And the rest bye bye 2009!

The end of the year has seen me being invited to cover a gig for Steve Williamson in Oxford at the Spin where I appeared with Pat Thomas on piano a wonderful night and the Spin is always one of my favourite places to play so I always look forward to a journey up to Oxford!We had a lovely unexpected review in the Oxford Times which documents the night perfectly.I will put a link to that below:

Did a very productive session with Alexander Hawkins and the sextet for BBC Radio 3 session that should see the light of day next year,we will also do a tour in year to promote the album "No now is so"really looking forward to that as I always enjoy meeting up and playing Alex's music he is one talented guy!

Finished the year on a Beggar & Co gig at the 100 club.I hadn't been in the 100 club since the early 1990s so I had thought it would of changed a bit but instead it was exactly the same decor which really doesnt work now,just looks a bit tacky!Anyway gig was slamming as they always are with Beggar & Co playing a mixture of originals and Jazz funk anthems,One interesting feature of this gig was that The drummer was double booked playing for US Soul Singer Alexander O'Neal at the Docklands O2 centre so we had to wait until he had played there and been driven across town just about getting to the 100 club and sitting in before the audience got to restless,I started off the gig sent out as a peace offereing to play solo vibes for 10 minutes,this is normally not the type of crowd to play free improv to but they listened and were actually responding in the right places.All in all a different end to the year of gigging for me.No Christmas gigs but i intend to rectify that next year by relaunching the Xmas files project i put out in 2002.Been listening to some recordings made of those gigs and would definitely like to do a revisit!
Next year starts with me performing and recording in the Jason Yarde's LSO concert with Acoutastic Bombastic followed by appearing with the London Improvisors Orchestra in the Bimhuis,Nigel Kennedy world tour and recording,Alexander Hawkins tour,Burnout Mama in Helsinki,Byron Wallen's new album release,Curating a new Percussion festival.Maybe a couple of my own recordings might be out after a 15 year break!
Can't wait for 2009 to end they will be a lot of changes for me next year hopefully for the best,so roll on 2010.