Easter!

Hey there! I know it's been a while, and I won't lie, I haven't been 'busy'! I've just gotten back to Manchester after 3 weeks home in Belfast for the Easter holidays, and I'm finally getting some time to sit and tell you cats a bit about what I've been up to.

This Easter wasn't really busy, but because I'd been away from home for so long, I spent quite a lot of time with my friends back home, catching up, and generally just having an awesome, relaxing holiday. The week before the Easter holidays, I was back in Belfast just for the day to help out with my old school's Spring Concert, which I was more than happy to do! I paid for my own flights and everything. The main highlight of the concert was the Karl Jenkin's The Armed Man (A Mass For Peace), which if you haven't heard it before, is an absolutely breath-taking piece of music. It took up the entire second half of the concert, the first half just being the school groups. Released a day before the 9/11 attacks, the mass is based around world peace and the effects of war. It was dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis. I came back home and played alongside a very special school orchestra, consisting of the top players in the school, instrumental tutors, invited guests, and past pupils such as myself. I sat second trombone this night, inbetween the former music teacher at our school on first trombone and my old teacher on bass trombone, which is quite a stressful place to be!

I eventually got roped into playing with the trombones in the whole concert. It brought back a lot of good memories, as I absolutely loved the music groups in school, and I still really miss them. I even got to play an improv solo in the big-band during Ghostbusters, an old favourite of mine! All in all, it was an amazing night, and I just wish it could've been my final year concert!

I did play in a solo concert at my church the last week I was home, as a favour to my cousin who is the bandmaster at our church. I attend a Salvation Army church both here in Manchester and back home in Belfast, and music is central to worship. I didn't just want to come back and play technical music or anything complex; I just played some famous hymns and melodies. I started off the program with Henry Mancini's "Moon River", which is one of my favourite tunes of all time. The arrangement was originally for Tuba, but it was soo good I just had to transpose it up the octave and play it! After that I played a selection of hymn tunes, such as The Londonderry Air, O Waley Waley, The Old Rugged Cross and Ray Bowes' Jesus Loves Me, all Salvation Army-published solos. I finished off with an old favourite of mine, Gershwin's Summertime. Back home I don't have my own instrument, and I'm playing on a very different trombone, but I tried my best! I have recordings of the concert, but I'm going save myself the embaressment by not posting them up. Well, I might post up 1 or 2. It was great experience, being in that environment.

I also picked up an alto trombone, but instead of buying one I was given one by a guy from church, which saved me £150! I was soo pleased when I got it, I just walked about the house all day playing it! I'll post a video up sometime soon with me playing it (badly).

Aside from that, I didn't really do any playing over Easter, just a bit of practise!

I'm back at college now, and I'm finally back in Jazz Collective! Unfortunately because of the flights and stuff, I wasn't there for the first rehearsal. We're playing some fantastic charts this time, including Gil Evan's and Miles Davis' arrangement of Concierto Di Aranjuez, from their Sketches Of Spain album. So I'll keep you posted on that.

I don't really have a lot of new nuggets for you to listen to, I've really just been listening to some old favourites. But here is one of my favourite albums of the moment -> Weather Report – Night Passage. I'm going through a bit of a Weather Report phase again, and it's AWESOME. It may not be your cup of tea, but I find the opening track just so driving and energetic, I can't help but smile!

I've just got one track for you here, by someone I need to do a bit more research on, but I was on YouTube today and I found a pure AMAZING track from Billy Cobham, one of the greatest fusion drummers ever. Check out this track on Spotify -> Billy Cobham – Red Baron

Here is the video I watched -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN9Vaml0dZE

I'll try to keep the posts a bit more frequent, I've been quite bad since Christmas...

Anyway.

'til next time...

Thanks ~ The Jazzbone

Update ^_^

I'm very sorry that it's been so long since any substantial update to the blog, it's been a fairly busy time for me, and I'm not quite done yet. So I'll just tell you what I've been up to recently.

Last weekend, I played with a 1st section band called Hebden Bridge in the Yorkshire Area Brass Band Championships, which was my first contest. It was a great weekend, and the band managed to get 2nd place, which means they qualify for the national competition later in the year! Even better than that, because of the results, the band is going to become a championship section band starting in 2011. I wish I could join the band as a full member, but unfortunately it's too much time out of my schedule and I can't commit. I do little enough practise as it is without losing another 2 nights...

Last week, I performed in a production of Sweeney Todd at King David High School, in Crumpsall, Manchester. It was a fantastic experience, if not slightly nerve-racking. Considering it was a school production, it was great, but on the 3 nights of the performance the actors on stage were... nervous. Cues missed out, lines missing, it was a nightmare for the orchestra at some points, but we pulled through. And both myself and the rest of the trombone section tanked it where needed. Which was pretty awesome.

I have decided that with these earnings, I am going to buy an alto trombone which will be very exciting. Unfortunately there isn't a lot of alto trombone stuff on YouTube or Spotify, but there is just one clip I want to show you... -> Alto trombone.

I haven't discovered any real gems recently, I've just been listening to the same old stuff. I do have one link for you, which you may or may not appreciate. I'm a bit of a nerd, and I have spent too much time over my teenage years playing in a darkened room playing Call of Duty 2 online, or Counter-Strike, or even World of Warcraft. I still do play a bit of WoW, but I haven't been able to since coming to uni :(

If you have ever played the game Eve-Online, you'll know that it has a fantastic soundtrack. The composer, RealX, is a cult hero in the Eve world, and he has produced some amazing stuff. Recently, I have been listening to his Live Set from 2006, from FanFest 06. I just leave it on in the background, and it just makes the time pass a lot quicker!

Anyways, I shall leave you to it. I will make an uber blog post during Easter, as I'm sure there are some golden nuggets of music I can talk about.

'til next time...

Thanks ~ The Jazzbone

Blitz Brass

'Blitz Brass' (name not final yet) is a chamber brass 10-piece ensemble, comprising of all first year students (including myself) at the RNCM. We started up the group in September in order to give a fellow student a chance to conduct a group, as there are no opportunities for conducting in 1st year. We recently did a recording at the local university-run recording studio here in Manchester, and I have one of the tracks for you to listen to. This was our first real engagement as an ensemble, and we've learnt a lot from it. Here is 'The Londonderry Air', with myself as the soloist.

Download Blitz Brass - The Londonderry Air

'til next time...

Thanks ~ The Jazzbone

Last Flight Essence

I came across a very, very interesting album today. I am a HUGE Jaco P fan, as most of you who know me will have found out fairly quickly, if you discuss music taste with me. I was on Amazon, just looking through some Jaco albums for a bargain, and I came across one that I'd never heard before. This album, Last Flight Essence, was right at the end of the search, and I'm surprised I haven't heard it before.

You can download it here, I'm not so sure how legal it is, but hey... -> Download

The album consists of 3 quite long tracks, and if you've got a short attention span, I advise against listening to this. It appears to just be a 1-off jam between a few friends around the mid 1980s, who just wanted to lay down a few tracks. Listening through the entire album non-stop today, I found it absolutely breath-taking. You can tell it's Jaco playing fairly quickly, as he lays down some well known funky grooves, from Reza to an extract of Three Views, which Jaco fans will know inside-out. I seriously recommend just having a listen, and getting lost in it. Put the biggest pair of headphones you have on, and just lie-down and listen to this. If it's too heavy, go and buy (or listen to it on Spotify here, but the idiots who put the Jaco tracks have gotten some of them mixed up with the recordings from the Birthday Concert...) 'Word of Mouth' by Jaco, and give it a try.

Right, that's enough brown-nosing of my hero.

'til next time...

Thanks ~ The Jazzbone

Sweeney Todd

I almost forgot to say! I'll be playing in a production of Sweeney Todd, the musical, next month in King David's High School, on Seymour Road in Manchester. It's being directed by Trevor Siemens, a very talented young composer and musician. The musical itself is fantastic, the music is very interesting and quite funny, if not lacking in trombone moments...

Here's a link to the Facebook page with some more details :)

'til next time...

Thanks ~ The Jazzbone

Scream Machine

I do apologise for my lack of updates recently, it's been a tough month! Coming back to college after Christmas has been a bit of an ordeal, and not as easy as I was expecting it to be... We have technical assessments coming up, and my teacher is trying to get me through the material for those as well as keeping up the technique and fundamental stuff. It's pretty intense at the minute.

But anyway.

Back to jazz. I bought an album off of iTunes the other day, purely because I love the guy, and his albums aren't that widely available. Any brass player who has a real love of jam hot brass playing will have hopefully heard of 2 artists; Mnozil Brass and James Morrison. I won't be talking about Mnozil this time, because they aren't jazz in the slightest, but they are as jam hot as you can get. James Morrison however, I could talk about this cat all day. If you're a fan of Black Dyke Brass Band, you will have definitely heard of this guy. Just check this out -> YouTube. That's James performing "Things Just Ain't What They Used To Be", that old Ellington standard. I couldn't tell you the amount of times I've watched that video, and how many times I've watched that DVD... But anyway.

He's released some phenom albums through the years, the only problem being that he's an Australian artist, and his albums aren't released here except online through iTunes, which is a real shame. Here's the album I bought though -> iTunes. And just listen to some of those samples... Jam hot, yes? Thankfully, he does have an album on Spotify, hidden away under the gay James Morrison... but srsly, listen to this ASAP -> Spotify.

It's been a tough month or so for trombone playing, I've had to re-think my practise schedule entirely. But, you'll be glad to hear, I've actually been doing some Aebersold work! All in preparation for Jiggs Whigham's return next month!

I will try to be more active with my posts guys, I promise!

'til next time...

Thanks ~ The Jazzbone

New Year

Happy new year everyone! Hope you all had a classy Christmas, and a sloppy New Year!

It's been bizarre, I've started watching quite a few vlogs on youtube, like RayWilliamJohnston's blog BreakingNYC, which is pretty cool. I've always loved the idea of being able to do that myself, but more music orientated, even with a few tasty musical bites here and there on the ol trombone... ANYWAY, I'll just stick to this for the minute, I like doing this :)

I feel really bad, because Jiggs Whigham is coming back in March, and I haven't done a lot of work for him yet... I've been neglecting my Aebersold book a bit too much. I have been doing a bit of improvising for part of my course though, in class. And I must say, I wasn't too bad at it. We did a solo over the Welsh folk tune "O Waley, Waley", and it was seriously tasty. I will be doing more work on my jazz though. I promise :)

Got a few tasty albums/artists for you guys to listen to that I've come across quite recently!

First off, here's a trio called 'Project', with their album Brooklyn which is pretty tasty. If you're wondering who the flautist is, then here is where you first heard him -> YouTube (EVERYONE must have seen this vid. Or one of his others.) I admit, I do sometimes have a strange taste in instruments sometimes, but jazz flute is seriously badass. The Anchorman is the prime example.

These cats have some seriously tasty original stuff on there, as well as some interesting covers and transcriptions!

Next up is something a bit differant, but SERIOUSLY funky; it's the Quantic Soul Orchestra, with their album Tropidélico. This guys have some seriously tasty stuff on here, a lot of groovy riffs and a lot of aux percussion, which is what I'm all about! Check out their YouTube vids as well, like this one. Or this one. S'all gravy.

The last album I've got here is a pure classic for me. My memory of this group is of my former trombone teacher back in Belfast blaring a few tunes out the window in the car. Seriously, check it out. And have a spare pair of trousers ready. Oh yeah.

'til next time...

Thanks ~ The Jazzbone