Category: recording

I’ve finally got round to starting my long planned gypsy jazz project. I’m going to be recording a selection of tracks that typify the most important tunes and styles in the gypsy jazz repertoire. There will be swing tunes or course, but also later more bop tracks, a waltz or two and perhaps something along the lines of one of Django’s solo guitar improvisations. I’m going for a fairly vintage sound and I might do some real old school mixes, but I’ve also got a couple of ideas for electro swing remixes of some of these tracks.

There is a more detailed page here.

 

 

 

Some real progress is being made with this album now, and we should be pitching it to potential publishers in a couple of weeks’ time.

Fingers crossed…

 

I’ve got about half an album’s worth of tracks for this project now. Time to look for a publisher….

More information can be found in the “current projects” section of the site.

 

I’ve been making some good progress with this project in the past week or two. There will be tracks for those “busy cooking” scenes, something to go with more exotic cuisine and tension building underscores. A musical toolkit for the kitchen, with acoustic instruments, played live, and percussion built up from kitchen appliances and utensils.

…in progress as you read this; light, carefree melodies, underscores and stings – wrapped around a core of acoustic guitar.

 

My idea started with an eight bar chord progression that I was messing around with on the guitar one day. I took the chords, split up the voices, mixed them around and, quite strictly, kept to this as the harmonic basis for the whole album.

Consequently, it’s got a coherence about it that I really like, despite the tracks all being very different from one another. I’ve kept everything very “organic”; no synths or samples.

At present, I’m quite pleased with this one- just looking for a publisher….

There are some audio clips to be found under the “current projects” menu heading.

 

I’m happy to hear that tracks from Pete Newman Clarinet Project featured on Tom Robinson’s BBC Introducing Mixtape recently on Radio 6.  I realise that the BBC link below may expire soon, but here it is for the time being…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b053lbjf

I’m pleased to say that it looks as though a couple of tracks are going to feature on an upcoming Universal album release. Recorded last year, tweaked a bit this year and probably not to see the metaphorical light of day for a good couple of months- such is the prolonged nascence of production music tracks.

I was quite busy a few months ago with sessions for Universal’s recently released World of Animation album. Lots of variety for me on these sessions and I’m grateful, as ever, to Bob and Barn for the job!

It seems that the Freakonomics podcats (that was a serendipitous typo that I decided to keep) really like their gypsy jazz. Another track of mine has cropped up on a recent episode; interesting radio, good music!

I’ve had the good fortune to do some session work recently for the upcoming Lennox Brothers movie, Amstardam. Bass and guitars with a bit of gypsy jazz, right up my street! Thanks to Bob and Barn for this.

I’m making good progress with the national anthems album; there is a bit more info on the page here.

Time to start looking for someone who is interested in publishing it…..

 

I’m a big fan of the Freakonomics books and podcast so I was gratified to hear a couple of my tunes feature on some of their recent podcast episodes.

cash

alcohol

obesity

 

A couple of recent session doing gypsy jazz for a sequence in the upcoming Lennox Brothers movie AmStarDam have produced some good results I think. Thanks to Bob and Barn for this!

 

Some weeks ago I spent a day recording guitars for the recently aired “My Gay Wedding; the musical” on CH4, at DIN studios in Limehouse. The engineer Julian Simmons is a man with great ears who really knows what he is doing!

 

 

After a day infront of the computer this site is back up and, mostly, as before. I’ve moved it to a new server and am trying to restore my old posts…

I’ve put a bit more detail and some audio clips in some, project specific, pages. These are accessible from the main site menu.

Some sessions playing guitar for Pete Newman’s “Clarinet Project” album are now in the metaphorical can. This has been some years in the making and I’m excited to hear the finished thing!

I’ve completed a few flamenco tracks for a forthcoming Focus Music release. A good excuse to practice my rasguedos, but hard work on the picking hand!

I’m in the early stages of writing for an album of gypsy jazz, or jazz manouche, tunes in the sinti gypsy style- typified by Django Reinhardt. This has been my main area of practice for the past few years, so I’m confident that I’ll be able to do a good, authentic job.