designed by Angela Guyton who is a local artist, originally from the USA, and amongst other things regularly performs as one third of Takashi’s Shellfish Concern. Thanks a lot to her, as I say it looks amazing!