In 2017 the gigging continued apace with Swingologie, the Matt Palmer Trio, and particularly with Swing Gitan, with all three bands appearing regularly at the Pelican Club and other venues both old and new, like the Yarn Bar, Peggy's Skylight, and a host of other various gigs, festivals and functions.
This year saw the release of CDs by both Swingologie and Swing Gitan. Ironically, for various reasons both CDs were recorded a year to eighteen months before their release. The Swingologie CD was a live set captured at West Bridgford library in November 2015, and the Swing Gitan CD was recorded in December of 2016, and finally released on CD just as 2017 came to an end. Some promotional videos set to tracks from the CD were also made in 2017 in preparation for its release, and were featured online before the CD was available to buy. The Swing Gitan CD also featured a composition of my own, called 'Bossa Soleado', and I designed the artwork for both CDs.
Playing in both Swingologie and Swing Gitan certainly brought in more gigs, particularly with Swing Gitan who were in ascension getting all kinds of gigs. Although I now also had a full time day job to cope with as well, since Jane and I had decided to save up to relocate to Australia permanently.
During this period, John Coulson and I started backing our old friend Matt Palmer on some trio gigs at the Pelican Club, and I was doing duo gigs with either Richard Smith, Elliott Lewis, Matt Palmer, and even the occasional solo guitar gig.
Swingologie were rebooked again for the Jazz in the Library gigs, and Swing Gitan was now boosted by addition of John Coulson on double bass, after Rob Coates decided to pursue his original career as a guitarist, and joining Maniere Des Bohemiens.
Just a small selection of gig shots and clips from this period:
One night whilst playing with the Hot Club in a pub in Nottingham called the Kean's Head; A group of young people had been watching us with interest, and on their way out they said how much they really enjoyed the music and had never heard anything like it before. One chap in particular asked a few questions about exactly what this music was; and Paul and I briefly explained, and told him to google 'Django Reinhardt'.
Unbeknownst to us, this was budding guitarist Matt Kerry. He and his group of friends would go on to form the first new gypsy/jazz band on the Nottingham scene for a generation. This band, called 'Maniere des Bohemiens', would in turn give birth to other offshoot bands like Swing Gitan UK, and Cafe Manouche.
During the interim period between the split of the Hot Club and the formation of Swingologie in late 2010, John and I had done a couple of gigs with individually with Matt Kerry, and also Elliott Lewis, who had joined 'the Bohemiens' on guitar a little later. Both of these guys were the upcoming young guns of gypsy/jazz in Nottingham, and already at a competent level by 2010, they would both go on to be great exponents of the genre. Swing Gitan was formed after they left Maniere des Bohemiens; but eventually Matt and his partner and vocalist Natalia Douglas decided to relocate and base themselves out of London, and forming the band; 'Cafe Manouche'.
Meanwhile, in 2013 Swingologie were still gigging around Nottingham, with residencies at the Vat and Fiddle, Cafe Rouge, and the newer Pelican Club venue, augmented by gigs at the Lion Inn, and the Hand and Heart, amongst others.
Also in the latter part of 2013, Swingologie were invited to take part in the 'Jazz in the Libraries' mini-tour which took place in November of that year, which was tremendously well received.
In January 2014, Swing Gitan UK were without the regular participation of their guitarist Matt Kerry, who had relocated to London. Guitarist and founder member Elliott Lewis invited me to play a gig with them at a local bar called 'Fade'. The band had settled into the line up of Elliott on guitar, alongside James Tolhurst on trumpet, and guitarist Rob Coates who was also now playing gigs much more regularly as a double bass player. But to play gypsy/jazz; the vital ingredient of two guitars was needed.
The gig went well, and as a result I was invited to play more gigs with them, including regular performances at the Nottingham Contemporary, Edin's Cafe Bar, The Roundhouse, and the Hand and Heart, amongst others; as well as various private functions and festivals.
I grew into the role and by the time the year was out, I was a fully fledged regular member of the band. I was still running Swingologie, and Elliott was running Swing Gitan, and although both bands fell under the banner of gypsy/jazz, they were more than sufficiently different enough to each other for neither band to be compromised.
And also, there was one other very important event in the September of that year....
In 2012 Swingologie made a demo CD to showcase the band's talents towards getting further gigs, and continued to build a solid reputation, both as a trio and a quartet.
In the meantime big things were happening for me in my personal life. It took a long time for me to meet the right person to be my life partner, and in 2012 it happened completely unexpectedly. Jane and I have been married for 6 years this year, and in that first year I was already inspired enough to compose a tune for her, which I entitled 'Romantique'.
After arriving in Nottingham from Melbourne, Australia, Jane came along to her first jazz gig at the Hand and Heart. and so was introduced to Gypsy/Jazz and my world as a musician.
Swingologie Trio at the Hand and Heart - September 2012
During my sabbatical of a few months, after the split of The Hot Club, I had chance to reflect and think about what I wanted to do. John Coulson and I were still sticking together and covering our various regular gigs with a variety of guests, including Ben Holder on violin, Ben Martin on saxophone, and Matt Kerry on guitar.
By now I was listening more and more to classical music; the study of which had become my hobby on the side. But I still felt the pull of Gypsy/Jazz. And even after the peak of The Hot Club, I still felt that I had not fully explored everything that this fascinating genre of music had to offer.
Even back in the days of Swing '91, I had felt a pull towards the more 'modern' side (in jazz terms) of this genre, as expressed by Bireli Lagrene and a now upcoming generation of new gypsy/jazz guitarists.
But in truth I had only succeeded up to a point, in assimilating this particular angle into my playing as a lead guitarist. I felt that I had forged my own approach, but I struggled with the technical demands of the 'modern' side of jazz, and I decided to accept this and focus on my strengths.
For many years, since I had started going to the Samois Django festival back in '92, my seemingly natural skill (in the sense that I never had to work at it) as rhythm guitarist in the genre, had been noticed and received many compliments and a lot of attention over the years; and after the Hot Club, it felt like the right thing to do, to drop off the front line and drive from the back, in a new project that would be roughly conceived around Bireli Lagrene's Gypsy Project MkII.
I had two front line musicians in mind who certainly had no problems with the technical side of the more modern slant that I had in mind.
Richard Smith was a superb guitarist who I had known since Swing '91 burst onto the Nottingham scene. We had played together several times over the years at various gigs, and I was always impressed by both his musicianship and his gentle spirit. Meanwhile, saxophonist Ben Martin was well known on the music scene as one of the best players around, and he had already performed several times in recent years as a guest with the Hot Club.
Luckily, when I approached Richard and Ben with my ideas for putting a new project together which would be Gypsy/Jazz, but leaning into Be-bop territory playing tunes by the likes of Charlie Parker, as well as the later compositions of Django Reinhardt; they both went for the idea. I put together a programme, and after a couple of brief rehearsals, we played our first gig at the Vat and Fiddle in April 2011.
It's fair to say that after the Hot Club split the previous year, there was some consternation in our fanbase. Many people urged us to get back together and carry on. And for those fans of the gypsy side of the Hot Club; this new band; which I entitled 'Swingologie', with its hard bop approach, was not what many of those fans were looking for to replace the Hot Club. However, we did begin to pick up a small following of our own, and started to do other gigs around Nottingham throughout 2011 and into 2012; where a more hardcore jazz audience was to be found, returning once again to venues like the Lion Inn, and Cafe Rouge, along with new venues like The Pelican Club, where Richard and John and myself developed our own sound as a Trio, which became a very popular feature at the Pelican Club, and other established venues like The Hand and Heart; as Swingologie slowly but surely started to establish itself.
In 2010 The Hot Club had been together in its various forms since 1996, always with the core trio of myself, Paul and John. We had 14 great years, both musically and socially, which formed deep bonds of friendship too.
But it was not without its problems, which were mostly centred around Paul's struggles with alcoholism. It's fair to say that for the most part, the issue only started becoming a problem in the last year or so of the band's existence. I will refrain from going into details, but things came to a head in June of 2010, and I decided to call it a day.
Ironically, we had been making some recordings for a second CD, and almost had enough material; but although I have made the existing recordings available on YouTube; the CD itself was never released.
During this period, Bireli Lagrene was still at the forefront of my Gypsy/Jazz passion, and he made a guest appearance on The Rosenberg Trio's latest release called 'Djangologists', in 2010.
But also over the last few years, I'd gradually become more interested in Classical music again, and this became much stronger when a friend gave me a CD of Orchestral music by Richard Wagner a couple of years earlier. With everything that was still going on for me in the world of Gypsy/Jazz; this re-emerging interest occupied a shared existence in my musical passions; but by 2010 it was occupying at least 50% of that existence.
Some years earlier I had hunted down a CD of the version of Holst's: The Planets, that my mother had on LP all those years earlier, and I had a couple of CDs of piano music by Beethoven and Chopin. My interest in Beethoven grew much stronger after obtaining a dvd of an early '60s performance by Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, of the iconic 5th symphony. In Karajan's hands this music bristled with life!
I played it often, and began to collect much more of Beethoven's work; particularly the orchestral and the piano works. But in 2010, it was the orchestral music of Richard Wagner, which became the biggest new thing for me, after hearing such gorgeous pieces as the Lohengrin overtures, the Magic Fire Music, and the legendary Prelude and Liebestod from 'Tristan und Isolde'.
As far as my own musical career was concerned; I had decided to take a break for a few months. I needed to recharge and decide what I wanted to do. But after a while, I began thinking about a new project; which would soon come to fruition by the early part of 2011.
One of the final performances of The Hot Club, in May 2010:
And a look to the future.... The next generation emerges.....
After over five years since returning to its original trio format, the Hot Club was one of the most popular local bands on the Nottingham scene, and we continued to expand our repertoire and our gig list.
Sometimes we would have guest artists appear with us, including Ben Holder on violin, Mike Turner on clarinet, and later Ben Martin on saxophone; but the core trio played the bulk of the gigs, mostly to packed local venues and an increasing variety of private and corporate function gigs.
As ever for me personally, my musical hero continued to be Bireli Lagrene, who released more great albums during these years.
During the previous years we received many requests for a CD of our music, and in 2006 we finally got around to recording our first CD with home recording equipment at bass player John Coulson's house.
We titled the CD: 'Ambiance', harking back to the very first recording on cassette, a full 10 years earlier in 1996. We tried to incorporate our varying styles, including gypsy music, Bal Musette waltzes, Latin jazz, and of course; pure Gypsy Swing, It was extremely well received at our gigs, and we went on to sell hundreds of copies.
These years were the start of the peak period for the Hot Club, which would last for 7 further years of continued gigging and re-establishing the band as the local legends of Gypsy/Jazz, playing festivals, and many public performance venues, as well as an increasing demand for private and function work, ranging from the Birmingham Jazz Festival, to Oxford University, to more long-standing residencies at various local venues in and around Nottingham. Paul and I continued to play several duo gigs at this stage, including Chez Pierre at Center Parcs, and Cafe Rouge.
In the background to all this, my personal inspiration continued to be focused largely on Bireli Lagrene, who was continuing with his 'Gypsy Project', which by 2004 had moved into a slightly more modern phase, when violinist Florin Niculescu was replaced by saxophonist; Franck Wolf, with Wolf and Lagrene moving into 'Be-bop' territory with numbers like 'Donna Lee', and 'Move', as well as Django originals played with Bireli's uniquely modern approach to Gypsy/Jazz.
