On Thursday I went to the first rehearsal of Tom Ward’s new sax quartet. We played a whole bunch of Tom’s original tunes, arrangements and also his transcriptions of other sax quartets. I had a great time! Here are some highlights (recorded with a phone)…
Tom Ward (alto)
Chris Williams (alto)
Andrew Woolf (tenor)
Cath Roberts (bari)
‘Chresmomancy’
‘Headmaster’s Daughter’
‘PIAP’
I was excited to find today that the Quadraceratops gig at the Forge, Camden town on May 24th has gone up on the venue’s website! Tickets are now on sale, for those who like to organise their diaries in advance….
I’ve finally given the septet a name: Cath Roberts’ Quadraceratops. I also just sent off the promo info for our first gig…more to follow on this soon. You can find the band on Facebook and ‘like’ it to hear about what we’re up to, and I’ll be posting on here too. Plus, if you’re on Twitter, you can follow me under my alias @robocath. It’s a huge relief to actually decide on a name, so now it’s back to the piano to get working on the tunes again!
Time has flown by since my last update, so I’m a bit bemused to find myself in 2012. I kicked off the year by attending the F-ire Collective Winter workshop on groove writing this week, which was pretty inspiring. Much like last time, I left with a very specific rhythm-related headache, some great music in my brain and lots of notes and things to think about as I resume the Winter of Writing. Over the next two months I’m going to be spending as much time as I can putting together septet tunes, so we can start rehearsing. Now that it’s a week into the new year, the May gig is starting to feel quite a lot sooner, which I guess is probably good for motivation!
Other projects are getting under way too. I had a first look at some of the music for Tom Ward’s new saxophone quartet today. I’m on bari so it’s time for some serious training. Playing pretty much constantly for the whole tune, on every tune, will be a challenge! Great music though so I’m looking forward to starting rehearsals. Also today came a sneak preview of some tracks I played on for Luke J Christie and the Held Breath. There’s a website coming soon apparently, and the album is nearly mixed. Exciting stuff…
All in all, can’t wait to get my teeth into a lot of new things this year….bring it on!
This month saw my first foray into writing for film, as I put together some music for Reelscape Films. They are working on a promo short for their upcoming feature ‘Fortune Cookies’, and asked me to provide not only some background ‘elevator’ jazz but also some angry rock! A good chance to develop my skills in Logic…
An inspirational trip to Copenhagen – involving catching a nonet gig featuring Andrew D’Angelo and Bill McHenry – got me feeling excited about my imminent septet project. I will be putting together a bunch of new music for our gig on May 24th, which sounds like a long way off but in writing time is quite close!
I have decided to leave Hackney Colliery Band to pursue other things, so the Jazz Cafe gig on November 7th (supporting Hypnotic Brass Ensemble) will be my last one with the band. I’ve had a great three years, but now it’s time to move on, and I’ve already got several (maybe too many?!) ideas underway. I can feel a winter of writing coming on!