The Matt Anderson Quartet has been shortlisted for ‘Band of the Year’ in the Jazz Yorkshire Awards 2012 alongside such big names as Trio VD, Roller Trio and Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio, and I have also been nominated for ‘Educator of the Year’. The Kate Peters Septet has also been shorlisted, along with Sela Bar (Pub/Bar Venue of the Year) and HEART in Headingley (Venue of the Year) where I help put on and promote gigs. Fingers crossed that at least one of these things might win an award!

Photos by Toby Bartholomew. Please seek the photographer’s permission before using or publishing these photographs.

As a Christmas present to myself a couple of weeks back, I travelled down to Somerset for a second lesson with saxophone maestro Iain Ballamy. What a great experience to talk with this guy about music, practice, mindset, art and more!

Found this great vid of Iain playing with Django Bates’ ‘Human Chain’ the other day:

Enjoy!

 

Opening up with I Remember You it soon became apparent that this band was original even when playing non originals! The standard was played with an oblique almost Tristano-like ethereal approach and, in truth, Anderson’s dry sound did, at this stage, have a hint of Warne Marsh to it.

A series of original originals followed most of which I’d heard either at Scarborough or on downloads so the pieces had a degree of familiarity about them. Cold Spell, despite the title, saw the tenor sound become distinctly warmer and the ideas seemed to flow effortlessly from both sax and guitar. My Ideal was given a more lyrical interpretation than the previous standard and was none the worse for that. The set closed with Free Into Edinburgh a somewhat ambiguous title from guitarist Vanns that built up in intensity to a frenzied climax. A good first set.

A pint of The Bridge’s own brew (Castle Brown – not to be confused with…) went down well before it was back up the stairs – in this case it was in fact a Stairway To The Stars which followed Jamil Sherif’s Contentment.

The final number, inspired by the Island of Skye, did not ‘speed like a bird on the wing’ instead it began as a doom laden affair that seemed to take about 3 weeks to build up into a compelling opus. It was worth the wait! All four players contributed with a special mention of Gardner’s drumming which was rock solid in both solos and time. On bass, Marley did the necessary without flamboyance.

Afterwards met Kate Peters who informed me her band play Hoochie Coochie in February – one to look out for.

Lance Liddle – Matt Anderson Quartet @ The Bridge Hotel, Bebop Spoken Here Blog, 30th Oct 2011

New videos uploaded from our gig at Splinter @ The Bridge, Newcastle, last Sunday.

Here is one, ‘Cold Spell.’ The rest can be found on the Videos page, and there are more to come…

Thanks to Adrian Tilbrook for recording and uploading these!

Sunday was the last date of the short Matt Anderson Quintet ‘Songs of the Ridings’ tour, playing music commissioned by Creative North Yorkshire and Scarborough Jazz Festival celebrating the cultural heritage of North Yorkshire.

It was a real privilege to be able to play my own music at such great venues and with such amazing musicians, whose creativity meant that each performance was totally different and therefore felt fresh, risky and exciting. So, big thanks to Jamil, Kari, John, Aubin and Sam for their contribution, as well as promoters Mike Gordon (Scarborough Jazz Festival), Steve Shaw (Pave), Claire Turner (Matt n’ Phreds) and Steve Crocker (Seven Jazz).

Also, I’m very grateful to Hazel Cameron and Chrysalis Arts for the funding that made the project possible, as well as to Nigel Slee (Jazz Yorkshire), Kathy Dyson, Oli Bentley (Split Design), Dave Chapman and Leeds City Library.

Photos and video footage from our performance at Scarborough Jazz Festival should be available shortly.

Next up, the Matt Anderson Quartet will be playing at The Bridge, Newcastle (30th Oct); Cafe Lento, Headingley (25th Nov) and The Spin Off, Leeds (19th Jan).

This weekend saw the exciting first performance of the new ‘Songs of the Ridings’ commission tour at the Scarborough Jazz Festival.

Lance Liddle of the bebop spoken here blog had this to say about the gig:

Commissioned by Creative North Yorkshire and Scarborough Jazz Festival this was a bold and ambitious work composed and arranged by leader Anderson. Is compositional ideas are good and his tenor sound warm although on Cold Spell it was appropriately – cool! Kari Bleivik’s vocal lines added a Winstonian feel to the ensembles.

On bass John Marley delivered a strong harmonic foundation propelled along by Gardner’s drums whilst, on piano, Sheriff, proved, as he has done at previous Scarborough Festival, what an inventive player he is.

A fine set and yet…

…on a descriptive suite such as this I felt that the leader should have spoken more about the background or, if time was prohibitive, to have provided programme notes such as Tommy Evans did in the evening.

That aside, it was musically sound.

(Lance Liddle, bebop spoken here: Scarborough Jazz Festival – Sunday Afternoon, 26/09/11)

To see the full article, follow this link: http://lance-bebopspokenhere.blogspot.com/2011/09/scarborough-jazz-festival-sunday.html

We’re looking forward to the next three gigs of the tour – next up is Pave Bar in Hull, this Sunday the 2nd Oct. Also in the pipeline is Matt n’ Phreds, Manchester (11th Oct) and 7arts Centre, Leeds (16th Oct).

The Matt Anderson Quartet sampler CD was reviewed by Ron Burnett for the York Press in this week’s ‘Jazz Notes.’ This is what he said:

Saxophonist Matt Anderson has a new quartet album of his own with John Marley, Aubin Vanns (guitar) and Sam Gardner (drums), who are all on Kate’s CD.

Aubin’s mellow, Metheny-esque electric guitar in place of piano creates a cool, spacy dynamic, occasionally booted up a notch by Gardner’s drums in a compelling programme of original compositions. Ralph’s Cross has elegiac saxophone over gently meandering rhythm, guitar chords with a hint of atmospheric reverb and Marley’s full-toned bass.

Cold Spell is a warmly propulsive and rewarding four-part conversation between the instruments. The Vanns composition, Free Into Edinburgh, is a boppy, 6/8 piece and the guitarist stretches out in an articulate solo.

The Matt Anderson 6-track album can be streamed or downloaded free or at your own price at mattandersonquartet.bandcamp.com

(Ron Burnett, York Press Music News and Reviews – Jazz Notes, Fri 2nd September 2011)

To read the full Jazz Notes article, follow this link: http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/music/9230598.Jazz_notes/

Just received the image file for the new flyers designed by Oli Bentley at Split.co.uk, also with a great landscape photograph by Jon Stanley Austin. Will be getting them off to venues soon when the printing is complete.

‘Free into Edinburgh,’ written by Aubin Vanns and recorded by the Matt Anderson Quartet, was today’s Download of the Day on AllAboutJazz.com, where it was also commented that ‘Adopting rock influences while retaining its jazz identity, Matt Anderson’s quartet steams through this thoroughly enjoyable tune.’

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/jazzdownload.php?id=6735