I’m very excited to be heading into the studio twice this week, firstly with my own group and secondly with one of my heroes from my student days, guitarist Jamie Taylor, who was one of my teachers at Leeds College of Music.

My own thing which we’re recording tomorrow is a new sextet celebrating Wayne Shorter with an all-star line-up – Mark Chandler, trumpet; Alex Munk, guitar; Jamil Sheriff, piano; Sam Vicary, double-bass and Dave Walsh, drums, as well as myself on tenor sax – and it’ll be a demo for us to start getting gigs and letting people know about the band. 2 of Wayne’s tunes and 2 of mine – will post it up here when it’s mixed and all of that.

And then on Thursday we’re recording and videoing a new 3-part suite by Jamie Taylor based around the blues form, which will again have Dave Walsh on drums but Garry Jackson on bass this time.

New live tracks from our gig at the Lescar on the 16th May:

Sfumato and The Frozen Ocean are new tunes which were written specially for this tour. The first is an up-tempo burner with some 5/4 bars thrown in at the end of the form, and the second is a ballad inspired by the David Attenborough series ‘Frozen Planet’. The Song Thief was written as part of the Songs of the Ridings commission last summer.