Second season syndrome

http://londonjazz.net/ai1ec_event/ealing-jamopen-mic/?instance_id=

Will be playing at the North Star pub in Ealing, West London as part of their blues jam on the evening of Tuesday 10th September. First time playing in public for a while, excited to get back into it, which is now my second year in London. My priorities have changed but my love of  music (and all things related to music) has not. Therefore I will be playing and posting less frequently.

If you can get to Ealing it would be great to be with you that evening.

Big shout out to those who have been following my blog over my quiet summer period. India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bahrain and Vietnam your views haven't gone unnoticed!

http://londonjazz.net/ai1ec_event/ealing-jamopen-mic/?instance_id=

end of year 1

It's coming up to a year now since I moved to London and this whole music adventure started. Taking a summer break and will be back playing sax and blogging in September. 

Thank you to all that have been following my music adventures.

An even bigger thank you to those that have come out to see me play sax in London (and in Munich). You know who you are (but I prefer the personal touch). Many have come out, many more said they would but never did. So thank you (in no particular order to) Christy, Helen, Maria, Nick, Emily, Frank, Sharon, Tracy, Karen, Fred, Nicole, Jenny, Andy, Emma, Bianca, Owain, Jim, Ryan, Rhys, Colm, Sunny, Rhian, Megan, Philip, Nikki, Michael, Esi.

Also got to meet a lot of interesting people and some very talented musicians along the way. It really has been a year of musical education. Will be refreshed and ready to go again in September.

Roots

Recently, I was served a reminder of how much childhood, family, religion and hometowns can be huge musical influences. I visited an exhibition in the Jewish Museum in Camden, North London called "Amy Winehouse - A family portrait".

There were several childhood artifacts kept by Amy Winehouse (school ties, old records, essays written, family photographs) as well as set-lists, early tour posters, dresses she wore, stage passes and her first guitar.

What was very clear from this exhibition is how her roots shaped her music and how despite all that happened to her with the life choices she made, she was essentially the same girl she always was. The strength of her desire to perform, to be heard right from her early years to her late years was consistent. These were displayed in many of her quotes. The most telling of which was an essay she wrote when young writing about how she wanted to remembered and what she wanted to do when she was older.

As I've written many times in this blog, Amy Winehouse is a massive hero of mine. She wrote and performed incredible music.By all accounts she was an incredible young girl and incredible person - reminds of a young version of my sister somewhat. Both her albums, as well as her posthumous album "Lioness - Hidden Treasures" are incredibly true to her roots. The nine-year-old Amy would approve, I'm sure.

Studying your musical heroes was one of many stellar pieces of advice given to me by Professor Livingston Taylor. It gives a special insight the journey of how their music came about. This I find fascinating.

This experience has heightened my awareness of the impact of my own childhood, family, religion and hometown has had on my musical output.

In a very reflective way, I dug-out my own memories, memorabilia and the music I listened to when young. It made for a very interesting, very personal realization. Maybe one day I'll have my own exhibition, hopefully that is a long way off, but I'm excited to share bits of it in time with the people closest to me. 

For those interested, I've posted a link to the exhibition site. It runs until September 2013.

http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/Amy

Be jamming

Less of an article and more of an advert.

Going to be playing saxophone at Jetlag bar in Fitzrovia this Wednesday (10th) from 8pm.

Looking forward to returning to this place - one of the first venues I played at in London.

Come join the jam night and support live music jam nights in London.

The blues jam community needs you.

http://www.jetlagbar.com/index.php/home

Hmmm... vitamins

I love a good cover version of a song I do.

Favourites include (in no particular order) 

Amy Winehouse doing the Beatles' "All my loving"

Jamie Cullum doing Pharrells "Frontin'"

William Orbit doing Samuel Barbers "Adagio for Strings"

There is a group out on the west coast of the States who have got the whole make-a-song-your-own thing locked down. So locked down in fact that they don't just stop at covering tracks but whole albums. And it isn't cheesy parody either.

Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you...

The Vitamin String Quartet
http://www.vitaminstringquartet.com/home

Covering everything from The Strokes to Adele, Mumford and Sons to Red Hot Chilli Peppers, if its big, chances are they've done it. They release songs at a pretty prolific rate too. Their most recent album is a selection of Sigur Ros' greatest hits.



Inspired by VSQ, I wrote string-trio cover of a pop-song. I wanted to pick a song or an artist from the 21st century had not received the VSQ treatment. I settled for the London-based band "Athlete" and the last song from their 2nd album "Tourist" called "I Love".

It's up there in my top ten favourite songs of all time as it holds some brilliant memories of special times. It's one of those rare songs where the entire song has a strong connection with me, not just a hook, the chorus or one clever line.

Anyway, I've attached my string cover version which you can download on the link below and a copy of the first page. You can check out the original song "I Love" by Athlete on iTunes, Spotify or wherever else you source your music

"I Love strings" string trio arrangement of "I love" by Athlete

Music therapy

Music as a form of therapy is nothing new. Ancient thinkers such as Plato, Galen and Pythagoras (him of the triangle theorem fame) all wrote about music as a therapeutic agent.

Music therapy fascinates me. The song-writing process is extremely therapeutic for myself. Getting over the death of my grandad, I poured myself into writing music. That's how I dealt with the grief. And a symphony came out of it. That's how deep the grieving was.

Having a guitar is fantastic for me when writing songs about trying to make sense of the world, girls and life. I'm a baby at the guitar so I haven't developed my guitar playing skills and technique to match the level of my song-writing and musicality. A lot of practice is needed beforehand to match them up.

One guy whose guitar/singing skills match up to his song-writing (both to a high level) is Frank Turner. If you've heard any of Frank Turner's latest album "Tape Deck Heart", you'll know what I mean. This is an album written as therapy for the song-writer, a lot of the songs (if not all), are deeply personal, autobiographical songs. I really take my hat off to him to be so bold as to share the songs on that album, because the writing and the playing of those songs is clearly deep therapy for him (he indicates as much himself when I heard him interviewed on the Zane Lowe Radio 1 show).

That's all active music therapy i.e. the music acts as therapy for the player/writer. 

Then there is passive music therapy i.e. where the music acts as therapy for the listener.

Here are a couple examples of passive music therapy. The following video was forwarded to me by a colleague in my previous work place. I'm very grateful to her for for sharing this powerful video. Click on the link below to watch it.

http://youtu.be/fyZQf0p73QM

If you are interested in cases of musical awakening such as these, I recommend highly a book by Oliver Sacks "Musicophilia". It's full of similar and equally fascinating examples.

On a personal note, getting to play music live as a form of therapy is extremely fulfilling - even when the audience can not express themselves (e.g. people with advanced forms of dementia).

I was blessed to play saxophone and piano on a few occasions for residents of a nursing home I used to work at. Nothing as magical as what happened in the video above occured when I played (or at least to my knowledge it did not), but there were special moments especially at Christmas time and at a  leaving do when I got to play sax for the residents.

I recently returned there to play again and received this note and two bags of popcorn (the popcorn is an in-joke with the staff). Whatever the level of therapy I provided to anyone that listened, I was delighted to play and I will treasure this note for a long time, such is the therapeutic power of music and as the video showed, musical memories can be the deepest memories.

All about mind

Shameless plug here. I'm fundraising for a mental health charity called "Mind" by running the British 10k in July. You can check out my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/sammysax10k you can donate on there.

What has this got to do with music?
Good question.
I'll be selling the remainder of my saxophone love song CDs as part of the fundraiser. I've attached one of the songs on the CD as a sample.

Also the race rules, ban any mp3, ipods etc in the race itself,  so in my training I am running without any music. Which for me, as a musician is torture and is taking some discipline, but it hasn't killed me so far. Goes to show that a lot about running for me is in the mind, because I feel much slower and weaker without the sounds of Mendelssohn and Radiohead playing in my ears. Must be in the mind.

Will be posting more once I've got my summer plans sorted.

Peace (... which also happens to be the name of a band I'm listening to right now - check their album "In Love")

Another shameless plug, sorry.

Sample song - Moon River by Henry Mancini

All aboard!

I'm going to playing at this on Tuesday 4th June. Come along.

http://www.roundmidnightbar.com/bands/bluesjam

In a league of their own

So last week, I went into central London to the world-famous Ronnie Scott's jazz bar. All powernapped and ready to drop some riffs, I got in at 11:30 to see the band for the night play. Boy were they good. Their sax player was brilliant, excellent technique producing a rich sound. 

Got speaking to the promoter for the night to get my name down for the jam. He says "sure, we've got loads of horns tonight but stick around and we'll sort a number got you. The band have set the bar." in his gritty don't-mess-with-me East London accent.

As the jam starts, the promotor gets up, pulls out a sax and starts playing himself. And he's out-of-this-world good on his 10 minute solo. Then he plays another. And another. Then another two separate sax plays come on a smash some more solos. Their all obviously professionals. All the while I'm thinking, "there's no way I'm following that!". As the night went on, the standard was getting better and better. Come 1:30am I bailed in anticipation of being found out of my depth.

So I didn't play. I'm sure it was the right call. So I won't be chasing lofty waterfalls, but sticking to the more familiar river and lakes that I'm used to.

So going back to Angel, 'Round Midnight on the evening of June 4th to play some blues where I've played before. Join me if you will.

Ronnie Scott's

Will be playing at the late night blues jam at Ronnie Scott's (named after the famous sax player himself) in Soho on Tuesday 21st May from 11pm. Looking forward to playing at this famous venue. That'll be something to tell the grandchildren one day, but for those that can't make it I'll blog about how it went long before any grandchildren come along.

Underneath here is a link to the night. It'll be great to share it with you

 http://www.ronniescotts.co.uk/performances/view/1458-tv-nights-late-night-blues-jam-8-on-the-door-6-with-flyer

Waterloo

I've entered a composing composition to compose a soundtrack for the the short film "Waterloo". The winner gets their composition composed live at the Waterloo arts festival in July and a cash prize.

I've decided to go for the clarinet string quartet option. This is definitely a challenge. Competition rules state that no enteries will be considered that have already been published, therefore I have only posted the mute version of the film, without my composition added to it. I'll give it my best shot, and hopefully I will end up as a winner.

This way for new music

A friend of mine up in Scotland, has a blog with all kinds of new music. The blog is called is "Feature" and you can get to it via my blog list. He's good. The music is too. Check it out, I do.

Is this the way to Einstein Street?

Right now I'm in Germany, holidaying away from the rigours and fast pace of London, taking advantage of some time off that I have from my other commitments.

So myself and five friends took our annual EuroTrip to Munich, Germany for 2013. Last night, we hit an underground jazz club „Jazzclub Unterfahrt” east of the river Isar on Einstein street (picture 1). After safely navigating quiet and secluded underground passages (picture 2) we took our seats at amongst the punters and performers at the club.

Although it was a jazz club, playing outside Britain was very much unchartered territory for me. At one point I found myself applauding what I thought was a pretty solid drum solo. Apparently, no-one moved enough to bang their hands together, as I was the only one to clap, much to the amusements of my friends.

Announced as "Sammy, SammySax" by the lovely German piano-playing lady host I got to play a favourite of mine "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck with the house band (picture 3)

We took in some pretty awesome piano playing, an eccentric double bass player who would sing every note (I mean every single note) of each of his solos as he played and a lady singing a favourite of mine "On the sunny side of the street" with her ukelele.

As we were eating and drinking at the club, the six of us started putting together early sketches of a genre-fusing concept album. Following a previous EuroTrip of ours to Madrid, Spain - where 2 for 1 mojitos, free crisps and people-watching in a bar inspired the idea for a song I co-wrote called "Manufactured Love" - this concept album could actually get off the ground. For now, (until the work is put in to turn ideas into songs), this will have to stay a secret between those who already know.

Back in the game

So the other night, I took myself to a jam night in central London. It had been a good six weeks since I last played my sax in public. This time, it wasn't for a function or playing for friends, but just to get out there, play for (and with) strangers and get back into the discipline of preparing to play on a stage. Boy it was so good to get back out there again!

9 things I forgot about playing the blues at nights like this...

1) I forgot the buzz, the feeling you get when your name is called to go on stage (even if your name is said wrong - this time I got "can we have Sam or Shaun on alto sax up next, I think it's Sam but couldn't quite hear you before")

2) I forgot how much spontaneous fun a blues jam could be. (My last minute instructions were "we are in E minor, with a four note descending bass figure that runs through." That was it. Then we launched into "it". ["it" later turned into a bluesy mash-up of "Feeling Good" and "Seven Nation Army"]. Too cool.

3) I forgot the excitement of a build-up to a chorus when the whole band comes together (especially when the whole place knows it and feels it coming)

4) I forgot how incredibly liberating playing improvised solos are

5) I forgot how good it is to feed off the reaction of a crowd when they latch on to something they like

6) I forgot how playing the blues moves your body naturally when you are playing

7) I forgot the effect that receiving subtle winks, smiles of approval and pats on the back can have

8) I forgot how much I appreciate it when people come up to you to compliment and critique your playing (especially when what they say reveals that they haven't just heard you but listened to you)

9) I forgot how (it seems like) in every crowd that I get to meet a scouser* (or at least a person who is lucky enough to be married to a scouser)

*A scouser is someone who hails from the city of Liverpool.

For someone who says I don't like performing that much (which is true) this may seem very contradictory. Yes, giving a good performance is very self-gratifying. Yes, for me performing is very much secondary to writing. Writing is what I am here in London to do and is what I'm doing, but playing on stage is such a great feeling which also helps fuel my writing process. I'm happy writing away on projects, building projects of my own and crafting songs of my own. I am happiest doing these in quiet places and quiet moments far away from the stage, but I'll take an occasional night like this one to remind me not to stay out the game too long and to remind me what it is to play the blues.

A self-indulgent post? Maybe
An honest blog post? Definitely

Noisy neighbours

What do Jimi Hendrix (maverick guitar legend) and George Fideric Handel (18th century master composer and entrepreneurial genius) have in common?

Well, as I discovered the other day, they were next door neighbours here in London Town. Centuries apart yes I know, but still neighbours of sorts. With Hendrix who lived at number 23 and Handel at number 25 that makes Brook Street a pretty awesome street in my view. So much so, that I assumed the position of an awe-struck tourist again and took a photo (shown below).

25 Brook Street is now a museum appropriately named "Handel House Museum". For those that aren't familiar with Handel, he was a German composer who lived his last 36 years in London - 36 very successful years. In those years he was commissioned to write bespoke music for the rich, the famous, the monarchy and the church. Four very demanding employers I'm sure you would agree. Whatever his project or employer he would churn out hit and hit.
That turned him into a seriously wealthy man because he was quite simply brilliant at whatever he did. His music has so much soul.

Basically, anyone who could pay big money in the early 18th Century and who wanted music written for their own function or purposes found themselves writing large cheques to GF Handel esquire. In return, they got musical gold that moves the soul and stands the test of time. Everybody was a winner.

Ever the entrepreneur (250+ years after he died, he still made a fiver out me) Handel wrote hits such as the music to "The Messiah" and "Zadok the priest" (the latter of the two UEFA ripped off for their Champions League theme music). Whilst those are two well-known compositions he was a prolific composer, so his discography is huge - and an impressive listen at that.

It's only a genius that can take one word ("hallelujah"), set it to block chords in a chorus and centuries later the association between the word "hallelujah" and the music he wrote be so strong.

Check out this cool flash mob version of the hallelujah chorus on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8z6NYmdXI

Learning about his life in London alongside the stories and influences of his many masterpieces was incredible. Being in the house where this all happened, reading his own and his librettist's manuscripts was all the more inspiring.

The museum has attached, one room of number 23 (Jimi Hendrix's house) and plans are underway to further develop "Hendrix's London legacy.

All I can say is that if you are ever going to have noisy neighbours, those two would be right up there in my top 2.

Dying breed

"Inevitable"
"That's the way everything is going"
"London is a XXXX"

In fact, the last quote is what I was told one time at a defunct jazz night.

Think now would be a good time to give some context.

6 months ago finding a pub or a bar to jam with other musicians in London was really easy. North or south, east west or central, pretty much any night of the week you could find a jazz night, blues night or just a general jam.

Not so anymore.

I turned up to one pub in Kilburn before Christmas to find their jazz night cancelled. The night wasn't a total loss, got speaking to a musician at the bar - and that's where the "London is a XXXXX" quote came from. He said that from his experience living and playing in London for many years that musicians aren't valued anywhere near as much as they used to be - With the exception of churches and mainland Europe few places value the musician - he said. The few places that do pay, rates of pay are pathetic which aren't worth your transport costs - he added.

Thankfully, playing at these nights, was always an avenue to challenge myself as a musician so that doesn't deter me from what I came to London to do - write music and live life in this city, the most wonderful of cities.

I will be off to mainland Europe for a short trip (along with my saxophone) in the near future so will post about that in time.

As for church, I will continue singing and writing, but less of the instruments (that deserves a whole blog post in itself! - instrumental music in "church")

Unlikely to hear much of my saxophone unless requested or a special event. So yeah "inevitable" and yeah "That's the way everything is going" , but "London is a XXXXX" not so much.

History of songs

Last Saturday, I joined a group of 120 Christians who had come from all over England for an evening of song.

The venue was the town Northampton, the theme was the history of song.
As if the evening wasn't special enough, this was my first time back at Northampton since I spent a summer there working at Northampton General Hospital. As always, the church I met with whilst there were warm and welcoming and they provided cheese-less pizzas. Result!

It was fascinating to hear from Dr Jerry Rushford from Pepperdine University in California who talked about some of the great songs and song writers of the Christian acapella tradition. Inspired me even more to continue writing songs.

From prolific hymn writers like Isaac Watts ("Joy to the World", "Alas! And did my saviour bleed") to a one hit wonder like Edward E Mote (writer of "My hope is built") for me these people have true legendary status.

Special mention must go to Horatio Spafford who managed to write "When peace like a river" after the tragedy of losing all four of his daughters in accident at sea. What a legend that man is.

(Now in England - and maybe where you are - "legendary" and "legend" gets used for pretty much anything that is remotely positive. (Barney Stimpson I'm looking at you).

Whatever you may think of hymns written in the 18th and 19th century, you surely have to admit that for people to still sing them with meaning hundreds of years after the writers had died is pretty special.

For anyone to create something that outlasts them and resonate through the ages - that pretty amazing.

What also was amazing was hearing from Jerry how a lot of hymns came about (or in some cases they almost didn't come about at all).

So I'm going to keep living the Christian life and keep writing songs that reflect my Christian journey. And if in 300 years it still means enough for groups of Christians gather round and sing those songs then that would truly be LEGENDARY.

Song of Ham

about seemingly endless rainy days

Love songs and heroes

I’m selling a few copies of some love songs I recorded on my saxophone. It’s total non-profit, the CDs are in order to raise funds for two friends of mine who are off to Cambodia next month to get involved with the AoF 2013 (Angkor of Faith)The video below is a brief description of what AoF is about. With the funds gained from the CDs, shoes will be bought for these children who rummage theses dump sites on a daily basis. Unfortunately, at this time I have to limit the selling of these songs to those in the London area for now.

www.vimeo.com/34947384

Recording these ten tracks were a lot of fun. I recorded love songs by The. Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Burt Bacharach , George Gershwin and others.

I got to record the songs at studio 10 Mill Hill Studios, North London. I got to hear about these studios from a guy I met at a blues jam I played at in a pub in Edgware. He mentioned this studio, known for its great drumming sound, cheap off peak rates and that Amy Winehouse recorded there.

At that last point I was sold, with Amy being right up there with my contemporary music heroes. As always, I did my research. Found this story of Amy at Mill Hill studios and came up with this - well worth a read.

http://www.amywinehouseforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?7983-Mill-Hill-Music-Complex-(Remembering-Amy)

Of course there is a little bit of Amy on my CD - as she recorded a cover of George Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me" - which is both beautiful and makes me miss her.

Media music

A few weeks ago I started an evening class at a London university, entitled Media Music: Composing for Film and TV. One of our assignments is to compose music from scratch to a given (and pretty detailed) brief on this San Miguel beer advert below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjhyKCzeAg8

So far the class has been fascinating getting insights into the many industries that are involved in composing in the media and to what is like to work on projects first-hand by our teacher Nainita Desai – her website is www.soundology.com. Getting to listen to her industry stories on her music is a massive learning experience.

Got until April to attempt the assignment so I’ll post what I come up with sometime after then.

I hope to do it justice, I quite like San Miguel

Enthusiasm. The "ology" of "ologies"

Three of my friends have started blogs that I really enjoy. All three are theology related (my type of thing) and I love reading the thoughts they have in trying to make sense of the God, the world and the world around them in their lives. Dave, Dusty and Rebekah all write in three very different ways but all in a very honest and open way. All three are now on my blog roll for easy viewing.

So what has this got to do with music? Everything and nothing. 

Nothing -  in the sense that it has nothing to do with anything musical.

Everything -  in the sense that without theology and asking the big questions for me there is little point in me making and engaging with music. Without it, it is just a collection of noise, a collection of words. That's not to say that everything I produce has a sacred, Godly or biblical context to it.It just means that I am driven by enthusiasm

God, and the study of all things God (i.e. Theology) is an influence for everything. The more enthusiastic I am, the better the music.

I love the origins of the word enthusiasm. Literally means a state of being "in God". The word was originally used to described a religious fervour of people and then it came to mean what it means today. It's something like that fervour, passion or whatever you want to call it that drove me to London and that drives me on this adventure. I'm not sure what you would call "it", but for me "it" comes from God, so in the old sense of the word my music is driven by my "enthusiasm".

enthusiasm (n.) 

c.1600, from Middle French enthousiasme (16c.) and directly from Late Latin enthusiasmus, from Greek enthousiasmos "divine inspiration," from enthousiazein "be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy," from entheos "divinely inspired, possessed by a god," from en "in" (see en- (2)) + theos "god" (see Thea). Acquired a derogatory sense of "excessive religious emotion" (1650s) under the Puritans; generalized sense of "fervor, zeal" (the main modern sense) is first recorded 1716.

(from etymonline.com)

I recorded a song earlier today called "song of Ham", which if you have ever been a kid stuck indoors because of the weather, you may identify with. I'll get it on the blog just as soon as I get the technology sorted.

February is a big month, so there'll be more on here, the adventure goes on.

Questions of God, love, drugs and rock&roll

I got introduced to this video interview by my best friend. This is an interview of a hero of mine; Noel Gallagher. After watching it, I just had to share it.

I find it fascinating to hear what drives the mind of a song-writer and how they view the world and the big questions (who is God, who is Jesus, meaning of life, what happens after death etc). He gives his take on those and more). There is so much gold in this interview whatever you may think of Noel Galagher or even if you have never heard of Noel Gallagher you are in for some enlightenment. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ODcuQirKs0