I only got to a couple of days of the festival this year but I saw some great stuff.  Lluis Mather‘s ‘Noose’ was particularly good, especially as I hadn’t heard anything about them before so had no idea what to expect.  I enjoyed seeing Ben Watte playing piano with Kyran Matthews’ quartet, although the sound let them down a little.  My highlight would have to be Shabaka Hutchings‘ ‘Son’s of Kemet’; they absolutely blew me away and I really recommend you check them out.

I had a couple of great gigs too.  My brother, Jimmy Adolpho and myself played a trio set before the ‘Son’s of Kemet’ (pictured below) at the Band on the Wall.  Anton had written a set of new material which we were debuting and, although the audience was fairly small, it was very well received and I think it sounded good…  We recorded the music this week so you’ll be able to see for yourselves soon!

The Dub Jazz Soundsystem (video here) played at Matt & Phred’s on the last night of the festival with special guests Steve Parry and Sam Healey.  It was raucous!  I’ve not seen the place that busy for years; people were queuing down the street.  We played over three hours of really heavy, high energy Dub/Ska/Psychedelic/Jazz, and I was feeling the effects of it for the next couple of days.

Photo by Mark Whitaker

In the meantime, enjoy this video recorded last year at the Jazz Bar, Edinburgh, by Chris Parker.

I’ve been at Airtight Studios over the weekend recording an album with Skamel; it went really well despite the near-sauna temperatures.  Here are some lovely photos of us to prove we were working hard.

The album should be ready for release in October this year.  There are plans for a tour to coincide with the release so you’ll be able to buy it directly from the band – how exciting!  (Tim lost this game of chess, by the way.)

To keep up-to-date with the progress of the album, keep checking the Skamel page on my site or you can ask to be added to our mailing list by e-mailing skamel@hotmail.co.uk.

Sad news yesterday. We lost bassist Lloyd Brevett, one of the original members of the Skatalites. My Reggae band, Skamel, will be paying tribute to him at Matt & Phred’s on Friday May 25th.

In other news, Lester Stirling will be bringing the Skatalites to the Band on the Wall on Thursday May 24th. I will be there taking notes!

I’ll leave you with this…

There are a couple of awesome looking new videos of the Dub Jazz Soundsystem on Youtube – check them out!  Also, you can expect a Skamel video to surface soon as well. Exciting times!

Noreen’s Nocturne – B. Durham (pdf)

Just finished a transcription of some eights traded between Oscar Peterson and Bobby Durham on ‘Noreen’s Nocturne’ from the album ‘Exclusively For My Friends’. Oscar was one of the first Jazz artists I got into and this recording was a particular favourite.  The reason I chose to transcribe this was because, at 16 years old, I’d tried to work them out but failed miserably so I thought I’d give it another go…  Even though my tastes have obviously developed and changed since then, I still love this album and Bobby’s playing on it.

The tune pushes 300 bpm but Bobby still manages to really swing each quaver which is hard at that tempo!  Well, I find it difficult.  In the very first bar he accents the second of the three triplets in beats 1 and 3 then goes on to end a lot of his phrases like that too.  I also love all of his huge resolutions on beat 4, that pleases the Reggae drummer in me!

I’ve not written any sticking patterns partly because I’m still finding my way through it and partly because I’m lazy, although the majority is made up of 6-stroke rolls (RLLRRL) or other inversions of the paradiddle-diddle.

I had a great time on Thursday night at the Manchester Noise Upstairs playing with a newly formed group featuring Simon Prince (tenor sax), James Adolpho (double bass), Rodrigo Constanzo (drums) and myself (also drums).  Two drummers!  Fun.

You can check out the results at the Noise Upstairs website (click here).  Incidentally, it is not, never has been, or never will be called “Drums”…

Also had fun the following day at Keith Jafrate’s playing with the brilliant duo, Wolf Scarers!  Hopefully you’ll be able to hear the outcome of that soon.

I finally have a web presence!

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What do I do now…?