2010 - Final Hot Club, and the re-emergence of Classical music

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.....