Monthly Roundup #9 - November '18

November was a busy one for me! There was a musical, a gala show, functions, jazz gigs, rehearsals for other upcoming gigs, plus attending a truly wonderful gig for myself… All on top of the usual teaching stuff, of course. Here’s a bit of a rundown of the month’s antics for you…

The first bit of playing of the month was with a local function band I play in dubbed “The Rhythm Crew”. The band plays music ranging from Frankie Valli to Elvis, Tina Turner to Chuck Berry, and Michael Bublé to ABBA to name a few - so it’s all good fun!

The typical “Squeeze the band into the corner” function setup!

Next up was the band call for a run of Les Mis which I was on. While I’ve played many of the songs from Les Mis before in various settings, this was the first time I’d done the show as a whole, so it was great fun to put it all together in context.

My setup I tried out for the Les Mis band call. In the end I scrapped the second snare as I only his it a couple of times!

Following the Les Mis band call and prep, there were a couple of rehearsals for other upcoming gigs and recordings. First of all, a rehearsal with my friend Pete James for some new material he’s written for the next Throwback Kid record, and then at the end of the week a rehearsal with Helen Ward-Jackson for her upcoming show at the Eastbourne Hippodrome on Saturday 1st December. Watch this space with both of those!

Spent a couple of days in rehearsal mode and took the opportunity to try something new with the tom setup with my “lightweight” hardware set - worked quite nicely!

Next there was a gala show for the opening of a new theatre at Hurstpierpoint College. That involved the Friday and Saturday night, where we spent Friday night doing a band call, then tech and dress rehearsals Saturday daytime ready for the show on Saturday night. It was a really nice event which showcased some of the school’s talent in music and dance with a mixture of songs from different shows, as well as a few pieces for the dances. We played a variety of songs from shows such as Phantom, Fame, Anything Goes, West Side Story, Lion King, Les Mis, Chess - to name just a few that come to mind! It was really good fun to play such a variety of tunes, and the band was great!

Set for the gala show - once again, squeezed into a corner!

Next was the run of Les Mis over at the Capitol theatre in Horsham. It was a really fun week, and a great production to be a part of - even counting the rests is enjoyable when the music going on around you sounds so wonderful! It was a pretty tiring week, with me getting to bed around midnight most nights then up by 06:00 for the day’s teaching, but it was a blast nonetheless - helped, of course, by the rest of the band being a great bunch!

Les Mis setup

The following week was gig-free, but I did get to go and see something incredible on the Saturday night - the Avishai Cohen Trio were playing at the Barbican, with no less than Mark Guiliana on drums. The gig was to mark ten years since they recorded the album, “Gently Disturbed”, which for me (and many others) was a complete game-changer! I first heard it in my mid-teens, and it’s one I’ve continued listening to ever since. Apparently this was the first time they had played the material again since the time of the recording, and it really was a seriously special gig. It was also my first time seeing Mark Guiliana play in person and what an experience that was! There were times where us in the audience were left chuckling to ourselves and shaking our heads in disbelief at the sheer level of mastery which was on display - a truly inspiring evening!

Shai Maestro, Avishai Cohen and Mark Guiliana taking a very well deserved bow to about their third standing ovation of the night - sheer class!

The last gig of November was with jazz singer Tom Fitzpatrick, plus trio. As always, it was a lovely evening playing great music with a great bunch of guys! Even if the slightly premature, enormous Christmas tree left us with rather limited space!

Squeezed in around the Christmas Tree for gig with Tom Fitzpatrick

As always, if you’ve made it this far, I hope you have enjoyed my update with what I’ve been up to over November - it’s been a busy one! There’s also a fairly busy start to December coming up, but then I’m looking forward to enjoying a bit of down time celebrating Christmas and all that goes with it! Once again, thanks for checking in - until next time! All the best, Ed.