Bailey's Blog

Great name, great band!

Last night I played with "Sarge and Rennocks Lonely Hearts Club Band" a soul / blues / swing band from Coalville, Leicester. Dean Sargent (who I was covering for) and Mark Rennocks are both members and friends of the Desford band, and it was a pleasure to help them out.

Last night's gig was a fundraising bash at Leicester City's football stadium (in a hospitality suite, not on the pitch itself!) for a friend of the band's cancer charity. We played 2 sets, which were oddly divided by an entire evacuation of the venue due to some idiot from another event in the place smoking in the toilets. We were stood outside in the rain for half an hour waiting for the all clear!

Take a look at their Myspace page, and have a listen to the tracks that you can listen to there. These were recorded at my first rehearsal, that's my high note at the end of "The Letter!". There's also a superb rendition of Amy Winehouse's "Valerie" sung by Lucy, the youngest of the three backing singers.

The band did a great job. 500 people had a great time listening to the band nail some brilliant music. I loved it - hopefully I'll get the call again sometime!

The Desford Band is finally online!

The Desford Colliery Band is now proud to announce its new website!

The website is still under construction, but the basics are in place and look great. There are several pictures of the band, both old and new to be seen. In the future, readers will be able to download tracks to their MP3 players, and keep up to date on forthcoming events.

Currently we are rehearsing for the Midlands Area qualifier competition for the National Finals. We stand a good chance of winning, but the piece is very old and traditional in style, and the contest is in a new venue, so anything can happen. We're quietly confident though!

You can read my "player profile" here. This will be updated shortly (the grammar's useless in one of the sentences, and I want to provide a link to this site!), so watch that space too!

That's me that is!

Every so often I do some recording for Lockdown Media , a small studio near Solihull in Birmingham. They produce everything from jingles for adverts to full movie soundtracks. They've done stuff for Disney and many well-known film music composers - their music can be heard on many TV shows, including Cash in the Attic, 5th gear, the Oprah Winfrey show and all kinds of other things. Take a look at their website, they've done some amazing stuff.

They use musicians such as me to provide samples of "real" instruments rather than manufactured sounds created by electric studio instruments that get used so much these days. They sell albums containing samples which DJs, composers, and songwriters can then use to create their commercial soundtracks and songs and a lot of my stuff has appeared on these. Every so often, they let me know when a soundbite that I recorded has been used out there in the wild!

Basically what happens is that they play a backing to me and I either improvise over the top, or I play exactly what they want me to play. They sing it, I play it. A session rarely takes more than 40 minutes, I get some pocket money and the two-man team from Lockdown do whatever they like with the fruits of my labour.

One of the things they created using my samples was the theme to that trashy UK TV quiz "Goldenballs" - I can't say I'm that proud about that one but....

Take a look at the video clip below (it may take a few seconds to load, be patient!). I can be heard on this surprisingly catchy song "I Like Girls", by the Hound Dogs! You can hear me from about 1 min 30 into the track until the end.

This has got to be the coolest bit of trumpet playing that I've ever done!

Meet the Minnesota Symphony Trumpet Section

During my visit to Minneapolis I met with Steve Kriesel. Steve makes Torpedo Bags, one of the best  protective trumpet cases on the planet. On discovering that Steve was based in Minneapolis, I contacted him a couple of weeks ago to ask if we could meet up and if I could take a look at his selection of cases, and probably buy one.

Steve invited me to a rehearsal for a forthcoming concert in Minneapolis featuring the Minnesota Symphony trumpet section and some local session trumpet players. They were playing various trumpet ensemble pieces ranging from baroque arrangements to a Tribute to Doc Severinson.

The principal trumpet of the orchestra is Manny Laureano, who did a great job on lead piccolo, C, and Bb trumpet throughout the rehearsal. Manny is one of THE great American symphonic trumpet players - he recently celebrated his 25th year as principal trumpet of the Minnesota Symphony. Very few trumpet players last that long in one job!

Once the rehearsal was done, some of the guys came over to Brits Pub (just over the road from the Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis) for a few beers for a trumpet-flavoured chat. We had a great time, it was great to meet a really friendly bunch of expert trumpet players.

 

So, did I buy a trumpet case? Of course I did! I'm now the proud owner of a leather trumpet case that will protect my instrument even if it's thrown under a truck! Take a look at this ad!

Bailey's First Left-Handed Trumpet Gig!

On Thursday 20th I participated in a performance of the first three cantatas of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, in St Anne's Lutheran Church in London. This beautiful little church is just around the corner from St. Paul's Cathedral.

I've performed this oratorio a number of times, but this performance was special for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the orchestra used the instruments of the time ("period" instruments as we call them), but also the choir consisted of just 8 professional opera singers, who also took it in turn to step forward and sing the solo arias. Using a small choir of quality singers for this repertoire is so much better than a full -sized chorus.

My role was to join my friends Dom and Chris as the 3rd trumpet. Dom and I both chose to "go holeless" ("ohne Löcher" as Messers Bach or Luther might have said) and not use the fingerholes that modern natural trumpets generally use to keep us in tune. Going holeless is like tightrope walking to us trumpeters, it makes life much more difficult. Having said this, if you're playing lower parts then it's not too bad. This was my first public holeless performance.

Look Mum - one hand!

The gig went well. The trumpet section did a great job, even though we had the 2 bass singers giving it full pelt stood right behind us. Never before have I been drowned out by two singers - blimey, that's  quite an embarrassing thing for a trumpet player to say!

Here are three more pics from the concert. Dom, Chris on 1st leading the way (using the holes - rightly so, you've got to be mad to go that high without the safety of the holes!) and me.

   

St Anne's has a list of forthcoming events on their website here.

Unblogged Photos

Every so often I look through our photos and realise that I really should share them with you.  These are just a few examples:

This is James Cunningham and I enjoying a beer with Chuck Findley. Chuck Who? Chuck Findley, that's who.
Chuck is one of the most successful and popular commercial trumpet players around today. He also happens to be a top bloke. Great musicians usually are!

We met Chuck in September this year when it turned out that Desford Band was sharing the same hotel as the James Last Orchestra, who Chuck has played with for many years.

Here's James again with Chuck and Bob Reeves. Bob told us that his first pro trumpet gig was playing with Ray Charles!

Both of these guys played with Chase, Earth Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, the Buddy Rich band and many other famous groups. Take a look at Chuck's  Photo gallery on his site and you'll get the idea!

Here's me with James Last, and Frans Violet, who was conducting Desford at the contest.

Me, Hans & Frans!

   

Here's a lovely picture of Ania showing her Dad a photo on one of the cameras that we used on their trip a couple of months ago. We had a great time!

   

    Right, new leaf duly turned, expect an update in a day or two!

 

Brief Update...

Greetings,

Just to say:

1. The kittens are doing just fine. I'm collating some pictures to post here in my spare time, not that I've got much of that at the moment.

2. Banding's started. Rehearsals are going well with our conductor,  Frans Violet. To say he's working us hard is an understatement, but we're exited about how things are going. I have my views, as do other members of the band about how we'll get on and I'll post them here shortly. Expect sparks to fly, and for us not to come than 6th! This performance is not going to get an average result!

3. It was great to meet up with an old friend from the Dorset Youth Orchestra, which I played in from 1988 - 1993. Rich "T" Cross (as he was known, I'm sure it's just Richard now!)
is now a very busy freelance trombone player living in Bournmouth. He were reunited at a quintet gig in Tipton of all places!

This is us after the gig outside the Crooked House pub. Not a place you want to be drunk in!

Trumpet Recording Maniac!

Anyone who knows me well, or has at least visited my house, will know that there are quite a few cds in my living room. Obviously, the majority of my collection is classical music or brass stuff - but I also have plenty of pop, rock, folk, jazz - you name it!

I like to keep up with recordings that my favourite trumpet players publish. I have practically everything that Wynton Marsalis, Hakan Hardenberger and Reinhold Friedrich have recorded, to name just a few.

I've just ordered two new recordings that I thought I'd tell you about...

Ole Edvard Antonssen has recently released his second CD on BIS - this time of Nordic Trumpet Concertos. I don't know any of the works on this disc but I'm sure it will be very interesting. His first CD, of cornet solos is terrific. Both the Norwegian Concertos, and the cornet solos recordings are available from JPC.DE.

Also available on JPC, a new DVD has been released of Claudio Abbado conducting the Luzern Festival orchestra playing Mahler's 6 symphony. I already have the DVDs of the fifth and the second symphonies - primarily for one reason. God's on 1st trumpet! The same orchestra and conductor are doing Mahler 3 next week at the Proms - I just wish I could make it.

Here are a couple of pics of my CD racks - you can probably see about 800 disks here. Not the biggest collection in the world - but it's big enough for me!

The first four rows of this rack holds just brass stuff - the rest is jazz...

Here's the rest - mostly orchestral, but a few other bits and pieces, including Ania's Sting CDs!

The banding season is looming!

Desford's rehearsal schedule for the forthcoming British Open contest is published here.

Rehearsal schedules will be published on this site in advance of a proper Desford website being created and published. Please watch this space for more info!

I don't know what piece we're playing, or what instrument part I'm playing - but that's normal. All will become clear once the first rehearsal is under way.

However, I do know who's conducting but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to tell....

God's Got a Website

Not made any updates recently for various reasons - sorry for that - I'm sure I've lost a few readers for that!

I read somewhere that a site that ain't updated ain't read - I guess it's true. Anyway...

Went to Wynton Marsalis' gig at the Barbican on Monday. I said to a friend of mine before the gig started: "He's one of the greatest trumpet players of all time - but more importantly, he's also one of the greatest musicians on the planet". After the gig, my friend agreed.

I was listening to Marsalis LPs when I was 12. I now have pretty much all of his recordings, both classical and jazz. This was the fourth time I've seen him and he gets better every time.

There's a decent review of the concert here. I'll let someone more eloquent than me give a detailled review, but the gig was simply fantastic. The music was all themed around trains and train journeys (for example, they played "Take the "A" Train" in the first half) - and there's loads of jazz repertoire on that theme to play. If I had to criticise, I'd say that perhaps some of the music was a little same-y (you know what I mean!), and that he's actually composed a couple of excellent train-related tracks which would have spiced up the programme quite nicely, but they didn't materialise.

One other superb thing - you can take your drink into the auditorium at the Barbican. How cool is that?

Marsalis' encore was a super-fast be-bop solo over "Cherokee" - a jazz head by Ray Noble. There's a video of him playing  it a the Albert Hall five years ago at the Proms on YouTube. Ania and I were both there -in fact this gig was our first date!

Actually - this post wasn't supposed to be about Marsalis....

My favourite trumpet player of all time, Reinhold Friedrich, has finally launched a website.
About time too!
I recommend any trumpet player, brass player, musician,  morris dancer, whoever you are to buy a Friedrich recording (start with this one) and admire the genius.

The only trouble is that now I am able to see Herr Friedrich's gig schedule and I keep thinking about making trips to Germany and France to go and see him - hopefully I'll get chance to see the other trumpet God in action at some point in the future. You'll certainly find out if I do!

Thanks for reading....

SB