Born in 1928, Hampton Hawes was a pianist from Los Angeles who played with Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Wardell Gray and Art Pepper. I just finished reading his autobiography, Raise Up Off Me, written with Don Asher, himself a jazz pianist as well as an author. I’d rate it as perhaps my favourite book about…
Some nice pictures from a few recent gigs: This photo of Guillem Arnedo’s band was taken by Eros Alvarez with a film camera at El Refugio Jazz Club in Alicante. This one is by Tom Saunders, who regularly takes photos at Dereham Jazz Club, where I played a set of Richards Rodgers songs. With…
Very much looking forward to playing some gigs this month with an international quintet put together by young London drummer Phelan Burgoyne and featuring the great Jorge Rossy on vibraphone. Best known as a drummer (and particularly for his role in Brad Mehldau’s trio from the mid ’90s to the mid ’00s), Jorge has, in more…
I have recently been listening to and reading about the work of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, one of the great writing partnerships of the American Songbook.
Bud Powell’s solo on Celia, the pianist’s own composition named for his daughter, is one of the great bebop performances. A real one-chorus-wonder, it appears on the album Jazz Giant, which comprises two trio sessions: one recorded in 1949 with Ray Brown and Max Roach, and one from 1950 with Roach and Curley Russell.
On 24th October, the John Warren Nonet is playing at the Vortex in Dalston. The evening is being presented by Jazz Nursery, which is a monthly night that I help run. JN normally puts on gigs on the last Thursday of the month in the Southbank area, but this is our first collaboration with the Vortex,…
I played live on BBC Radio 3 a few weeks ago with Alex Mendham & His Orchestra, which plays authentic 1920s/30s jazz and dance music and is resident at the Savoy Hotel in London. You can see footage from one of the tunes we played here, or listen to the audio from the whole show (In…
I wrote this on my old website a while ago, but thought I would repost here. I’ve been learning this Charlie Parker solo recently (transcription here). It was recorded in 1943, towards the start of Bird’s career and, although his style is plainly not yet fully formed, it is one of my favourite examples of his…
One of the songs I picked for my recent duo recording with Michael Kanan was Way Down Yonder in New Orleans. Written in 1922 by Turner Layton and Henry Creamer, the African-American songwriting team also responsible for the more well-known After You’ve Gone, Way Down Yonder seems to only really be played by more trad/Dixieland…