"New York, New York, so good they named it twice!" Posted: Nov 5, 2011
It's great when things work out, and in a way, the longer it takes, the better it is. And trust me: this has been a long time coming!

Two astonishing things have happened.

One is that a company in New York has invited me over sometime next year for a series of concerts of my music, to be performed by New York musicians and singers from the Metropolitan Opera. Singers from the Met!

Wow! Wow! And thrice wow!

The concerts will be of all the songs I wrote for the show "En route to the enormous room" which Bob Robinson & I wrote and which was performed as part of this year's Edinburgh festival, as well as in various venues in Scotland. The songs are all settings of poems by the American poet E.E. Cummings.

It looks like there will be three concerts in Manhattan and one in the Bronx which will be recorded and also broadcast on Bronx Cable. Think of the PRS on that!

Then we go to Kansas and then on to Nevada. (I'm saying "we". US immigration / work regulations being what they are, I'll essentially just be a member of the audience, but there's no way I'm gonna miss this! It's been way too long coming!)

As well as various concerts of new music like these, the company, called "The remarkable theatre brigade" - check out the website - runs a series of performances of new short operas, and I've been asked to write one for next year's season. An opera! Who knows where that will lead!

The second big opportunity is much more home grown but potentially even more exciting!

Some young guys who have just graduated from Abertay University have asked me to write, record & produce the music for the products created by their new computer games company. Which for me is even more perfect than the American concerts: I don't have to go anywhere! I can do the whole thing in the house.

As well as these definite things, Bob Robinson (who wrote the book of the Cummings show) and I are also working on selling the complete show, and we have definite expressions of interest from Connecticut and Los Angeles, so whilst I've always been an Americanophile, I'll happily admit that I'm even more so now.

In fact I'm writing this in Florida on the iPad bought for me at the Apple store on 5th Avenue! God bless America!

It's over! Boo-hoo! Posted: Aug 12, 2011
Well, maybe not quite "boo-hoo", but there's always a sense of loss when a show comes down for the last time, even if we did all go to Ciao Roma for a slap-up meal afterwards. But "En Route to the enormous room" has gone from being an merely idea of Bob Robinson's, aided and abetted by me, to a fully fledged week of gigs in the Jazz Bar, surely one of the coolest venues in Edinburgh all the year round, not just during the festival. And that's a good feeling.

So now it's bit like growing up: now we're out there in the big bad world, hustling for gigs for the show, so any suggestions would be gratefully received.

On a more personal note, it's been really good to make some new friends as we put the cast together. I hope we'll stay friends, and continue to work together, and it was also good to meet up with some old friends and ex pupils who came along to see what the old guys were getting up to. Some of them came twice so they must have enjoyed it!

However, my Edinburgh festival is not yet over.

Tonight (Friday 12th August) I'm back in the Jazz bar (where else?) with stunning jazz singer and jazz harpist(!) Magdalena Reising, and the hugely talented (four star reviewed!) Louis Durra, who has come all the way from Los Angeles for your listening pleasure, at 7.00pm. Come early if you want a seat, our first gig yesterday afternoon was standing room only!

Later on in the festival I'll be back on again, on more familiar ground this time, with HEAD2HEAD, the ultra groovy jazz/rock sextet the Bill Kyle and I have together. (I write all the tunes and he puts the guys together.) As soon as the dates are fixed I'll post the details here and also on the events page, but for now I gotta go get ready (it's the LA influence) for tonight's gig with Magdalena. Then we're off on a Scottish tour. (I'll bet I know who's going to end up carrying the harp!)

And lastly (for now) I've been busy in the studio, and have just finish mixing three short tracks which feature the mellow and melodic soprano saxophone, played by Scottish soprano saxophone supremo Gordon McNeil. Bizarrely, he claims that the soprano is his least favourite of the saxophone family, but that can't be right. I think the way he plays, the lines he creates, and the sound he makes on the instrument is very special, very special indeed! And so do all the folks I've played the tracks to.

They're on the songs page of this website, and they're slightly unusual, three sopranos in close harmony with a fourth one freewheeling over some serious contemporary dance grooves, but I promise you that you'll like them.

And if you do, a wee comment on the guestbook would be a good thing for me to read!

The 3rd night! Posted: Aug 7, 2011
We're now into the 3rd night of the week of shows: "En route to the enormous room" is a great success, the audiences (big audiences!) love it, and it's particularly gratifying that everyone likes the songs I've written. Composing can be quite a solitary business and there are no guarantees of success, so it certainly makes it all worthwhile when the audience is so enthusiastic.

We're in the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, every evening at 7.00pm until Thursday. It would be great to see you there!

Opening night a success! Posted: Aug 6, 2011
We had a great opening night last night (Friday 5th August) for the Cummings show (AKA "En route to the enormous room") at the ultra-cool Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. We're on again this evening at 7.00pm, and at 7.00 pm every evening until Thursday, so it would be great to see you there!

The power of suggestion... Posted: Aug 4, 2011
Here we are at last! The Cummings Show, AKA "En route to the enormous room" opens tomorrow at the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. Full details are on the events page of this website, but the gist of it is be there at 8.30pm tomorrow evening & 7.00pm on all the following evenings. Then I'm there with Polish/ Scottish singer and harp player Magdalena Reising and Los Angeles pianist Luis Durra. Heavy duty company! It's the beginning of a Scottish tour for the trio. Again, it's all on the events page.

But it's a good feeling: the show is rehearsed and we're ready to go!

As well as recording some of the songs from "En route to the enormous room" with soprano (singer) Ailsa Mooney and pianist Anna Orviss, (the tracks will be on the website and the show's Facebook page soon), and continuing to work on the "big" Xmas show, other recent events are recording sessions with Scottish soprano saxophone supremo Gordon McNeil. We're working on some "smooth jazz" tracks I've written specifically for Gordon to record, and I have to say that we're both really pleased with the way things are shaping up. Three sopranos (saxes) in harmony over some pretty cutting edge dance grooves. It sounds even better than it did in my head!

*******************************************************************************************************************************************

So what's with this "power of suggestion" schtick?

It's been a while since I updated this news page, mostly because as well as being busy writing I've been having quite serious trouble with a rotten and impacted wisdom tooth. However, at last the dental specialist has fixed it and it no longer hurts, which is great. Or rather, it didn't hurt until I had a phone call from my dentist this afternoon fixing an appointment for a filling which I didn't know I need. And suddenly it hurts!

A little.

It's all in the mind. Wooh-ooh-ooh-ooh.....

See you in Edinburgh.

"Room" in Edinburgh & on Facebook Posted: Jul 6, 2011
A quick update - Bob Robinson & I have been working to create a Facebook page for our show, "En route to the enormous room", and it's now up and running at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/En-Route-to-the-Enormous-Room/195959170446590

(just copy & paste the link into your browser)

There's all kinds of interesting stuff there; information and background to the show, some pics during rehearsal, live recordings of a couple of the songs "wot I wrote". Everything in fact that you need to persuade you to come and see "En route to the enormous room" at venue 57 - the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. We're on every evening from the 5th August through to the 11th August. More details on the events page of this website.

See you there!

"Room" in Glasgow! Posted: Jun 2, 2011
We had a great day at Hutchesons' School, Glasgow south-side yesterday (1-5-11), performing the updated version of "En route to the enormous room" to an audience of approximately 80 pupils and staff (Including the boss!)

We normally like to be self-contained, but it's good to be able to relate that Rod, the resident sound guy at Hutchesons' was amazingly efficient and extremely helpful: it's great when someone else takes the sound tech/ reinforcement load off my shoulders.

Because whilst in the past we've experimented with performing purely acoustically, and it has worked reasonably well, yesterday was our first go with mikes. We've acquired two vintage style beauties, a gleaming chromium T-Bone for the two actors, Bob & Leo to share, and a Shure55 for our soprano soloist Ailsa. The T-bone obviously makes the actors' job easier by reinforcing their sound, and also by giving them something to focus on and act against. (The conceit is that we're presenting a live broadcast of a radio play.) And the mellow Shure lets Ailsa's pure operatic soprano voice soar effortlessly over the band, which with Ben on drums & myself on bass has been an issue in the past. But no longer!

Our pianist Anna was happy too. It's not every day that the gig has a Bosendorfer Imperial! Move over Steinway, all I want for Xmas is a Bosendorfer!

So, one more tryout to finally fix the script and the keys of the songs, final decisions on costumes, and we're ready for Edinburgh: early evenings from the 5th August to the 11th August at venue 57, the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. Full details are on the events page of this website.

See you in Edinburgh!

... and now, some jazz at last! Posted: May 23, 2011
It's great sorting out all this music theatre stuff, with two new shows on the go, but it'll be a welcome change to be back at the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, with the band: HEAD2HEAD, the jazz/ rock sextet Bill Kyle and I occasionally put together.

We'll be there this coming Friday & Saturday, with a new, as always, stellar lineup of Scotland's finest jazz musicians: Sam Coombes, alto, who has a new album just out (check it out at http://www.myspace.com/coombesmusic1 ), Andy Baker, tenor & soprano, John Woodham, trumpet, and Tam McFootie guitar. And Bill Kyle, drums and myself on Steinberger bass, of course.

As well as playing the bass I write all the music for the band (it's my main reason for doing all this) and as usual there are a few new tunes as well as some that HEAD2HEAD regulars can probably sing along with by now. New titles, with summer in mind on this tempestuous day in late May include "Cool Dude", something I'll never be, and "Costa del Cool".

Sigh!

A third new number is respectfully dedicated to the Italian political system. It's called "Bunga, bunga!"

So that's HEAD2HEAD at the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh at 9.30pm on Friday 27th & Saturday 28th. Full details are on the events page of this website. Come up and say hello!

Politics! Posted: May 8, 2011
Politics doesn't normally come in to this website, but the events in the last couple of days here in Scotland have been too big to ignore.

Whilst hitherto I've been no great advocate of Scottish independence - since the union of the crowns Britain really has performed "mighty deeds" - in common with many Scots I've become more than a little disenchanted with the condescension implicit in the notion that if we're given our own wee talking shop at Holyrood we'll happily squabble amongst ourselves and leave the business of real government to the experts at Westminster.

Who knows how things will turn out in the long run, but for readers overseas who are maybe not quite up to speed on recent events in Scotland, the Scottish National Party has defied the odds by winning an outright majority in the Scottish parliament, thus overcoming the complicated limitations which were cynically built in to the voting system for Holyrood by the then left-wing lead Westminster parliament, which were meant to prevent exactly this turn of events.

Hah!

In my own small way I've joined in the celebrations by posting a remix of "Brollachan" on the songs page of this website. I've stripped out all of the unnecessary stuff and pared the track down to the pipes, drums, and bass. Real pipes and real bass: bagpipe music for the 21st century.

And it doesn't half sound better with Brian Elrick's stylish and evocative pipes unencumbered by all the software generated nonsense.

The track is the top one on the list at http://www.grahamrobb.com/songs

(A brollachan is a misty, ghostly figure, which may or may not exist, only ever encountered by solitary individuals on isolated, desolate hillsides in the heart of the remote highlands.)

More show and jazz news soon.

Isn't it great when a plan works out? Posted: May 1, 2011
Muthill Village Hall - 29/4/11 - 7.30pm - the first public outing for "En route to the enormous room", the new play with music written by Bob Robinson and myself. (Bob writes the words and I write the tunes.)

This was the very first out-of-town try-out, a "rehearsed reading", which went well, and was extremely well received by the 70% audience. So much so that we were offered another gig that night - details to come - which we will happily accept as we're still finalising tiny aspects of the script and music, and some more try-outs will be good. A couple of little tweaks here and there and we will have the finished show ready to go.

There's a couple of other performances in the pipeline before summer and then it's on to the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh - venue 57 - during the first week of the Edinburgh festival. Full details of the Festival gigs are on the events page of this website at http://www.grahamrobb.com/events, as will these other dates once they're finally settled.

Although both Bob and I attempt to affect the cool, laid back professional writer schtick, let's be honest, it's very exciting for us to see our show come off the page, be performed, and, more to the point, to have it enjoyed by a substantial and supportive audience.

And for that we have to thank the performers who are "the company":

Leo Robb: actor
Gillian McIntosh: actor
Bob Robinson: actor

Ailsa Mooney: soprano

Ben Robb: musician
Anna Orviss: musician
GR: musician

What a team!

I've always been confident about the material in the show, and I am now even more optimistic that with the one or two little tweaks I mentioned earlier, judging by the warm audience reception last Friday, this interesting, quirky play with music about the pacifist American poet E.E. Cummings and his adventures as a volunteer ambulance driver during the "Great War", will be a success, and will run for some time. Seriously: it's perfect festival fare!

Bob and I are working on a Facebook page for the show. Until then you can keep up to date on this website, which is http://www.grahamrobb.com, also @grahamrobb100, and on my personal Facebook page.

No real news, but..... Posted: Apr 27, 2011
We've just had the final music rehearsal for "En route to the the enormous room", the new play by Bob Robinson with music by me about the pacifist American poet E.E. Cummings' adventures as an ambulance driver during WW1, which has it's out-of-town premier in the Perthshire village of Muthill on Friday, 29th April (the day of "the" wedding) at 7.30pm.

Maybe adventures is the wrong word, but Bob's tightly structured script makes it abundantly clear that as a young American abroad for the first time, Cummings certainly found 1917 Paris to be an interesting place, gadding around town with the "ladies of the night", attending the first performance of the ballet "Parade" by Erik Satie - at which there was a riot - and generally having a good time!

I have to say a huge thank you to pianist Anna Orviss, drummer Ben Robb (that's my boy!), and freelance Scottish soprano Ailsa Mooney, all of whom have given generously of their time to perfect, and, truth be told, improve my music. It's very exciting for me as a composer to hear the new songs come off the page and actually exist in time, and it's even better to play string bass as part of the whole thing. The songs are settings of E.E. Cummings original poems (with the permission of the publisher, Liveright): I like to think that Cummings would have approved of what I've done with his elegant, subtle, witty and bittersweet words.

We're ready!

PS: As well as coming to see "En route to the enormous room", keep up to date with this show, HEAD2HEAD, gigs with Polish/ Glaswegian jazz singer and harpist (!) Magdalena Reising, and all the other new music things I'm involved in, by following me @grahamrobb100 and on Facebook.

Magdalena Reising at the Jazz Bar: 11th/12th August. Posted: Apr 20, 2011
Regular followers of this website will have noticed that new links to a couple of musicians' websites, Magdalena Reising and Louis Durra, have appeared on the links page at:

http://www.grahamrobb.com/links

With Louis Durra, I've been invited to play bass as part of the trio at the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, (where else!) on the 11th & 12th of August, with singer & harpist Magdalena Reising.

And yes, I said harpist!

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to these gigs.

Although I'm well used to harps in orchestral situations, and I've lost count of the number of times I've worked with Gaelic harpists (harpies?) and clarsach players, this will be the first time I've encountered a harp in a jazz context since Stravinsky's "Ebony Concerto" back when I was in the BBC SSO, and, let's face it, that's not really a jazz piece anyway, it merely kinda swings a bit!

Magdalena is Polish and Glaswegian, and whilst her legions of fans will already know what to expect, I'm looking forward to being part of her very personal fusion of musical styles - Scottish, European, Scandinavian, American jazz.....

Whoo hoo! It'll be fun.

I've put a link to her webpages up on the links page, but here it is again:

http://www.magdalenareising.com

Check it out, and come to hear her at our gigs at the Jazz Bar on 11th & 12th August. You'll love the music!

The other part of the reason I know you're going to love it is the third member of the trio, Los Angeles pianist and composer Louis Durra. With his uniquely elegant compositional and pianistic style, as well as our two gigs, he is performing daily at the Jazz Bar throughout August. Check out his dates and other info at his website website at:

http://www.louisdurra.com

STOP PRESS! He's recently posted a video of his strangely named US trio playing a superb version of Radiohead's "No surprises" at:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi4MQ4hhyQU

Well worth a quick look!

We're actively pursuing some other trio gigs in Scotland during August, and I'll keep you posted about them, but right now I strongly recommend that you put these two Jazz Bar dates in your diary.

Full details of these gigs, and the latest info on "En route to the enormous room", the new show about the pacifist American poet E.E Cummings, (Bob Robinson writes the script, I write the music) are on the events page at:

http://www.grahamrobb.com/events

I'll be regularly tweeting at @grahamrobb100 and updating on Facebook. It would be good to see you at all of these gigs!

PS: Harp & vocals/ Piano/ Bass - No drummer! Help!!

:)

Cummings out of town! Posted: Apr 15, 2011
As well as appearing at the Jazz Bar, Chambers street, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe from the 5th to the 12th of August, now we have some more gigs for "En route to the enormous room", the brand new show for which I've written eight brand new songs,and which is scripted by Bob Robinson. It's about events in the life of the pacifist American poet E.E. Cummings when he was in France during the "Great War".

There are American army songs from the time - "Over there", "Keep your head down, Fritzie boy", Oh Johnny", and many others, and the show also features songs written by me with seven of Cummings' witty, complex, and subtle poems as the lyrics, performed for us by freelance Scottish soprano Ailsa Mooney. 

Well, I say we have more gigs: so far we have one new gig, in the Village Hall, Willoughby Street, in Muthill, just south of Crieff, on Friday 29th April, at 7.30pm. I know that there's a big wedding happening in London on the same day, but that'll be all done and dusted (as far as the general public's concerned) long before the curtain goes up on this new show, called "En route to the enormous room".

And more performances are being negotiated, even as we speak!

And although the tale is set against the backdrop of the first world war, and therefore has its sombre moments, it's by no means an unremittingly sad and depressing show. Bob's script depicts many of the truly hilarious true events which unfolded as Cummings and his fellow pacifist William Brown hung around Paris in 1917 waiting for their ambulance unit to be assembled. They had a good time! Of course it all becomes a bit more sombre when Cummings ends up in a French gaol because he refused to condemn ALL Germans as being evil, but trust me, all's well that ends well.

There's more information about this new play with music about the pacifist American poet E.E. Cummings on the events page of this website.

E.E. Cummings at the Edinburgh Festival Posted: Mar 30, 2011
Bob Robinson and I have been busy! Having finished editing the script and writing the music for the Cummings show, "En route to the enormous room", we now have some gigs. (There's not much point in writing a show otherwise!)

We will be at the Jazz Bar, the coolest music venue in town, during this year's Edinburgh festival. The exact times are on the gigs page of this website, and of course they'll be printed in the huge Fringe programme/magazine, but here they are as well.

We're in the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, with our show, "En route to the enormous room", from Friday 5th August, every night including Sunday 7th, (my birthday!) until Thursday 11th August (inclusive). On Friday 5th we're on at 8.30 pm, whilst for ALL the other nights we're on at 7.00pm. The show lasts for an hour and ticket prices will be "competitive"!

So I hope to see you there.

But what's this "En route to the enormous room" thing all about?

The show is Bob's idea and he's written the script, I merely write the music.

Bob's script focusses on events that took place in the life of the pacifist American poet E.E. Cummings when he was in France during the "Great War", and features settings by me of seven of his witty, complex and subtle poems. By turns very funny or deeply moving, these soliloquies reflect on daily events during this turbulent time; they're performed by Scottish Opera & freelance soprano Ailsa Mooney. 

The new songs are:

"my sweet old etcetera", "next to of course god america i", goodbye Betty, don't remember me", "first Jock he", "I sing of Olaf glad and big", "lis" "along the just existing road to Roupy" from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904-1962, by E.E. Cummings, Edited by George J. Firmage, is used with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Copyright © 1923, 1926, 1931, 1951, 1959, 1973, 1983, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1973, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1985 by George James Firmage

(PS: for those unfamiliar with E.E. Cummings' work, the lack of capitalization and punctuation in the list of titles is deliberate!)

Although the tale is set against the backdrop of the first world war, and therefore has its sombre moments, it's by no means an unremittingly sad or depressing show. Bob's script depicts many of the truly hilarious true events which unfold as Cummings and his fellow pacifist William Brown hang around Paris in 1917 waiting for their ambulance unit to be assembled. As well as frequently being seen around town with a couple of attractive ladies of the night, they're involved in a riot at the ballet! They have a good time! 

Of course it all becomes a bit more sombre in the trenches, and also when Cummings ends up in a French gaol because he refuses to condemn ALL Germans as being evil. However, even though the title refers to Cummings' at times arduous journey, physical and spiritual, from respectable New England to a French concentration camp, all's well that ends well.

We're based in rural Perthshire, just on the very edge of the Scottish Highlands, and we must thank the Warden and his staff at Glenalmond College for allowing us the use of equipment and rehearsal/performance space.

So that's the Fringe of this year's Edinburgh Festival sorted out, but we're definitely also playing some other gigs as well. Watch this space for details.

A title for the Cummings show! Posted: Mar 28, 2011
The Cummings show now has a title, which is surely good news. We can't keep calling it the Cummings show. Apart from anything else I'm not sure whether or not there should be an apostrophe somewhere around the "s" at the end of Cummings. Bearing in mind the recent willingness of you all you help me find typos on www.grahamrobb.com, and also the factual corrections I have received relating to details in my previous post, I'm sure I'll receive reams of helpful advice about that. And for that I offer a sincerely meant thank you. It's good to know that you care, and it good to know that you're actually reading all this in the first place.

So, the news today is that Bob Robinson, whose idea the whole thing is and who wrote the script, has come up with a title. The Cummings show is called:

"En route to the enormous room."

Perhaps a brief explanation would help.

Because of his refusal to formally condemn, in writing, all Germans as being unremittingly evil, the French army threw Cummings into gaol. In fact not just simply into gaol, but into an early form of concentration camp. Who are the bad guys now? You're such a stuffed shirt that you throw a volunteer front-line ambulance man in gaol because he's a pacifist and won't sign a piece of paper? Are you crazy?

He, and many other supposed miscreants, many of whom you will meet in the show, were incarcerated together in one huge room in La Ferte Mace prison in Orne, Normandy, and the title of the show is taken from E.E. Cummings own poems and writings about his journey from New England to the "enormous room". So the title does make sense.

Also, things are moving on the "we must actually perform this show" front. Watch this space!

A new show with poems by E.E. Cummings Posted: Mar 26, 2011
In 1917, the young American poet Edward Estlin Cummings, a pacifist, travelled to France to assist with the war effort by working as an ambulance driver.

As you might expect, he had a bit of a good time in Paris as he waited for his unit to assemble, and he then went on to have quite a few adventures in and around the front line. However, he preferred to fraternise with the French troops, which won him the stern disapproval of his American superior officers, and was eventually thrown into gaol by the French because he refused to sign a document saying that all Germans were bad. And he wrote poems about all of this.

How's that for the plot of a new play with music?

Since early this year, Bob Robinson and I have been writing a brand new show with exactly that story line. Bob writes the script, I write the music, and now it's done, and we're about to perform it here in rural Perthshire. Details will be on the gigs page of this site soon.

Then in August we're taking it to the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, as part of the Edinburgh Festival. These details will soon be on the gigs page of this website too.

E. E. Cummings is a remarkable character, and is rightly considered to be one of America's finest twentieth century poets. In this new show, so new that it is as yet untitled, we see the events unfold, and we experience his reactions to them in the new songs which I've written, with the permission of the publisher, using his extraordinary poems as the lyrics, and which are performed to perfection by Scottish Opera and now freelance soprano Ailsa Mooney.

Obviously any new show which is set against the backdrop of the "Great War", "The war to end all wars", will have some sad bits, but this is not simply a sombre reflection on the evils of mankind and the pity of a destroyed generation. E.E. Cummings' clever, witty, bittersweet poems make sure of that. They're so unlike the much more dark post-Edwardian English poems by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon from the same period of history, they could only have been written by an optimistic young American.

"Make them laugh, make them cry!" With E.E. Cummings' poems you can't help but do both!

The full cast is still to be announced, but the musicians are contralto Ailsa Mooney, pianist Anna Orviss, drummer Ben Robb (yes, my son Ben), and as well as writing the new songs and MD-ing the show, I'll be playing my one hundred and seventy year old Mirecourt string bass.

It's worth mentioning at this point also that the practicalities of preparing and rehearsing this show are being made much easier by the willing assistance of Glenalmond College. Bob and I used to work there, but no longer have any formal connection with the school, so we are very grateful to the Warden, and to the music department, for the generous, unrestricted use of equipment and of their elegant rehearsal/ performance space.

Thank you.

The new songs in this show are:

"my sweet old etcetera", "next to of course god america i", goodbye Betty, don't remember me", "first Jock he", "I sing of Olaf glad and big", "lis" "along the just existing road to Roupy" from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904-1962, by E.E. Cummings, Edited by George J. Firmage, is used with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Copyright © 1923, 1926, 1931, 1951, 1959, 1973, 1983, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1973, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1985 by George James Firmage

(PS: for those unfamiliar with E.E. Cummings' work, the lack of capitalization and punctuation in the list of titles is deliberate!)

I'm still working on the big Xmas show, but this one's finished now, and is about to be performed now! Check back in a couple days for the definitive dates. They'll be on the gigs page of this website.

Good news & bad! Posted: Feb 25, 2011
First of all, the competition to spot the typos on this website has come up with dozens of the damned things.

Thanks - I think. It's great to discover where they are so I can correct them, but a bit embarrassing too as I hadn't noticed them, even thought I'd thought I'd gone through everything quite carefully!

The winner is Adrian Bornet, the principal double-bass player with the SCO. He must have been surfing when I posted the competition, because his reply came in almost by return. One or two others were also pretty quick - Iain Flett for one, and there's a special mention for Alison Haylock, who found lots and lots and lots of my mistakes! (I think she's used to marking A level and GCSE English papers, which is arguably cheating!)

However, the competition was really just a ruse to get you all to read about the HEAD2HEAD gigs at the Jazz Bar on the 18th & 19th, and it must have worked because the place was packed both nights, and the news, which is definitely good, is that we had a stunning couple of gigs. I'm used to working with good musicians who sight read fluently and get into the feel of the music quickly, but even I am in awe of the professionalism and musicianship that was evident in the band on these gigs. (As you probably realise, HEAD2HEAD doesn't really exist. Essentially it's a combination of my music and Bill Kyle's phone book.)

As well as Bill & myself on drums & bass the band was :

Cameron Jay - trumpet
Sam Coombes - alto
Doug Tiplady - tenor & soprano
Tam McFootie - guitar

I recorded audio on both nights, and I'll post some of the tracks on the songs page here at www.grahamrobb.com ASAP. We also recorded video on both nights too, with a multiple camera setup, and that'll be posted soon too, I hope. I say "I hope". The editing might be delayed as my son Leo, who shot the footage and who is going to do the editing, has just landed a five week gig working on a feature film, and that kinda takes precedence.





A competition! Prizes! Posted: Feb 17, 2011
Well, a prize.

Leo, my beloved younger son, (!) has left a note on my guest page to tell me that there's a typo somewhere on this website. (Never mind that his grammar is dodgy and he can't spell "typo", after all he's only an MLitt!)

However, I'm damned if I can find it, and I'm too lazy to look any harder, so here's a competition. There's a prize for the first person to email me to tell me where this typo is, or you can come and tell me at the Jazz Bar gigs this weekend.

If you're the first to tell me you'll get a free drink as well as the prize!

Obviously my Leo or any of his friends are not eligible.

The closing date is midnight on Monday 18th February UK time.

"Maybe this time!" Posted: Feb 16, 2011
Weather permitting - it's raining now, not snowing, thank heavens - at 9.30pm on Friday and Saturday the 18th & 19th of February I'll be playing my trusty Steinberger bass at the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, with HEAD2HEAD, the amazing jazz/ funk sextet that I run with drummer and old friend Bill Kyle.

The other musicians will be:

Doug Tiplady - tenor & soprano
Sam Coombes - alto
Cameron Jay - trumpet
Tam McFootie - guitar

It's going to be a great delight for me to work with these guys and I know you'll really dig their musicianship too!

As always, we'll be playing exclusively my compositions, mostly instrumental versions of songs I've written for various shows. Some are established favourites, some are brand new! One of them was only completed yesterday, Tuesday the 15th, so if you're a fan of new music, c'mon down and hear the band, this stuff is about as new as it gets!

(The "Maybe this time" quote refers to the H2H gig I didn't manage to get to in December 'cos the M90 and the A9 were snowed in. Bitter experience over the years has taught me that if the motorways are blocked with snow, don't even think about taking the back roads! So I threw another log on the fire and opened the Laphraoig. What else could I do? I was thinking of you all!)

Other than that I've been busy, busy, busy - writing and recording the songs for "Eternal Xmas", which is at last approaching completion, and also, for a change, writing some short songs for a new show about events in the life of the grammatically challenged American poet e.e. cummings, creating settings of the poet's original work in a very different style from the in-yer-face rock numbers for "Eternal Xmas". It's made a necessary and welcome change of pace for me for a week or two.

Weather Report! Posted: Dec 8, 2010
.. a great band; Joe Zawinul is sorely missed.

But thats's not the kind of weather I'm going to write about.

I'm actually going to write - no, actually I'm going to moan, bitch & complain - about the travelling conditions we're experiencing in Scotland right now! And the fact that every year it seems to take us by surprise that we get snow in November.

Why am I moaning about this? There's no point at railing against the weather, surely!

The thing is this. Despite making all my usual preparations, sharing in buying some salt & grit with the neighbours, and powering up the wee Renault with its front wheel drive and snow tyres, (the Beemers are hopeless in the snow) the roads have been so bad that I've had to cancel two of my own gigs. The rest of HEAD2HEAD strutted their stuff in the Jazz Bar again last Friday & Saturday** while I'm STILL stuck here in the beautiful, peaceful, snowed-in Scottish highlands because all of the councils between here and Edinburgh were taken by surprise by some snow, in November, for f**k's sake, and only an idiot would venture out on the barely treated roads.

And an orchestral gig in Perth last Sunday was cancelled too!

I can't afford this!

And I'm just a bass player in the sticks losing a couple of hundred quid last weekend. What about the bigger picture?

There have been various huge sums - millions, billions - quoted in the papers* and on the Beeb, purporting to be how much money drops out of the economy nationwide for every day that folk can't get to their work, all because we're not organised for some snow.

And never mind the cold, hard cash. Think of all the effort that went into preparing for the Perth concert that was cancelled. The choir practised for months. The children's choir practised for months. The hall was booked, and has to be paid for. The music was hired, and has to be paid for. And don't forget the audience, who suddenly had no concert when they'd been anticipating it for months. A disaster all round!

But ah, I hear you say, but what if we buy a whole lot of new kit, snowploughs and blowers, and then one year the snow doesn't come, wouldn't that be a waste of money? Try telling that to the folks stuck on the M8, the M9, the M90, the M876, the A80, this week! I'm not talking about the usual Cockbridge to Tomintoul situation, or the roads off the whisky trail and around Glenshee. We're used to them grinding to a halt. This week it's Scotland's main motorway network that's been allowed to descend in to chaos.

Surely, even if we trebled the number of snow ploughs and snowblowers, and had their drivers on standby for weeks at a time, that would cost a whole lot less than the money the country's losing each day at the moment, to say nothing of the inconvenience and danger of the whole thing. And the guys would love the overtime!

But, I hear you say, the experts and the politicians tell us that the planet is heating up, and it's our fault. We've been told that snow will become an interesting curio from our history that our grandkids won't believe when we tell them about it. What about Gobal Warming?

Global b******s!

The "experts" are having to alter, hide, or destroy the evidence that doesn't back up the theories they've built their careers - and departmental grants - on. They've backtracked on their unsubstantiated claims about sea level rises and the glaciers melting, we're still waiting for 2010's barbecue summer, and just in case you've forgotten, in October they promised us a mild winter this year. You have to wonder if these guys are on the same planet as the rest of us. I recently read an official statement that last winter was a "mild one in the northern hemisphere". That's simply not true. I distinctly remember week after week of news reports of blizzards and people freezing to death in North America, in Europe, in Russia, in Ukraine, in Romania, and in the Far East. Do they think we're idiots?

And on a more domestic note, damned right it was cold; we had a burst pipe for the first time EVER in this house, and we've been here for over thirty years.

Mind you, it was probably pleasantly warm in Dubai, and that's in the northern hemisphere. (So's Singapore, but only just.)

And energy costs for homes and industry are going through the roof. Not because of market forces, not because Scotland's oil is running out, it isn't, but because, at a time when we're struggling to recover from a period of great financial meltdown and disaster, the great-and-the-good have committed us in this country to subsidising renewable energy sources to the tune of eighteen billion pounds sterling a year for the next forty years - £18,000,000,000 every year for 40 years - and they're finding the cash by inflating the gas and electricity bills we pay. All to fart around with tidal power & photovoltaics, and to build some wind-farms, which are the most inefficient and expensive way of NOT producing power when we need it I can imagine. There's a new one going up a few miles from here. For the last few weeks it's been bitterly cold, and we've been buried under tons of snow, but there has been NO WIND. If we'd been dependent on these damned fans the lights would have gone out weeks ago.

Tell you what, lets scrap the met office, the IPCC, and the climate research unit at UEA, and spend the money on some proper power stations and some snow blowers instead. We're gonna need them!



My, that feels better!

MUSIC!

However, the good news for me is that I've been stuck in the house writing and recording, which is great, 'cos that's what I want to do anyway. I've been writing some new bits & pieces, and I've remixed a couple of old tracks, "Le Frelon", which features Alison Gordon's astonishing violin playing, and "Step Back", in which Gordon McNeill's mellow soprano takes the lead wonderfully. I know that sounds over the top, but seriously, the tracks are hugely improved by my making sure that their playing, and that of Phill Mellstrom, who was the guitarist on both tracks, is clear in the mix, with just a touch of reverb. I'm definitely getting better at this! I've posted the remixes on the songs page. Have a listen and see if you agree with me that I'm improving.

Right, back to "Eternal Xmas", which is beginning to feel particularly appropriate, considering the weather.



*By which I mean the papers' websites. The postie hasn't made it up to my place for over a week, never mind the papers!
** Head2Head will be back in the Jazz Bar in February, hopefully with me this time.

HEAD2HEAD! Posted: Nov 18, 2010
I've been a boring fellow for weeks - just writing, writing, writing - (it's about time I did some selling, selling, selling, - but all in good time I tell myself.)

The latest show "Eternal Xmas", is almost finished, I think. Well, the writing is anyway. We're still in the depths of the recording and mixing, and my poor wee MacBook Pro is maxed out almost all of the time. Time for a MacPro I think..... 12 cores and oceans of ram.....mmmmm! LOL

Anyway, enough tech nonsense, I'm actually going to get out and about at the beginning of December....

It'll be time to blow the dust off my trusty Steinberger bass on the 3rd and 4th of December to play instrumental versions of some of the new tunes from the show, and some old favourites, with my and Bill Kyle's sextet, "HEAD2HEAD", at the Jazz Bar, 1A, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, which is the coolest music venue around!

It'll be even more cool to see Bill and the guys again, and to just play the bass, to simply play the stuff instead of endlessly programming it in Sibelius and Logic - and it would be good to see you there too!

...... 9.00pm on the 3rd & 4th December at the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh - there's full details on the events page.

God Bless America! Posted: Sep 26, 2010
It's been a while - three months, which is way too long, I know - since I last updated this news page, and I regret the long silence, but I really do have the best of excuses.

Work, work, work!

For weeks now I've had my nose pressed hard to the proverbial creative grindstone writing the final versions of what I certainly consider to be some great new songs. (Hey! If I don't like them, who will?) And, because, as my wife constantly reminds me, I'm quite unable to multi-task, one creative activity at a time is all I can handle. So the songs came first and updating this news page came second-ish.

Of course, the delay is nothing to do with having been in France, the land of fine food and even finer wines, for over a month.

Well, actually, it isn't, because whilst over here I certainly have sampled my share of the fine food and wines, I really have been focussed completely on the real reason I quit full time education, which is writing cool new music. (As I said, if I don't like what I write.......)

You get the picture. Although I don't turn down any playing & MD-ing gigs, if only to get out of the studio.

And the catalyst for all this solitary industry? Two incredible, stylish and helpful singers in Los Angeles, Gabrielle Wagner and Joshua Finkel. You'll find pics of these two outstanding performers on the pics page, and links to their respective websites on the links page. Read all about them on their sites, but briefly, Joshua is an extremely experienced stage and TV actor (you've seen him in "Desperate Housewives") who also runs a very successful stage school in LA, and Gabi is deeply involved in the west coast stage, TV, and recording session scene.

And the great news for me is that they have the right sound, the style, and the attitude, and they are the artistes recording the vocals for the demo tracks of the songs I'm currently writing. How cool is that?

So God Bless America, and American singers. Perfect for my stuff!

remix & a moan! Posted: Jun 28, 2010
I've just spent a hard week re-mixing a track which I thought I'd finished months ago. It's the fifth track on the songs page here at www.grahamrobb.com, called "Brollachan", and it features my old friend Brian Elrick's stylish bagpipe playing, multi-tracked four or five times.

A few weeks ago I played it to another friend, also a piper, and whilst he seemed to enjoy it very much, I thought it was a bit boring, mostly because the various pipe melodies were somewhat submerged by each other, and by the end it was just a bit of a confused jumble.

So, I thought, a quick re-mix would only take a couple of hours. Hah!

A week later, even the dog flees when she hears these damned pipes, but despite protests from everyone here, I've persevered, and I've just posted the new version - and I think it's a lot better. The pipes are much more up front, and the whole thing grooves more than it did previously, largely because the detail of Brian's playing is clearer. And I've played around with the gates on the rhythm textures, added a bass guitar, and I even fired up the slave PC and used some Vienna Symphonic Library sounds, the Bosendorfer piano, soprano saxophone, and some strings.

The bass punches the thing along, the sax beefs up a couple of the melodies, and the piano does what pianos do in a texture.

So far so good.

But the reason it took me a week to finish this essentially pretty straight ahead track was the b****y strings.

Now, whilst I am quite proud of some of the things I've done over the years, I'm not boasting, I'm just relating history here, when I say that back in the day I was a good orchestral string player. I was a member of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for most of the seventies, and at that time and subsequently, I've played in all the orchestras in Scotland. I was the principal double-bass player in the City of Glasgow Philharmonic for all of its existence and even played "Phantom" for a year. So I know what strings do. I know how punchy and rhythmic and downright groovy a good string section can sound when the music is right!

So I'm going to write to the Vienna Symphonic guys to complain about their string samples!

I've got used to the idea that cheap string sounds, sampled and synthesised, depend to a large extent on a slow attack to create their string-like impression. That's why I haven't used string sounds much in the past, the "attack" part of the ADSR envelope (the shape of the sound of each note) is always slow, so that the synthesised "strings" sound gentle and romantic - ahh! - but the effect can easily be that the strings just sound late against a rhythm section.

One of the reasons I spent the huge amount of money to buy the VSL was the assumption that these arco strings would be different.

They're not.

Even using pizzicato bassi I've had to move the string lines 20 or 30 milliseconds early, and the arco sounds, even the fortepiano and sforzando ones, sound late unless they are triggered very early - 50 milliseconds or so. It works but it's messy. And yes, before you ask, the piano and saxophone are fine, so there isn't a problem with the setup, it's just that the strings sound late because the attack on each note is lazy.

But everything else about the VSL is great. I've got used to re-mapping so as to use MIDI controller 11 as a volume control, and the system is very receptive to the tiny programmed pitch changes on individual soprano saxophone notes which are necessary when it plays in unison with the bagpipes.

End of moan! I hope you like the remixed track - "Brollochan"

Vienna Symphonic Library (again!) and other things. Posted: Jun 1, 2010
Once again I have to apologise because it's over two months since I updated this news page, but I do have a good excuse. I have been REALLY working, and the "master plan" (quitting full time paid work and just getting on with the real business of writing music) is beginning to come together.

Starting with the most recent things and working backwards, I note that it's over a year since I bought, at huge expense, the Vienna Symphonic Library. Studio-type musos will already know what I'm talking about, but just in case you're in the dark, the VSL is a huge, HUGE library of orchestral samples (and the attendant software to play them) specially recorded by many of the stunning symphony musicians who are the backbone of the music industry in Vienna. The whole thing resides on a slave PC and comes up via LAN as a plug-in on my Mac - in Logic! The quality and range of these sounds is simply astonishing! Add a bit of sampled reverb and wow!!

So I'm really pleased to have at last made time to sit down and start to use it, and, after a VERY steep learning curve over the past four weeks, I've created a new piece and learned how to use the software. Or rather, I've learned how NOT to use the software. I started this little piece, "grazioso", for chamber strings and harp, which is a kind of homage to Ennio Morricone, three times, using different methods each time. And as I finished the thing late last night I realised that there is yet another, better way of doing things, but I'll save them for the next piece. I simply don't have the energy to start this one all over again.

"Grazioso" lasts less than a minute and a half and is on the songs page of this site.

So the VSL software is really great , but the lack of a proper printed manual is crippling.

I would have said that the VSL guys should take a leaf out of the Apple guys' book, but they've stopped including a proper manual with the latest version of Logic, and Sibelius decided to make their manual an expensive optional extra years ago. Honestly, what's an overwrought, harassed composer supposed to do? Oh for the time when the current manual was open at the relevant page as I found my way around Logic back in the days of C-Lab and eMagic.

Just for a bit of silliness I made my recording debut as something other than a bass player. I recorded a version of one of the songs from "Eternal Xmas" with me whistling the tune! There's no lyrics, just me whistling. You'd be surprised how hard that can be, especially in the double tracking bits. The short track, approximately two ands a half minutes, took all day to record and mix. But it was fun, a bit of light relief from the seriously heavy writing I've been doing on other parts of the show - not heavy music, I hasten to add, but just one hell of a lot of it. The show won't write itself!

By the way, that track's called "Whistling Jack", and it's on the songs page of this site too.

Other than that, apart from the writing, I've had long phone calls sorting out lyrics for "Eternal Xmas", a meeting with Bob Robinson about an idea for another show, and also a meeting with an animator in Dundee about a really "left field" idea we're developing. All a bit hush hush at the moment, but watch this space.

Oh, and there's also a series of concerts I've been asked to organise to mark Richard Demarco's birthday later this year.

Busy, busy!

I shouldn't be doing this! Posted: Mar 25, 2010
I shouldn't be writing this news item. Instead, I should be hard at it, knocking out more tunes for "Eternal Xmas", the show I've been living with, on and off, for the last couple of years. But hey, we creative types need a break from time to time!

Not that I have any right to complain about lack of time off.

I'm just back from five weeks in New Zealand, which was the last bit of the "gap six months" I decided to allow myself when I quit my job to become a full-time tunesmith. (I can't afford a full "gap year", and anyway I'd get bored, but it's been great - Romania, France, some bits of Scotland, Florida, New Zealand - and I missed some of the bad winter, although while i was away the water pipe to the washing machine froze and the resultant leak had to be dealt with by eldest son Ben, who unfortunately crashed his Beemer on the ice at Dunblane when he was on the way up from Glasgow to take charge of the situation. He's OK, by the way, and we're getting his car back today!)

So, selfishly, I'm glad I was down-under when all this was going on, but music is the thing, and as well as the globe-trotting, I have actually done some work too; there's one new song on the songs page, "Kindness/ Greed", which is the opening number of the new show, recorded here at Robb Towers and sung by Jill Davidson. There's twenty four (24!) tracks of her singing and one (1) of me whistling (yes, whistling) four bars of music. Guess which artiste took more time and needed more re-takes!

The next track from the show will be recorded next week, and I've booked a session whistler in the shape of Seumas Begg to sing this one. Life's too short to put up with my own vocal shortcomings; in future I think I'll stick to programming the stuff and (maybe) playing the bass. And then Jill will be back to sing the next couple of numbers, including a duet with Seumas, as soon as possible. Only another ten songs to go after that lot!

And then I can get on with some other things - two new ideas for shows (secret-ish for now), new stuff for HEAD2HEAD, getting to grips with the Vienna Symphonic Library sample library and software, which cost a fortune, the least of which was the slave computer to run it on, and generally building up the library of new instrumental & vocal compositions so there are tracks ready to pull off the shelf as required.

Well, that's the plan. A lot to do before going to France for September.

Kids today! Posted: Nov 23, 2009
A quick note (it's 3.00 am, for God's sake, and I'm still buzzing) about a kid's band, called "Jazz Juvenocracy" that I just heard for the first time, playing standards in the excellent "Irish Rover" pub in Sarasota. They're a great sextet, apparently lead by the trumpet player, a girl who looks as though she's about ten years old (she IS a little older than that, but not much!) and features two young guys on saxophones, flute, and a MIDI wind controller (the Yamaha WX5 I think), all more than ably supported by an AMAZING young rhythm section.

And I'm not the only person to rate them highly - they've been accepted, out of six thousand applicants, to play at next years Montreux Jazz Festival in early July. I'll be very tempted to fly over from Scotland to Lake Geneva to hear them - and to catch some of the other jazz heavyweights who will also be playing. The list of performers for next year's festival has still to be announced, but these Sarasota kids will be in good company; in previous years performers at Montreux have included Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, B. B. King........ you get the picture!

Well done to Rodney, Brent, and all you others, and your teachers; have a good time in Switzerland and thanks for a positive and inspirational evening!

....oh, I've been on a cruise to the Bahamas and writing some new stuff, as usual. I'll post some recordings from the gigs with Verona and Alex soon, as soon as the volatile mixture of the cruise cocktails and the "Irish Rover's" Guinness wears off!

Hard at work! Posted: Nov 7, 2009
Really? Really!

OK, I know I'm sitting on the deck at the back of the house in a leafy condo by the Gulf of Mexico, and my biggest problem is having to move the laptop from time time to time because the bright Florida sun is too much for it, but I'm hard at work too.

And there's plenty to do.

Last weekend, while I was still in cold, wet Scotland, playing some gigs with London chanteuse Verona Chard, her ace pianist, Alex Stanford, kindly recorded some seriously groovy electric piano tracks for me for an instrumental version of one of the settings of Shakespeare sonnets I wrote for Verona. I'm just editing them down to prepare for the soprano saxophone melody & jazz which will be recorded when I'm back home in December, and very cool they are too. In fact, each recorded track is so good it's difficult to know which to keep and which to mute. (Just mute, I never throw anything away' cos you never know when it might be useful, and anyway, it would seem rude to throw away recordings of such fine piano playing!) Still, some tough choices to be made though; apart from anything else, Alex recorded some good things in the jazz section I'd originally earmarked for the soprano.

No such problem with the other new track I've been working on recently, a new funky bagpipe track called "Brollachan" recorded for me by virtuoso player Brian Elrick, and which I found time to post on the songs page of this website just before I flew out to the States. No problems with choosing tracks for this recording because after we'd sorted out the sound during the session, Brian just played the tracks the way they wanted to go. The whole thing was nailed in about an hour! And it's got me thinking - it would be good to play some of this rock 'n roll bagpipe stuff live. Maybe it's time to put a new band together as well as HEAD2HEAD?

So, a few more weeks of very welcome sunshine, then back to earth with a bump! I'll be back to dark, rainy Scotland, when I simply MUST sit down and get to grips with the Vienna Symphonic Library. I bought it months ago, and it cost thousands, but what with trips to Europe, the States, and getting on with writing (& re-writing) the songs for Eternal Xmas, I haven't even booted it up since sometime in August. Still, I suppose having too much to do is a good problem.

But first there's a four day cruise to the Bahamas and Key West. It's a hard life!

How time flies..... Posted: Oct 11, 2009
It's suddenly over a month since I last added some news - not the way ahead at all!

But my excuse is busy-ness, and settling down to my new lifestyle since quitting Glenalmond College. All the little darlings will simply have to get on without me - and the pupils will have to survive as well! (corny joke - sorry)

As I recently write wrote to one of my ex-pupils (a singer who's having to take a year out from the main business 'cos she's got the dreaded nodules), its' amazing how much I can get done writing-wise when I only have my own compositions to worry about.

So what have I been up to? Writing the last few songs for this long-awaited show "Eternal Xmas", that's what. Actually, to be strictly accurate, the writing of the songs doesn't take so very long, although, of course, I put my heart and soul, my LIFE into every note. It's preparing the demo and backing tracks that really pushes the time-frame. Oh for the old tin-pan-alley days of hawking the the stuff round the publishers by simply going round the doors, singing and playing piano. (Way before my time, of course!)

But thank you God for Logic Studio and Sibelius - both seriously cool software packages that make it possible for me to travel the world with the laptop and a wee keyboard (which caused no end of comment at Schipol) and write the stuff wherever I find myself. Well, not actually on the aeroplane, but you get the idea. I spent a really productive two weeks in Busteni, an out-of season ski-ing resort in Romania (think Auchterarder without the night-life!) where there was really nothing else to do but sit by the balcony with the door open, and write four (yes 4!) new numbers in about ten days. Mind you, the headphone-created mixes needed some attention when I got back home. I blame the palinka, a legally home-made triple-distilled plum brandy that freezes the front of your face and which you could use to de-coke diesels. The generosity of all the Romanians I met is unparalleled!

Back to business; the grind of completing "Eternal Xmas" continues, but I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel! Whew!

What else is new?

A recording very soon with virtuoso piper Brian Elrick - he's recording the melody for my latest "funky teuchter" pipe tune playing highland pipes, and I have a few jazz gigs at the end of this month (October), playing bass & bass guitar with Verona Chard, the brilliant and lovely singer who came up from London for the Edinburgh Festival with her pianist, the equally gifted and equally lovely Alex Stanford, both of whom are coming up to perform in my home village of Birnam and in the Jazz Bar, Edinburgh, (full details soon on the gigs page of this website).

And then I'm off to Florida (with the inevitable travelling studio kit) to start on the next big project. (Surely I'll have finished "Eternal Xmas" before November! Pu-leese!) I'm in the States for a month, and whilst I'm there I'll be finishing off some choral arrangements, and writing some new jazz numbers for HEAD2HEAD, but the big task will be to start on the new show I'm planning with Bob Robinson, who directed "Lush Life" for the Edinburgh fringe, a show about a genuine "Boys' Own Paper" Victorian hero who was one of the first pupils at Glenalmond College when it first opened round about 1850.

Lot's going on, and I'd better get on with it!

PS. For the geographically challenged, Auchterarder is a ribbon-development village that used to be on the road between Glasgow & Perth. It's close to Gleneagles, but doesn't really share much of the limelight!

Edinburgh Festival report Posted: Aug 30, 2009
What a great Edinburgh festival!

I met, and worked with, a host of new musicians and also some old friends.

It started for me when I met Verona Chard for the first time and we played for about two and a half hours every afternoon for a week in the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street. Verona is a wonderful jazz singer who brings a new light to some great standards and who also very kindly performed three of my songs; settings of three Shakespeare sonnets. It was also good to meet and work with her pianist, Alex Stanford, who came up from London specially for the week, and who is one of the best jazz pianists I've worked with. With my old friend Bill Kyle playing drums it made for a very happy and hugely enjoyable week. And it looks as though we may repeat the whole thing again in November.

Then there were some gigs, also in the Jazz Bar, with my own band, HEAD2HEAD, and once again there was a mixture of faces old and new. As ever, Bill played drums, and other familiar faces were Mike Nisbet on guitar and Allan Wylie on trumpet. Musicians new to me were Leah Gough-Cooper playing alto and Brian Molley playing tenor. Fantastic jazz improvisors all, they also mastered my not always dead easy charts in one forty-minute rehearsal! A live recording of this band playing "Putting it together" is on the songs page. Enjoy!

Whilst all of the above was going on I was also rehearsing the Glenalmond College production of "Lush Life" by Paul Sirett. Directed by Bob Robinson, it's an enjoyably dark play with a twist, and it features sixteen of Ella Fitzgerald's greatest hits, which were performed superbly, with great style and maturity, every night for a week by the frighteningly young cast, once again in the Jazz Bar.

But the Festival is over once again and it all suddenly seems very quiet now! Still, it's good to not have to drive up and down the M90 every day!

Oh well, back to writing the last couple of tunes for "Eternal Xmas".

Festival gigs - update Posted: Aug 18, 2009
Yesterday (it's Tuesday 18th today) was the first day of the Edinburgh fringe for me this year.

Verona and I met for the first time on the stairs down to the Jazz Bar and no, we didn't burst into "Che Gelida Manina", instead we were straight into a real baptism of fire. For various reasons we had to do the first three numbers as a duo - yes - double bass and voice only. "Summertime", "Misty", and a third song the title of which I can't remember for the life of me, were given the pared-down minimalist treatment. It was scary but great to do!

We're on again this afternoon, and every other day this week at 2.00pm, with (hopefully) the whole quartet, but I'm going to suggest that we keep at least a couple of the bass & voice duets in the show. It's really fab to work with a good singer especially - plug, plug - when she's singing three of my settings of Shakespeare sonnets!

Thank you, Verona.

(That's in the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street.)

Then on to an amazing rehearsal for the late evening HEAD2HEAD spot.

Let me explain.

For the last few years HEAD2HEAD has really consisted of Bill Kyle (drums) & myself playing bass guitar, the pad (that's the pile of music scores for all you squares), and Bill's compendious knowledge of the phone numbers of every musician in Scotland and much of the rest of the known universe. He knows everybody! So more often than not HEAD2HEAD meets for the first time for a three hour rehearsal on the afternoon of the first gig.

'Cos it's Festival time we could only find a one hour rehearsal spot.

Hats off to the musicians folks!

Alan Wylie (trumpet) and Mike Nisbet (guitar) have done the gig a couple of times, but Leah Gough-Cooper (alto) and Brian Molley (tenor) were seeing the charts for the first time. Nonetheless, we nailed THE WHOLE THING in about 40 minutes.

Incredible professionalism!

And last night's gig was brilliant.

Catch us again tonight (HEAD2HEAD's only other Festival gig this year) at 11.00pm. It'll be loud and brash. You'll like it!

In the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street - tonite!

WHEW! Posted: Jun 30, 2009
I've just updated the gigs page - it's taken me about an hour 'cos I'm gonna be busy in this year's Edinburgh Festival. (Which, as I've just quit a good full-time job in order to devote ALL my time to writing and some gigging around again, is just as well!)

It all happens during the last two weeks of August, and whilst the full details are on the events page, the executive summary is that in the week beginning 17th August I'm on every afternoon, playing bass in the trio with London chanteuse Verona Chard, during some of the evenings HEAD2HEAD (my own six-piece jazz/ rock band, just in case you've missed that bit somehow!) are playing at 9.30, and every evening of the following week (W/C 24th), at 7.30 I'm MD-ing a brilliant production of Paul Sirett's musical "Lush Life", which features sixteen of Ella Fitzgerald's greatest hits, performed by the girls of Glenalmond College.

So, be there or be square! (How corny can you get?)

A very warm, sunny day in downtown Bucuresti Posted: May 24, 2009
... or Bucharest as it's known to us decadent westerners.

Here for a week 'cos the College has a half term break, mostly on holiday, but also checking out the VIBRANT live music scene here in Romania. People I've talked to like the band (HEAD2HEAD) and the music on this website, so maybe an H2H tour of eastern Europe is on the cards.

This is certainly and interesting town, full of contradictions, as you might expect of a country that's been under various kinds of crazy, despotic ruler for years - until quite recently -and is only now beginning to enjoy the fruits of corrupt capitalism! (it's a change from corrupt communism or the simple craziness of the Ceausescu era!) But the packs of wild dogs fighting in the street at night are pretty wearing; and if you ever drive here, make sure you have a Chelsea tractor; the roads are hellish! My SLK would lose its exhaust in minutes!

However, all the local Romanians I have talked to, from tour guides to folk in the street we've asked for directions, are charming, helpful, and delighted to talk English, a skill at which they display an alarming and embarrassing fluency. It's a compulsory subject at all schools apparently, whilst my knowledge of Romanian is zero I'm afraid.

On a more conventional "music bizniz" note - thanks everyone for keeping my music high in the Broadjam charts for so long. I'm still No. 4 on the Classic Jazz chart, and at the top of the New Age and Classical charts. Think where I'll be once I have time to settle down to mastering the Vienna Symphonic Library I bought about a month ago and have barely had time to even glance at ever since!

There'll be more about the VSL over the following months, although I'm almost beginning to feel guilty about buying it. I've been playing bass again on a couple of "classical" dates and really do believe in the old UK MU slogan "Keep Music Live!"

But hey! I'll use live musos on all my movie music recordings once they start to come in, I promise!

Until then, it's time to explore the amazing open air restaurants again. It's a tough gig, but somebody has to do it!

Vienna Symphonic Library Posted: Apr 23, 2009
Well, I've done it at last!

After a great deal of thought, I've bitten the bullet and bought the VSL Super Package, and, no surprise, it's been quite a learning curve so far.

And I haven't even tried using it yet.

For interested geeks, let me explain.

My studio/ composing set-up is Logic 8/ Sibelius 5 running on a totally spec'd-up MacBook Pro with my trusty old MOTU 896 sound card. Firewire rules OK!

With the Soundcraft desk, good near-fields, and the Bose cans, it's a cool working environment.

A couple of years ago I had a good and patient friend, Walter MacAulay, make me a high-powered PC as a slave to run GigaStudio, but what with one thing and another I never properly got to grips with it, and so until now it's hardly been used. A few weeks ago, Walter spec'd it up for me to take the VSL - maxed the RAM and put in two one terabit drives and a second ethernet card! He even made me the ethernet cable to connect the Mac to the PC, master to slave!

Ready to rock!

I wish!

The first task is to set up Remote Desktop on the Mac so as to save space & clutter by having only one monitor & mouse; I'd never heard of crossover cables (I'm a bass player really. You have to make allowances!)

Once that little problem was identified it still took us the best part of a day to get the two computers talking to each other - why, oh why don't I have two Macs!

However, as of now the system is up and running, my own little network. I'm so proud! (But I still need the other monitor to power down the PC - Remote Desktop offers "log out" or "disconnect" but not "switch off"! Seriously, if you have any suggestions please email me here at: mail@grahamrobb.com. I need your help!)

Then I spent an evening registering the library, each instrument separately - type in the code, send it to Vienna, get the activation code back, paste it in, register the instrument with VSL, copy the code into the Syncrosoft Licence dongle...

Fun times!

And now I'm loading the instruments. In the time it's taken me to write this it's loaded one DVD, only about another eighty to go....

Will I live long enough to learn how to use this stuff? It really is going to take weeks to load this lot up.

Oh well, twenty-six Microsoft minutes to go and I can put in the third disk of this collection.

Will I ever write a note of music again? Should I dump all this technology and get out the old manuscript pad, a pencil, and a rubber? Actually, I use them all the time anyway, but, "help ma boab!", this is taking a while.

But it will be cool to have Logic and Sibelius driving the VSL when it's all up and running, but it will be cool to have Logic and Sibelius driving the VSL when it's all up and running, but it will be cool to have Logic and Sibelius driving the VSL when it's all up and running......

Mad Wifie's - BROLLACHAN Posted: Mar 28, 2009
At last I've had time to compliment Brian Elrick's great bagpipes by adding 12-string, bass, and drums to "Mad Wifie's". The band is called BROLLACHAN

I've only just posted the track to my songs page, so it will appear there shortly. Immodest, I know, but I think it sounds great! (If I don't like it then I really am in trouble!)

I wonder if Brian would like to join the band - without him there will be no band called BROLLACHAN

Jazz/ funk and pipes? Why not!

BROLLACHAN!

Lush Life! Posted: Mar 7, 2009
It seems ages since I posted any news - blame my day job at Glenalmond College - there's just been too much to do, trying to drag the final effort out of some absurdly recalcitrant students before their exams!

But never mind, I quit in July!

But some aspects of the job have recently been excellent, none more so than the show we're touring, "Lush Life", which features sixteen of Ella Fitzgerald's greatest hits, and which we put on at Balgonie Castle in Fife last weekend. The show went well and the venue was (is?) wonderfully wierd - a candle-lit upstairs room called the Great Hall which holds about sixty or seventy people. It was packed!

And we raised a grand for a school which is being built out in the bush in Africa, so that feels good too.

We have another couple of gigs in the Perthshire area before we take the show to the Edinburgh Festival in August, where we'll be playing for a week in the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street. More details on the events page of this site, and in time also on the Glenalmond College and Jazz bar websites, and through the festival Fringe Society.

.... and who knows where we might take the show after that?

HEAD2HEAD - Great gigs and a live recording with a great band! Posted: Feb 22, 2009
HEAD2HEAD has just completed a couple of gigs at The Jazz Bar in Edinburgh. They were great to play, and judging by the audience reaction, great to listen to.

It may seem immodest to call my own band "a great band", even though I think it is, but what I mean is that until I quit teaching at Glenalmond College (yes, of "Pride & Privilege" TV show fame!) I don't have time to promote the band, and to gig and tour as much as I and the guys would like to. As a result I'm not in a position - yet - to command a regular line-up, so instead, every time we have some gigs, we have to put together a group from whoever is available for those nights (and a rehearsal).

Realistically, at the moment, HEAD2HEAD consists of Bill Kyle and myself, a pad of my original compositions arranged for various combinations of three front line, guitar, bass, & drums, and Bill's compendious knowledge of every jazz musician in Scotland - and their phone numbers!

So whilst the guys who play for HEAD2HEAD to ALWAYS excellent, this particular line-up has been simply outstanding, so eat your heart out if you missed these two recent gigs; you missed Doug Tiplady - alto, Lorne Cowieson - trumpet, John Burgess - tenor & soprano, Mike Nisbet - guitar, and Bill & myself. The Friday night was great and the Saturday was even better, one of the best I've ever done, which is fortunate, 'cos it was recorded, both audio and video, for inclusion on a live sampler album of the bands which play regularly at The Jazz Bar and which will be for sale before summer. And well done the packed audience who rightly whooped, cheered and applauded these star musicians after every solo in true "jazz club" fashion. (It may seem corny, but actually, that amount of audience enthusiasm and participation really does help us to raise our game.)

This is the first of three sampler albums that The Jazz Bar intends to promote this year and I'm very proud that HEAD2HEAD should be invited to be on the first one.

Finally, as soon as they are available, some of those tracks which, even though they're pretty good, don't make it onto the album, will be posted on the songs page on this website, so come back and check it out regularly if you don't want to miss out! There is some great jazz coming soon!

Still top of the charts! Posted: Jan 16, 2009
This is going to sound like I'm boasting, but really I'm not - I'm just astounded and delighted and very grateful that I currently have seven tracks high in various Broadjam charts.

"Le Frelon" has been TOP of the classic jazz chart since October, "Step Back" is no.2 on the free music jazz chart (that's free download at the point of sale, not free as in unstructured improvised music), the three meditative New Age numbers are currently in positions 7,8, & 10 in their chart, and two tunes for solo bagpipes, recorded for me by Brian Elrick last Sunday - 12th Jan - are already numbers 9 & 10 in the Celtic World Music chart!

A huge thank you to all of you who've given these pieces such great reviews.

Now this really is something different Posted: Jan 13, 2009
.... or rather, two different things.

Let me explain.

As well as being an symphonic musician and jazz bass player, MD and composer, I've also had the pleasure and privilege of working with some of Scotland's finest bagpipe players, and ignoring the silly jokes we all crack about these guys (the definition of a gentleman being someone who can play the pipes, but doesn't, etc.) I really have nothing but the highest regard for these fine musicians and the wonderful music they play.

It is, after all, the traditional music of my homeland!

Over the years I've had a go at writing some pipe tunes, and just the other day, a good friend and colleague, Brian Elrick, has very kindly recorded my two most recent ones.

So, ladies and gentlemen, leading up to Burn's Night, I give you on my songs page - drum roll - two brand new original pipe tunes, Mad Wifie's, and Braes of Birnam.

Pour yourself a wee dram and enjoy!

HEAD2HEAD gigs in Edinburgh and more chill-out music Posted: Jan 10, 2009
Busy times!

The band is once again to play in the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, on the 20th & 21st of February. I'll post full details on the gigs page!

....and... I've just posted another couple of sections of the "therapeutic relaxation" track; there's about twenty minutes of it there now!

In fact, there's a whole albums worth of this stuff ready to go, with a half-hour voice-over which explains step by step what you have to do to to really benefit from the product. (The text is written by a couple of professional psychologists, but it's quite easy to follow.)

Do you think I should put the album together and market it on my albums page?

This isn't a rhetorical question and answers really would be very welcome, either on my guest page or direct to mail@grahamrobb.com

A real live pop star! Posted: Dec 31, 2008
Just at the tail end of the year I've posted one more song from the "archive" - a version of a song called "Break it to me Gently" sung in Gaelic, the ancient language of Scotland, by Anneka.

For those of you too young to remember, Anneka, real name Mary Sandeman, had a huge, world-wide hit with a sweet little song called "Japanese Boy" in the early eighties. "Japanese Boy" re-surface a few years ago as one of the tracks in that great game "Grand Theft Auto"!

I'm proud to have Mary as a friend and am indebted to her for recording this track for me as a demo for the Mod, which is a slightly bizarre Scottish Gaelic language festival which happens every year not far from where I live.

Thanks Mary.

So just relax.... Posted: Dec 29, 2008
I've just re-discovered the master tapes of a therapeutic relaxation cassette - yes, cassette!! - I produced many years ago, and I've posted the first five minutes or so of the music as the third item on the songs page.

Once I've got a hold of Martyn James, the fine Scottish actor who recorded the voice-over but with whom I've sadly lost touch, I'm going to re-issue the whole thing on CD.

Watch this space!

Oh, and have a "guid New Year!"

GR

hey, am I glad? Posted: Dec 19, 2008
....that I listen to advice...

the remix I did yesterday of "Step Back" is number 2 in the jazz chart!

How cool is that?

C'mon folks, lets make it number one!

Thank you Ray Iaea - your advice was good advice!

...and I've just checked to find that "Le Frelon" is still top of the clasic jazz chart too!

Maybe it's about time I gave up the day job - which is fortunate, 'cos I am.

I do listen to advice! Posted: Dec 18, 2008
Following advice from Ray Iaea when he reviewed it, I've just re-mixed one of my tracks, "Step Back".

Here's the text of the email I sent him:

Dear Ray,

Just to say that I have followed the advice you gave me in your review on 1st Dec of my soprano saxophone feature "Step back", which you called "Happy Days", and cleaning up the drums, spreading out the 3 sopranos, and adding some more reverb to them has made a big difference to what I think was already a nice track.

It's up on http://www.grahamrobb.com re-titled as a re-mix.

Thanks.

best regards.

graham robb

I hope I'll never be too old to follow good advice!

Thanks Ray!

Ella Fitzgerald - Lush Life! Posted: Dec 13, 2008
I've just finished (for the moment) with the Glenalmond College production of "Lush Life", a striking psychological drama by Paul Siret which features sixteen of Ella Fitzgerald's most popular songs. The play focusses on five facet's of Lottie Hanway's personality, an amusing but ultimately somewhat unstable character who has an unhealthy fixation on Ella Fitzgerald.

The show will tour in 2009 and is already booked for the Edinburgh Festival from 24th to the 29th of August in The Jazz Bar, Chambers Street at 7.15pm.

Don't miss it! The excellent cast acts its collective heart out, and individually the girls sing these great songs with a maturity which belies their years - and they look good too!

A good night out at the theatre! (Except this time it's in a jazz club so you can have drink too - how good can this get?)

There are some pics from the College performances on the photos page.

At last - the new video! Posted: Dec 12, 2008
For "technical reasons", it's taken a few weeks for the live video footage to appear of HEAD2HEAD at the Jazz Bar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh.

But at last.... Tan-Ta-Ra!! here it is.

Enjoy!

Once again let me thank fan from back-in-the-day Ian Harvey for shooting the footage on his mobile and for going to all the bother of sending it to me.

Thanks Ian!

A New Video Posted: Nov 22, 2008
A couple of weeks ago HEAD2HEAD played some gigs in The Jazzbar, Chambers Street, Edinburgh.

Ian Harvey, a fan from "back in the day" was there with some original publicity material from the old band, HEAD, way back in the mid-seventies (I did say he was a fan from "back in the day"), and he also used his phone to film the very last number of the gig, a real rocker called "Kick me Quick", which was originally recorded on the third HEAD album, "Blackpool Cool."

Obviously the movie - it last about ten minutes - is a bit rough, both picture and sound-wise, but I've just uploaded it and it should appear on the site in a couple of days.

This was the number that had the audience chanting the name of the band at the very end of the gig, but unfortunately there's no recording of that.

Trust me; everyone had a good time!

Still Posted: Nov 7, 2008
Last time I looked, "le Frelon" was still top of the Broadjam classic jazz chart, and "Exclusive" was number ten in the swing jazz chart.

I must be doing something right!

HEAD2HEAD, The six piece band I write for and play bass certainly did something right on the 31st Oct/ 1st Nov. We played a great couple of gigs at the Jazzbar in Edinburgh; we had a good time and so did the audience. There are some new photos of HEAD2HEAD taken on those gigs, and I'll post some live recordings too.

"Le Frelon" top of the Classic Jazz Chart on Broadjam! Posted: Oct 23, 2008
Much to my delight, "Le Frelon", the affectionate little pastiche of the music of Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt that I wrote whilst on holiday in Aquitaine, has just made it to top of the Broadjam Classic Jazz Chart!

I've never been top of any kind of chart before.

My huge thanks go to violinist Alison Gordon and guitarist Phill Mellstrom - not forgetting "Drums on Demand".

As well as the audio recording we made in the studio at Glenalmond, there's a video too, shot by Stephen Bennet.

Cigar time!

HEAD2HEAD gigs in Edinburgh soon Posted: Oct 23, 2008
On Friday 31st Oct & Monday 1st November a new-look HEAD2HEAD is performing at the JAZZBAR in Chambers Street, Edinburgh from 9.30 pm on both evenings. The band will be a seven piece instead of the previously usual six piece - the rhythm section is now guitar, bass, drums AND piano, as well as the usual trumpet, tenor, trombone front line.

For these gigs regular HEAD2HEADER-ers Bill Kyle & I (drums & bass) will be joined by guitarist Mike Nisbet and pianist Pete Johnston, whilst the front line will be H2H favourite Doug Tiplady (tenor & soprano), James Marr (trumpet).

An old friend from our Glasgow BBC days, busy London session trombone player Gordon Campbell, is coming up specially to join us for these two dates.

Details of these gigs are on the events page.

Music for sale! Posted: Oct 6, 2008
A new feature on my website - you can download one of my tracks, "Le Frelon" for just one cent less than a dollar.

Yes! Just 99 cents will give you "Le Frelon" to keep - forever.

Enjoy!

Big changes in my lifestyle coming up! Posted: Sep 12, 2008
After trying full time education (as a teacher, not a pupil!) for about four years, I've decided it's not for me and I'm going to quit Glenalmond at the end of this academic year (4th July!) and go "back to the tools" as a bass player and full-time composer - basically what I've done for the last thirty-five years. Not, I hasten to add, that there's anything wrong with Glenalmond College, it's an excellent school with great staff and pupils and there's a lot I'll miss; it's really just that I have to be my own boss again.

And there are things I want to do - tour my six-piece band, "HEAD2HEAD", featuring my own music, finish writing some shows for Next Gen that I've started but simply can't complete while I'm at Glenalmond because there aren't enough hours in the day, and escape the school year 'cos flying during school holidays is extraordinarily expensive and a lot cheaper the rest of the time!

Moan, moan!

So here goes; back to the schedule D tax code for me!

"Fame Game" Demos Posted: Sep 7, 2008
I've been busy, uploading some demo tracks of the theatre show "Fame Game", for which I've written all the music. "Fame Game" offers a lighthearted take on TV talent competitions like "X Factor", and is intended to be performed by school, college, and youth theatre companies. It was performed, very successfully and to full houses, in the Edinburgh Festival by Glenalmond College a couple of years ago.

The show is published, and is available from NextGen publications; needless to say, there's a link to them on the links page. NextGen is the outfit for whom I'm hard at work writing the music for the next show, also written with school, college, and youth theatre companies in mind, called "An Eternal Xmas".

Rondo (theme only) Posted: Aug 29, 2008
I've just added a short orchestral piece to my songs page - it's the rondo theme from a much longer piece I'm still working on, but it works as a free-standing item as it is, so here it is!

Bad weather means good music! Posted: Aug 21, 2008
The weather in Scotland has been really atrocious since I returned from France - it's just as well we shot "Le Frelon" when we did - so I've had no excuses; I've simply had to get on with writing "an Eternal Xmas." I like it; I hope you will too, when it's finished - which will be soon I hope!

Really at last - Posted: Aug 6, 2008
After a month of internet problems - rural France is a great place but the broadband can be even dodgier than here in highland Scotland - the video of "Le Frelon" is up and running. Huge thanks to all involved.

Much to my embarrassment I'm reliably informed that a frelon is not a wasp, it is in fact a hornet - so I was close! Either way they breed 'em big 'n mean in Aquitaine!

Anyway, much as I like the music of Django and Stephane, that's done, and now it's time to get back to work! "An Eternal Xmas" won't write itself.

Le Frelon - the movie! Posted: Jul 5, 2008
Much to my delight, "Le Frelon", the Django/ Stefane pastiche, which is dedicated to the ubiquitous French wasp, and which I posted on my songs page a couple of weeks ago has appeared in the Broadjam jazz chart (it's currently No.4), the European chart (No. 9), and the UK chart (No. 6).

Who knows how well it might have done in the June instrumental competition if I'd taken time to understand how the competition works!

My mistake!

However, I'm working on a more authentic sounding mix and I'm editing the video of the three of us, Alison, Phill., and me - (the drums are by Drums on Demand) - shot against the trees of the Scottish highlands one windy afternoon.

.....and from my holiday retreat close to Bordeaux I've entered a much more "in yer face" fusion number "No Relation", in the July competition!

I've just added a new number to my song page! Posted: Jun 24, 2008
Yes, at last, I've just added a new piece of music called "Le Frelon" to my song page, and it's in a completely different style from the existing jazz-rock numbers.

Sure, it's still a jazz instrumental, but it's a new and affectionate homage to the music of Django Reinhartd and Stefane Grappelly. We've just shot some open air video footage of the trio, violinist Alison Gordon, guitarist Phill Mellstrom,with me on bass, playing the very same number. My first pop video!

Other than that, I'm just getting on with writing the new show for Nextgen publications, with a view to recording the demos in August, when I get back from south west France with (I hope) all the songs finished.