ABOUT ME
I am reluctant to do this, but it seems to be the tradition to write a brief CV, so here goes.
I grew up in the beautiful county of Cornwall in the far South West of England. After going to a small music college in London, I got my first professional job touring round Germany.
Then came the usual jobs which musicians get, or used to get - playing in pubs (jazz gigs), restaurants, dance-halls, concert-halls, night-clubs (often accompanying cabaret) and elsewhere.
I was lucky to "do the ships" when I was young, involving a round-the-world cruise, Mediterranean and other European cruises, Atlantic-crossings, cruises up the west coast of North America from San Diego to Alaska, and a long stint cruising in the Caribbean. What a lucky lot we are as musicians!
In the Bahamas, I worked in a band backing a show in a casino in Freeport, where I also wrote the music for a film.
Back in the UK, I then worked in Bristol and Cardiff before coming up to Sussex where I've been for some time, taking time out to do a degree in geography at the University of Sussex in the early 1980s. It was my intention to try and do something about the dreadful poverty I had witnessed in some countries in the West Indies. However, the only thing I could find to do was to teach, but within a few weeks I learned the hard way that one thing I could not do is to teach children.
I did become very active though in the peace movement and as a campaigner for world development issues and laterly for green issues. But I had to still earn a crust (literally, as that's all you can earn as a musician) so I drifted back into music.
In 1985, I won an award for a jazz and poetry concert and the following year I was given a commission to write a suite for a 7-piece band which was performed in Brighton and Dieppe. Regarding other cross-cultural events, I've also done two jazz and (spontaneous) painting gigs which were great fun.
Since then I have visited Eastern Europe many times - a fantastically beautiful part of the world with folk music which should interest any musician. I've also had the chance to visit the Middle East a few times.
Over the course of years, I have written a lot of arrangements for bands in many different styles, but in recent years I have concentrated on original compositions which gives me more freedom.
At present I am playing solo piano in a big hotel and doing the occasional jazz gigs. Very few jazz gigs come my way now and I have to admit that I am no longer interested in playing corny standards on a jazz gig when I play hundreds of them as a solo pianist several times a week.
I am still a member of Bill's Bones - a 5-trombone plus rhythm section band run by Bill Guy - a great band, but we don't get any gigs. That must be true of many great bands. I recently led the Sussex Jazz Orchestra but left it in November 2007 as the organisational part of it was consuming all of my time. Sometime this year (2008) I intend to start up my small band again - 5-piece, or 7-piece if I can find the right horn-players.
I'm also the pianist with a women's choir - The Sovereign Singers which is by no means jazz, but I do enjoy the sound of the voices which can sound quite ethereal at times. The choir is very dedicated and disciplined and has a leader who really knows what she is doing. Have a listen to this:
There you have it. If you were expecting a list of big names, sorry to disappoint you but name-dropping is against my principles. So please judge my music on its own merits rather than on the company I've kept.
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