I was lucky enough last night to attend the live broadcast of BBC Jazz on 3 from Band on the Wall in Manchester, featuring live sets from Arun Ghosh, Stuart McCallum and Simcock/Walker/Swallow/Nussbaum (pictured below). Jez also played a few tracks from artists performing at this year’s Manchester Jazz Festival including a track of ours which was really exciting! Listen again for the next 7 days here – the Simcock/Walker/Swallow/Nussbaum set in particular is awesome… I’m just heading into the RNCM now as I’m working for their gig there tonight, can’t wait!
Posted by on 27/07/2010 at 12:46 in misc, news and tagged adam nussbaum, band on the wall, bbc, gwilym simcock, jazz on 3, manchester jazz festival, mike walker, mjf, rncm, steve swallow. Leave comments here.
Thanks to everyone who came to see us last week at the Marlborough jazz festival – apologies again for the slightly delayed start, circumstances out of my control! We really enjoyed the gig though, and hanging around at the festival afterwards as well. Continuing the recent theme of posting videos of gigs I’ve been to, here’s a track from Polar Bear’s set – ‘Happy For You’, one of my favourite tracks from their latest album (which is possibly my favourite album of theirs too!):
Also here’s a nice picture of Sam and Anton taking a quick paddle in the river with the ducks, isn’t that nice…
Posted by on 16/07/2010 at 12:13 in misc and tagged ducks, marlborough, polar bear, youtube. Leave comments here.
I went down to Birmingham on Saturday for the Mostly Jazz festival, which was a really great event – highlights of the day were Led Bib, Polar Bear and headliners the Sun Ra Arkestra. Thought I’d put up some of the pictures and video I took of the Arkestra’s set, it was awesome…(video bit shaky in places as I was dancing, sorry!)
The Arkestra are at Cafe Oto in London tonight and tomorrow (5th and 6th) so if you’re in the big smoke make sure you’re there!
Posted by on 05/07/2010 at 18:47 in misc and tagged birmingham, festival, led bib, mostly jazz, polar bear, sun ra, sun ra arkestra, youtube. Leave comments here.
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!
Posted by on 24/06/2010 at 09:51 in gigs, misc, news and tagged gig, jazz festival, manchester, mjf. Leave comments here.
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!
Posted by on 16/06/2010 at 20:16 in gigs, misc, news and tagged cardiff, carmarthen, dempseys, jazzland, kayak, paul strachan, sam healey, swansea, tour, wales, youtube. Leave comments here.
There’s an interesting piece on the Guardian website today by renowned American classical music critic Alex Ross – I’ve had his highly recommended book, The Rest is Noise, for ages and tried to get into reading it a few times but always got distracted, should really get back on it… In this article, he’s talking about the etiquette for applause and audience response in the classical concert hall, and it got me thinking about the similarities and differences between classical and jazz audiences.
Ross briefly mentions jazz audiences in his article (”in jazz clubs… people applaud after each solo, as well as at the end of each number”), which obviously simplifies things a lot but I suppose is safe enough to be taken as a general rule. Sometimes, however, clapping by default after a solo is totally inappropriate. I was at a gig recently by a trio that was almost contemporary classical rather than jazz – even though the trio were world class musicians in their own right there was unfortunately not many in the audience (those that were there weren’t even there specifically for the gig as the concert was one small part of a larger event), the music was pretty quiet throughout, and the whole affair was quite intimate. After every single solo though, no matter what the wider musical context, the person next to me (not with me! Just happened to be sat next to me) decided to clap as loud and as forcefully as possible in order to rally the rest of the audience into joining them. As I say the gig was really intimate, the solos were thoughtful, melodic and reflective rather than animated, loud and technical, and having all the musician’s hard work in building up an atmosphere rudely cancelled out by this person’s instant rapturous applause really started to piss me off – I think the musicians were also not impressed as they seemed to be a bit awkward in acknowledging the rather muted, sheep-like applause…
The point of Ross’ article was that people should be allowed to respond to music whenever and however they feel most appropriate rather than having to follow in some sort of etiquette. In the same way that refraining from applause after a massive final cadence in the first movement of a Beethoven symphony feels strange, for example, surely being made to feel duty-bound to applaud after the quietest and most reflective improvised solo in a jazz gig is also inappropriate? Ross quotes the pianist Emanuel Ax, who I think sums it up perfectly – “I think that if there were no ‘rules’ about when to applaud, we in the audience would have the right response almost always.”
Posted by on 09/03/2010 at 16:59 in misc and tagged alex ross, applause, classical, guardian. Leave comments here.
Like I say, in the end a gig’s a gig (especially a solo with an orchestra) – but were the years and years of training really worth it? Really?! (via A Blog Supreme via Matana Roberts)
Posted by on 26/02/2010 at 19:08 in misc and tagged angel, saxophone, youtube. Leave comments here.
Beats & Pieces EP
Available now from Efpi Records
Recent comments