Full list of 2012 dates (so far…) as follows:

28th January – Turner Sims, Southampton (details/tickets)

16th February – RNCM, Manchester (details/tickets)

20th February – Ronnie Scott’s, London (details/tickets)

24th March – The Sage, Gateshead (Gateshead International Jazz Festival) (details/tickets)

28th March – Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple (details/tickets)

More dates to be announced so keep an eye on our gigs page, and full details on the album release to follow very very soon…

Picture above by Sam Healey

There were a few really nice reviews that I thought I’d share too – I’ve taken out some quotes below and there’s a link to the full article as well:

Beats & Pieces reminded us that jazz can be pleasingly vulgar… few bands play work of this complexity with such passionate conviction. Movers and shakers such as [Colin] Towns, Matthew Herbert, Darcy James Argue and [Ben] Cottrell demonstrate that large ensembles remain a vital force in contemporary jazz.

John L Walters, The Guardian

Beats & Pieces dazzled with a glorious, full-bloodied set demonstrating all that’s good about big band jazz. The big band tradition is alive and well and living in Manchester.

Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise

Anton Hunter’s overdrive-guitar gave the rhythm section grunge and the soloists, notably altoist Sam Healey, trumpeter Nick Walters and adventurous pianist Patrick Hurley, brimmed with the fearlessness of youth

Jack Massarik, London Evening Standard

Thanks again to everyone at Ronnie’s for having us and to everyone in the audience (many travelling a fair few miles!) for being amazing… If you missed out this time, we’re back in town in November at Kings Place during the London Jazz Festival, tickets available NOW! See you then…

Also congratulations to Julian Siegel who received the London Jazz Award at the awards ceremony in London last week – very much deserved! We had a great night anyway, and once again thanks very much to you all for your sterling work on facebook and twitter to get us on the shortlist… We had the highest number of votes by a considerable margin all thanks to you, you’re all legends!

So hopefully see some of you at Ronnie’s tomorrow – if you missed out, get your tickets NOW for our next London gig at Kings Place during the London Jazz Festival in November so you won’t miss out again!

Firstly on Thursday 28th, a few of us will be down to attend the London Awards for Art and Performance 2011, for which we’ve been shortlisted for the Jazz Award. You may remember me asking for you all to support us in the first stage of this process on twitter and facebook, and you responded amazingly – thanks so much! We had the highest number of votes by a considerable margin, you’re all legends… Now its down to the panel of esteemed judges, and of course we’ll let you know what happens on Thursday via all the usual channels so keep those eyes peeled.

Then on Wednesday August 3rd we’ll be back at Ronnie Scott‘s in a double bill with the fantastic Kairos 4tet during the annual Brit Jazz Fest that celebrates the best jazz the country has to offer – and we can’t wait… Remember that our gig in January with Get the Blessing sold out and we wouldn’t want anybody to miss out again, so get your tickets in now from here and we’ll see you there!

Looking a bit further ahead, we’re really pleased and honoured to have been included in a series of events at Kings Place during the London Jazz Festival in November. The festival website describes the series as ‘five massively talented groups and leaders – a meeting place for artists from the USA and Europe whose music stretches and probes the boundaries of jazz’ and there’s some stellar names involved… We’ll be playing on Saturday 19th November following gigs over the preceding few days by Nik Bartsch’s Ronin, Robert Glasper, Gretchen Parlato and Rory Simmons’ Fringe Magnetic and we can’t wait! Tickets are already on sale, so again get em while they’re hot…

The next stage of the shortlisting process ranks audience appreciation by looking at facebook and twitter ‘likes’, and they’ll be looking at the Guardian review by John Fordham of our gig at Ronnie Scott’s in January for this. So we need YOU – please go to the review here, click on the facebook ‘share’ button and the tweet button, and then go about the rest your day in the knowledge that you’ve done us a massive favour and enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with that!

Also if reading the review of our January gig at Ronnie’s makes you want to see us there again in the near future, you’re very much in luck – we’re back there on 3rd August in a double bill with the amazing Kairos 4tet during Ronnie’s Brit Jazz Fest. See you there!

UPDATE: Fran Hardcastle from the always excellent LondonJazz blog was also at the gig – check out her review here.

UPDATE 2: So was The Guardian’s John Fordham – his review is online here or see below…

I’m also really pleased to announce that we’ve been selected as one of five finalists in the European Young Artists’ Jazz Award, the final of which will be held in Burghausen in Germany at the end of March. The winner will perform at the B-jazz festival, which has a great lineup already including Chick Corea & Gary Burton, Joe Lovano and Helge Sunde. Although we’ve got some small financial support from the competition to get there, with 14 people to get across the continent its still going to cost us a fair bit so please consider downloading or buying our music or making a donation via the button on the right to support our travels!

Also the tour has been made even more official by the fact that it now has its very own facebook page… Tell the world you’ll be there by clicking here, and whilst you’re on facebook why not become a fan!

Sunday 7th November – Y Theatre, Leicester

Monday 15th November – Studio 2, Parr St Studios, Liverpool

Tuesday 16th November – The Wardrobe, Leeds

Sunday 21st November – Spice of Life, Soho (London Jazz Festival)

Wednesday 24th November – Lescar, Sheffield

Saturday 27th November – Matt & Phreds, Manchester

For full details including venue addresses, ticket prices and times, check the gigs page. See you down the front!

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!