We were invited onto BBC Radio Leeds’ Mid-Morning show last Friday to play a couple of standards – here is ‘If I Were a Bell.’ The band is Declan Forde, piano; Sam Vicary, double-bass; Sam Gardner, drums and myself on tenor.

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.

Continuing with material from the recent Matt Anderson Quartet tour, here’s a video from our gig at The Lescar, Sheffield, playing my tune The Hermitage:
 

Sunday the 27th May saw the end of the Matt Anderson Quartet tour at the Whighams jazz club in Edinburgh. It’s been a great few weeks, well worth all the hard work organising the shows, writing the music, practicing and rehearsing. Big thanks firstly to the band, Aubin Vanns, Sam Gardner and John Marley, who worked hard on the material and sounded consistently amazing throughout the tour. And secondly, to the promoters and others who gave us places to perform and helped out along the way – Steve Shaw at Pave, Chris Walker at The Lescar, Claire Turner at Matt n’ Phreds, Adrian Tilbrook and Andy and Zoe Champion at The Bridge, Sam Leak and Hannes Riepler at Charlie Wright’s, Lesley Jefferies at HEART and Kevin Dorrian and Graeme Knox at Whighams.

I’m going to post up some material from a few of the different gigs like videos, photos and audio, starting with this video from Splinter @ The Bridge, Newcastle, of us playing the Bobby Timmons classic Moanin’:

Also, check out the review of the gig from Lance Liddle on his blog, Bebop Spoken Here: http://lance-bebopspokenhere.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/matt-anderson-quartet-bridge-first-set.html

And another review, this time of the second set: http://lance-bebopspokenhere.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/matt-anderson-quartet-2nd-set.html

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!