Watch out for a date change if you live in Leeds – I realise I had the wrong date on the gig calendar. The Quartet gig at HEART is now on the 26th May, not the 19th as previously advertised!

We had a great start to the tour today at Pave in Hull. As somewhere we’ve played a few times before, it was an easy, comfortable first gig where we could get in the zone quite quickly, and playing three sets of original music to an appreciative audience felt like a real pleasure. Everyone sounded great, and I’m really looking forward to the next few dates. Next up is The Lescar, Sheffield, this Wednesday evening – www.thelescarhuntersbar.co.uk/ 

A new composition of mine ‘Sfumato’ recorded in rehearsal last week in preparation for the quartet tour happening this May:

This coming May, the Matt Anderson Quartet will embark on an extensive U.K. tour which will take the band up and down the whole country, from Edinburgh in the north to London in the south.

You can follow the band’s progress on their tour blog, coming soon to this site, which will feature recorded samples of the gigs as they happen, photos and more.

Tour dates are as follows:

13/5 – Pave, Hull

16/5 – The Lescar, Sheffield

18/5 – Matt n’ Phreds, Manchester

20/5 – Splinter @ The Bridge, Newcastle

23/5 – Charlie Wright’s, London

26/5 – HEART, Leeds

27/5 – Whighams, Edinburgh

Thanks to Kate Peters for the photos!

The Matt Anderson Quartet has been shortlisted for ‘Band of the Year’ in the Jazz Yorkshire Awards 2012 alongside such big names as Trio VD, Roller Trio and Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio, and I have also been nominated for ‘Educator of the Year’. The Kate Peters Septet has also been shorlisted, along with Sela Bar (Pub/Bar Venue of the Year) and HEART in Headingley (Venue of the Year) where I help put on and promote gigs. Fingers crossed that at least one of these things might win an award!

Photos by Toby Bartholomew. Please seek the photographer’s permission before using or publishing these photographs.

As a Christmas present to myself a couple of weeks back, I travelled down to Somerset for a second lesson with saxophone maestro Iain Ballamy. What a great experience to talk with this guy about music, practice, mindset, art and more!

Found this great vid of Iain playing with Django Bates’ ‘Human Chain’ the other day:

Enjoy!

 

Opening up with I Remember You it soon became apparent that this band was original even when playing non originals! The standard was played with an oblique almost Tristano-like ethereal approach and, in truth, Anderson’s dry sound did, at this stage, have a hint of Warne Marsh to it.

A series of original originals followed most of which I’d heard either at Scarborough or on downloads so the pieces had a degree of familiarity about them. Cold Spell, despite the title, saw the tenor sound become distinctly warmer and the ideas seemed to flow effortlessly from both sax and guitar. My Ideal was given a more lyrical interpretation than the previous standard and was none the worse for that. The set closed with Free Into Edinburgh a somewhat ambiguous title from guitarist Vanns that built up in intensity to a frenzied climax. A good first set.

A pint of The Bridge’s own brew (Castle Brown – not to be confused with…) went down well before it was back up the stairs – in this case it was in fact a Stairway To The Stars which followed Jamil Sherif’s Contentment.

The final number, inspired by the Island of Skye, did not ‘speed like a bird on the wing’ instead it began as a doom laden affair that seemed to take about 3 weeks to build up into a compelling opus. It was worth the wait! All four players contributed with a special mention of Gardner’s drumming which was rock solid in both solos and time. On bass, Marley did the necessary without flamboyance.

Afterwards met Kate Peters who informed me her band play Hoochie Coochie in February – one to look out for.

Lance Liddle – Matt Anderson Quartet @ The Bridge Hotel, Bebop Spoken Here Blog, 30th Oct 2011

New videos uploaded from our gig at Splinter @ The Bridge, Newcastle, last Sunday.

Here is one, ‘Cold Spell.’ The rest can be found on the Videos page, and there are more to come…

Thanks to Adrian Tilbrook for recording and uploading these!