Things are picking up? Let’s not get carried away
It’s September. I should be back in schools, teaching saxophone and violin, leading workshops, avoiding staff rooms etc. I’m not. Most schools, it seems, are understandably feeling their way into the new term and the new way of school life, waiting until they’re comfortable with how to manage their own permanent population before they consider inviting “the peri-people” back to do such radical things as blow a saxophone in the direction of their children. I’m assured from various directions, however, that conversations are happening, so hopefully I will be back educating in the flesh before Santa cracks out the beard balm.
Online, there is still plenty going on. I will be continuing to deliver workshops for NYJO, teaching the rudiments of jazz to the keen young people of Cumbria and Lancashire, and possibly Yorkshire if things work out there. Most of this will be through wires, although there is talk of blasting me up to Preston in November on something called a train.
Also, in October half term, Kent Music’s long established Orchestra ONE will be offering its first online alternative. I have worked on this project since it started way back in pre-Covid times, and it remains one of my favourites. The online limitations of this particular project are compensated by the fact that we are in the safe hands of MD, Jason Rowland. I’ve worked with Jason a few times on Trinity Laban’s Animate Orchestra. He’s great - just the man to guide us through these murky new territories.
I’m in the early stages of preparing a new composition for Band Without Boundaries, to follow up the tremendous success of the lockdown video that we released a couple of months ago (the difficult “second lockdown video”!) We’re hoping that this one will be bigger and better, with a couple of exciting collaborations that we’re hoping to confirm very soon. Here’s a link to the first video, which I don’t think I shared before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7da2sQqZOk
Things are moving swiftly with the Deal Music and Arts/NYJO videos that we filmed in August. That was a smashing day! Five brilliant young musicians from the NYJO Ambassadors joined me at St. George’s church in Deal to film two videos that will be released in late November to coincide with what would have been the fourth annual “Creative Jazz Weekend”. The first video will be an uninterrupted performance of four jazz standards. Accompanying the video will be a package of resources - charts, backing tracks, video tutorials etc. - for would-be participants on the course to download and use for their own practice. The second video will feature much of the same concert footage, only it will be augmented with frequent cutaways to the ambassadors offering expert advice about specific aspects of the music, as well as in more general conversation about NYJO and life as a young jazz musician…(for the most part, global pandemic notwithstanding!). The ambassadors were brilliant on the day. Superb in performance, insightful in their educational offerings and lucid in conversation. The audio has been mixed brilliantly by Deal’s in-house sound magician, Ken Peers, and I can’t wait to see the visual work of the multi-talented Peter Cook (not that one). Here’s a photo of the day: https://www.instagram.com/p/CD1jEvHpmt4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Playing wise, there still isn’t much, although I enjoyed a fabulous afternoon last Sunday with The Violet Jive at Oxlea Woods cafe (a short stroll up the hill for me). People danced and cheered like mad, affirming once and for all the need that we all have (not just those of us who provide it) for live music. It was a beautiful afternoon in a lovely setting and there was a palpable sense of optimism in the air…how sad that this optimism may well have been misplaced, with the government announcing only yesterday that restrictions on public gatherings are to be reimposed. Hopefully it won’t prevent the smattering of gigs I have in the diary before the end of the year, including an anticipated outing with Simply Dan at the Pelton Arms in Greenwich on October 3rd. We will all have to watch this space on that and other public gigs that I’m hesitant to announce, I’m afraid. Please join me in crossing your fingers, as well as any other digits and organs that are even remotely crossable.
VJ at Oxlea Wood Cafe: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEzrmeQpth4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
