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all the latest news hot off the press... |
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| 24th December 2005 | Performed yesterday at the wedding of one of my longest-standing friends, Phil King. Phil and his new bride Hannah commissioned me a few months earlier to write a solo piano piece to be performed during their wedding service. I am particularly happy with the results so have decided to put the recording (originally an improvisation, recorded October 5th, which I then transcribed and re-molded slightly) onto this site. You can listen to the piece by clicking on the following link: Inner(Inner Piece)Peace. Congratulations mate! | |||
| 13th December 2005 | Have begun a new setting of 15 poems by e.e. cummings, from his final collection 73 poems. The work, scored for voice and piano, will be entitled now is a ship, the first line of the first poem of the 15 I have selected specially for the setting. I aim to premiere the work early in 2006. Watch this space! | |||
| 6th December 2005 | Good letter day! Received best feedback yet for Beat Series Pt I (my setting of Ginsberg's Howl). We performed the work in a version for quintet at November's Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. The festival director's comment can be read by following this link: Howl Feedback. Told you it was a good gig!! | |||
| 30th November 2005 | Bad letter day! Turned down for a grant from the Arts Council England to write Beat Series Pt II (my proposed setting of On The Road by Jack Kerouac). Oh well, 23 Skidoo. Will write it anyway... | |||
| 13th November 2005 | Church of Logick are supporting Mercury-Prize-nominated Polar Bear at the Glee Club on April 9th next year. This will be a great opportunity for the band to gain wider recognition and hopefully begin to create a stable fan-base. NB. There still won't be any f***ing ABBA though... (see note:October 19th 2005!) | |||
| 11th November 2005 |
HOWL lives on! We've just been booked to play the quintet version again at next year's |
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| 10th November 2005 | After just over a year's break, A Love Supreme is back in a new, fully DeBop'd version for the same instrumentation as the Coltrane original. This new version shall be premiered at The White Swan, Stratford-on-Avon on January 22nd 2006. This is a great small venue where I've had many a memorable night. The organisers and audience of this jazz venue have been very supportive of my music for many years now so it should be a good night...plus it's my birthday! | |||
| 7th November 2005 | Saturday's performance of Howl at this year's Aldeburgh Poetry Festival was a great way to finish our run of HOWL:50 gigs. We were enthusiastically received by a near-capacity audience in Jubilee Hall, with many positive comments received from the organisers and general public. Thanks to the guys in the band once again for their dedication to this project and their fine playing. | |||
| 1st November 2005 | On November 5th, the last performance of Howl as part of the HOWL:50 series is to form part of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. It will be performed in a version for narrator plus quartet (piano, tenor sax, bass and drums) and will once again feature the Victor Jara song El Derecho De Vivir En Paz (The Right To Live In Peace) at the work's closing. Any Beat fans in the Suffolk area should make a beeline for this event. | |||
| 28th October 2005 | Have just re-surfaced following an exhausting but productive 3 days at ARC Studios, Edgbaston, Birmingham. Both Church of Logick and the Steve Tromans Trio have recorded material for forthcoming albums. As usual, I shall be making audio clips available on this site after the initial mix-down. | |||
| 20th October 2005 | After redesigning the artwork for Jewel in the Lotus I've just picked up a new batch of CDs from the printers. To order your own copy of the solo piano album, send me an email through this website. | |||
| 19th October 2005 | Quite a mixed reception to Church of Logick at The Jamhouse last night! A small but appreciative audience made the outing worthwhile, plus the guys in the band played their asses off - especially Carl Hemmingsley, whose powerhouse drumming shook the stage with its raw intensity. Not that any of that mattered to the unfortuanate heckling party girl, who - aside from screaming at us for some Abba (!) and "tunes she could dance to" (who could have known she couldn't dance in 7/4??), reminded me once again why I always feel wary about doing a pub gig! The second set saw no further heckling and ended with a heavily-distorted Mike Green exploring the upper regions of his electric bass in an unexpected solo outing that provided the perfect logickal link back from our metal-tinged improvisations to the tight heavy funk of Principa Discordia, our final tune of the night. Many thanks once again to Tony Dudley-Evans and Birmingham Jazz for having the courage and dedication to the promotion of new music to put on a band such as Church of Logick in a venue like the Jamhouse. | |||
| 17th October 2005 | Church of Logick are performing at The Jamhouse tomorrow night. For the first time we will be performing in front of a specially created film backdrop, designed by Matt Burden. It promises to be a memorable night. | |||
| 8th October 2005 | Last night's anniversary of Howl was a real success, despite the last-minute near-fatal venue malfunction! Our sincere apologies to anyone who expected to find us at the Tap. You can expect free entry to the Howl Club when it finds a more suitable home. As always, Sid and Miles gave their all (despite Miles having to put up with a wobbling hi-hat stand!). We performed Parts I and II of Howl to a receptive crowd. It was really something to be able to celebrate the introduction to the world of Ginsberg's monumental poem. Howl helped changed the literary world forever and was the first blow struck in the bloodless revolution that brought the words of the Beat Generation to the ears of an alienated youth desperate for liberation. | |||
| 7th October 2005 | ***VENUE CHANGE*** The special anniversary performance of Howl is now going to be performed at Rooty Frooty in the Custard Factory. The performance will still be beginning at around midnight. Apologies in advance for any inconvenience but the room at the Tap is being decorated! | |||
| 6th October 2005 | Anyone interested in helping celebrate an important Beat Generation milestone (50th anniversary of Ginsberg's first public reading of Howl), and who happens to live in or near to the Birmingham area, should come down to the opening night of the HOWL CLUB - a new fortnightly venture put together by myself and Sid Peacock. Sid will be DJing from 10pm. Expect to hear Zappa alongside Elvis, Raymond Scott alongside Charlie Parker. The special anniversary performance of Howl begins at midnight in a version for Narrator, Piano and Drums (Sid Peacock, myself and Miles Levin respectively). | |||
| 6th October 2005 | Last night saw the Howl Band's debut performance at The Vortex in London. The performance just gets better and better. I've said it each time we've played the work but it really does! It was a truly powerful experience, musically and spiritually, with the intensely beautiful rendition of Victor Jara's El Derecho De Vivir (The Right To Live In Peace) at the work's closing providing an emotionally-charged end to the evening. | |||
| 25th September 2005 | I have begun work on a setting of The Book of The Law as received by Aleister Crowley in 1904. I aim to have the work completed in time for The Feast for the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law, which will take place each day at noon between 8-10th April 2006 e.v. | |||
| 26th August 2005 | Unfortuanately the REP Theatre have pulled out of hosting the 24-hour performance of Jewel in the Lotus. The performance is being reschedule to coincide with Birmingham's Arts Fest in a couple of weeks time. I'll post the details up here as soon as I know more. | |||
| 23rd August 2005 |
More on the 24-hour performance of Jewel in the Lotus...
It will consist of 24 separate 50-55min sets, leaving me a 5-10min break after each. The entire event will be recorded onto 24 DAT tapes pending future release, individually and as a 24 CD box-set! |
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| 22nd August 2005 |
The planned 24 hour version of Jewel in the Lotus is to go ahead!
The performance will be taking place in the Centenary Suite of the REP Theatre, Broad Street, Birmingham from 12noon on Friday 26th August till 12noon the following day, Saturday 27th. Accompanying my solo piano music will be a video montage focusing on climate change issues and a photo display highlighting poverty worldwide. There is also a planned live webcast of the performance, though details are sketchy as of this time. The event has been organised by Birmingham Music Awards, and will form something of a prelude to their Make Poverty History concert, at the Hard Rock Cafe, Broad St, on Saturday 27th between 12noon and 6pm. |
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| 23rd July 2005 | There is a strong possibility that I may be performing a specially extended non-stop 24 hour version of Jewel in the Lotus as part of a Make Poverty History event at the end of August this year. The event, organised by the Birmingham Music Awards, is scheduled to take place in Birmingham on Saturday 27th and I will be hopefully beginning my performance on the previous day, playing through the night until exactly 24 hours later. Watch this space for further info... | |||
| 3rd July 2005 | Just about got all the mud off my keyboard and equipment after the Hydrogen Jukebox appearance at the Glastonbury Festival. A great experience all round (despite the mud!), and we gave a special unexpected performance of Part One of Howl on the second night, ellicting a cheer from the (mostly - there were some soft jazz softies there too) delighted audience. It was one of the most intense, physical renditions of my setting of Ginsberg's monumental work to date. Many thanks to Tony Benjamin for inviting us down. We hope to return when the festival kicks off again in 2007. | |||
| 20th June 2005 | Hydrogen Jukebox are to perform at this year's Glastonbury Festival! We shall be performing in the Jazz Lounge tent on both the Friday and Saturday of the festival weekend (24th and 25th June respectively). Especially for the occasion, the duo will become a trio with the addition of drummer Miles Levin, who features as part of the Howl Band in my Howl project. This is a fantastic opportunity to take the HJ sound to a diverse audience of open-minded music fans. If anyone is already going to the festival, come check us out! | |||
| 1st June 2005 | Jewel in the Lotus is reviewed in the latest MUSICIAN magazine (the journal of the Musicians' Union). My album of original solo piano works is described as "...skillful, unique and startling". | |||
| 27th May 2005 | Yes, those rumours are devastatingly true! The latest Brother Truckers album will be available shortly. Our sources can also reveal that the new album, Volume 2 in the Trucking' Great! series, is going to be called Trcuk YOU [sic], and will feature contributions from a THIRD brother trucker, the previously unknown Reginald Trucker. Neat! Apparently there'll also be Trcuk YOU T-shirts available to buy, so lucky punters can walk around with a clever switched-around play on words on emblazened across their chest. Magic! | |||
| 21st April 2005 | Urquhart Fifths is my latest album. Scored for four melodicas, it features music composed from improvisations realised by the shores of Loch Ness, not far from Urquhart Castle. Go to RECORDINGS to hear a short excerpt from this work. The album is available through myself, as are all other recordings of my work. | |||
| 14th April 2005 | It's just over two weeks to go to the next performance of Howl at Cheltenham International Jazz Festival. Judging from the overwhelmingly positive response we received from the StAnza Poetry Festival crowd earlier this year, combined with the raw emotive power of the Howl Band's interpretation of my score (it just gets better and better guys), it should be a great gig. Don't miss it! Full info can be found at the following link: Jerwood Rising Stars. | |||
| 29th March 2005 | Church of Logick are performing their first public concert on April 1st (no, it's not an April Fool's gag) at Commuter Jazz in the Symphony Hall Foyer, Birmingham. I am eagerly anticipating unleashing the all-new material on the unsuspecting early evening jazz audience! I have a great respect for the discerningly open ears of the Commuter Jazz audience, and have been lucky enough to have been part of some great performances at these sessions over the last year. | |||
| 21st March 2005 | Howl was received by an enthusiastic audience on saturday at the StAnza Poetry Festival in St Andrews. The Howl Band performed the 75-minute version of the work to a hushed audience of poetry enthusiasts at the prestigious Scottish poetry festival. I could not have hoped for a better reception and aside from the fact that is was good to peform the work again, it makes me look forward even more to our concert at this year's Cheltenham International Jazz Festival on May 1st. Once again, well played guys, and thank you to Brian Johnstone and StAnza for having the foresight and courage to book a band of 'unknowns'. | |||
| 28th February 2005 | Hydrogen Jukebox performed a 25 minute set at Bush Hall in Shepherd's Bush last night. It was the last night of the If Festival (IF:05), and we were presented alongside four other bands in one of the most diverse evenings of music I have ever been involved with. We were hand-picked from 50 bands to appear at the concert and, judging from the audience reaction and conversations after the event, we have gained some new converts to our unique sound. | |||
| 1st February 2005 |
Howl is to be performed at the prestigious Everyman Theatre as part of this year's |
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| 29th January 2005 | A Love Supreme was recorded in its entirety yesterday for Woodland Records. It was an exhausting experience but one which has produced one of my most personally satisfying recordings. As usual, watch this space to see what happens next with the project. | |||
| 26th January 2005 | Hydrogen Jukebox will be performing at the If Festival (IF:05) next month. They are to perform alongside 3 other hand picked bands at Platform:21, a unique showcase event focusing on the shifting relationship between music performance and creation. | |||
| 21st January 2005 | The A Love Supreme recording is set for January 28th. The session is taking place at MASC Studios in Edgbaston, Birmingham. | |||
| 6th January 2005 | A Love Supreme is to be recorded by The Steve Tromans Debop Band for Woodland Records this month. Watch this space for further info and the all important release date... | |||
| 5th January 2005 | Martin Longley's review of the premiere of my Debop rearrangement of A Love Supreme features in this month's JAZZREVIEW magazine. | |||