manchester this week

There’s some great gigs happening in Manchester this week:

1) Tonight (Tuesday) at Sandbar we’ve got Chris Mapp’s Gambol from Birmingham playing as part of the Freedom Principle series of gigs run by Efpi Records – 8.30pm, £3 which also gets you a discount at the bar…

2) Tomorrow (Wednesday) Polar Bear are bringing their new collaboration with MC Jyager to Sound Control, with support from our good friends Gogo Penguin – the Penguins are on about 8pm, tickets are £10 + booking

3) Friday 18th – Beats & Pieces Big Band (thats us!) at the West Didsbury Club, M20 2LN. Come and say bye to us as we head off to Germany at the weekend for the European Young Artists’ Jazz Award next week – its free entry, with cheap beer too: happy days… Our set starts 8.30pm so don’t be late!

See you down the front at all three of these gigs!

Posted by Ben on 15/03/2011 at 16:27 in misc, news and tagged chris mapp, freedom principle, gambol, gig, gogo penguin, polar bear, sandbar, west didsbury. Leave comments here.

support mjf – update

Thanks to everyone for their comments and support for Manchester Jazz Festival – my post a couple of weeks ago is just one of many that have been springing up over the internet which is great to see! I think that shows just how important the festival is to so many people. Some of the ones I’ve picked up on are as follows:

- Efpi Records‘ very own Anton Hunter

- Saxophonist, promoter and all round nice guy Phil Meadows

- Sebastian Scotney of the amazing LondonJazz blog

- Various people on facebook including GoGo Penguin and the festival itself

If you’ve emailed in you’ll have had a personal response which just goes to show that the council are listening and will be taking this into account when drawing up the budget – if you haven’t contacted them yet do it now! The address to write to is budget.enquiry@manchester.gov.uk

Sebastian’s post on the LondonJazz blog not only demonstrates the importance the festival has on the whole country’s jazz scene, but featured this video which I’d forgotten about and that perfectly sums up everything that it means to musicians, punters and the city as whole.

Posted by Ben on 28/02/2011 at 12:02 in b&p friends, news and tagged anton hunter, efpi records, gogo penguin, londonjazz, manchester, manchester jazz festival, phil meadows, sebastian scotney. Leave comments here.

tour update & ep shortage…

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!

Posted by Ben on 02/06/2010 at 21:57 in gigs, news and tagged cardiff, dempseys, ep, gogo penguin, groove on the green, jazzland, liverpool, swansea. Leave comments here.