On 3rd May, Emma, Kwabs and I trundled off to Tunbridge Wells on the train for a live broadcast and interview on BBC Radio Kent.
This was an interesting evening even before we got there - having to surreptitiously rehearse on the train (packed, commuter train), we were interrupted before long by a drunk business man (drunk?! - it was only a Tuesday) who wanted to have a sing off with some of his friends. He was actually serious and even took a sheet of music and attempted to sing it. Good effort, although slightly annoying after 10 minutes of trying to ignore him!
Emma, Kwabs and me outside the studio
So anyway, we were invited by Trudy Kerr to be featured on the jazz hour - her slot on the Tuesday evening Roger Day program. We sang a selection of Sector7 tunes, and chatted a bit about the band. You can hear the whole show on my website, or a selection of the songs we sang on my website too.
Our sample EP video has clocked up 954 views. And I only watched it about 20 times! Maybe the others were my Dad.
Help us reach 1000 this month! And if you've got a YouTube account, please 'like' the video, to tip the balance even more in favour of likes... (thanks to the person who has disliked our video!)
May was a month of Fridays, with each Friday offering an interesting experience in a different part of the world.
Firstly, I was at Bradford Irish Club for a JATP jazz night (JATP stands for Jazz at the Priestley - where jazz nights in Bradford used to be held). It was a brilliant gig - one of my favourite of 2011 so far. I was playing with my 'Northern' band - a group of musicians that I regularly work with when I do gigs further north than the Hatfield tunnel! They were on fine form: Dave Walsh on drums, Garry Jackson on bass (who coped with my difficult charts amazingly, despite not having played with me for over a year - he was depping for Gavin Barras) and Dan Whieldon on piano.
It was so enjoyable, particularly at a point during Tea for Two where Dan was playing an amazing stride piano solo and I thought it would be a great idea for the band to drop out and give him some space so that the audience could hear exactly how brilliant it was... except that at the exact moment I signalled to the band to stop, Dan decided he'd had enough and his arms were aching by this point, so he too stopped! What followed were a few bars of silence, Dave Walsh laughing his head off at the drums, and Dan resignedly geeing up for another chorus of the stride solo. He said afterwards that he thought his arms may have fallen off! Nevertheless it was my favourite part of the gig, and showed not only what brilliant musicians I was sharing the stage with but also what great fun we had up there.
The promoter (the excellent Martin Powell) clearly had great fun too ("an absolutely wang dang doodle of a jazz gig") and his review is on THIS page. Scroll down to the second paragraph and you'll see me there.
The following Friday we were back in Yorkshire, and this time at Wakefield Jazz Club. My Northern band were joined by Dave O'Higgins which was so thoroughly enjoyable. Dave has recorded on both my albums (new album due out in September - write in on your shopping lists now!) but we haven't played together since May 2010. It was my first time there, although Dave had played many times before. The club had got a new gallery of photographs all around the room, including one of Dave, and they even had a selection of fridge magnets for sale! Here's a photo of Dave in front of picture of Dave holding a picture of Dave. That's now on my fridge.
It was a great gig, a great club, and a privilege to play there. I was presented with an extravagant bunch of flowers at the end which was so delightful - although I had to travel home with them on the coach at 2 in the morning, which wasn't so delightful!
The next week I was performing just outside Swindon, in the church at Highworth. What a building! Such lovely acoustics, and so lovely to have a grand piano there. We had an hour or so to kill before the sound-check so found a pub for a cup of tea, and wandered past this lamp post:
Fame at last!
And for the final Friday in May, I celebrated all that hard work by getting on a train at St Pancras and ending up, 12 hours later, in Nice. Very nice!
At the end of May I spent a glorious 10 days in France, so to celebrate I've done a little piece on le jazz Francais...
1. Michel Legrand
A living legend, Legrand recently did a few nights at Ronnie's. Singing and playing his own songs, there are few musicians out there today who can make an entire set out of their original material - which are well-known songs to the average punter (Watch What Happens, You Must Believe in Spring, What are you doing the rest of your life?, The Windmills of Your Mind). Also a winner of 3 Oscars. Amazing!
2. Nice Jazz Festival 2011
Number 1 and 2 are related as Michel Legrand is appearing this year at Nice Jazz Festival. I took a stroll around Nice for about 20 minutes while waiting for a train home, and saw more than 10 of these billboards on various roundabouts and junctions. Good advertising skills!
3. Jacques Loussier
When I was at school my Dad, a classical pianist and general music enthusiast (although never a jazz fan until his daughter became a jazz singer - actually, I think he's more a 'Sarah' fan than anything else... still!), had a cassette tape entitled 'Play Bach,' which is a collection of Bach compositions used as a base for jazz improvisation by the Jacques Loussier Trio. It's an intriguing recording, and a brilliant concept, that led the trio to sell over 6 million albums.
4. Les Feuilles Mortes
Here is the wonderful Nat King Cole singing 'Les Feuilles Mortes,' a song by Joseph Kosmer with French lyrics by Jacques Prevert and English lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Excuse Nat King Cole's terrible French accent. And the terrible video. But his tone of voice is faultless, and the tempo of this song is more agreeable to me than other, more tortured, versions.
The original lyric is, as expected, quite different to the English version - which isn't really a translation, but a new set of words on the same theme. There's a good translation here: http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~coby/songtr/lesfm.htm
5. Darling, je vous aime beaucoup
This song is a mixture of French and English - again with a questionable accent (particularly Natalie's lisp on tres/tway), but I love the way the French is tongue-in-cheekly used to rhyme with the English phrases, e.g. Je vous aime beaucoup / Je ne sais pas what to do.
6. Montreux Jazz Festival
I know it's not in France, but they speak French! And I'm going this year to compete in the Jazz Vocal competition, so I thought it was worth a mention!
7&8. Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli
These two musicians deserve a spot each for essentially creating and making popular a new brand of jazz - Gypsy jazz or jazz Manouche.
9. Blossom Dearie singing Comment Allez-vous
This is a great recording of a really swinging song.
10. Ne me quitte pas
An incredibly emotional version of this song.
