February ’10

Aside by

We are pleased to announced that, following a few weeks in limbo, Bryan Davis has now received his Work Authorization. He is now available for any and all performance and teaching opportunities! He is based in New York City but is available to travel anywhere within the US mainland. With some notice, he should be able to get the necessary paperwork to allow overseas travel also.

Please check out the information in the Teaching section of the site if you wish to avail yourself of Bryan’s services as a Trumpet teacher for Private Lessons or Clinics, or as a guest artist with your School/College band. Don’t forget that Online Lessons via Webcam are available if you are elsewhere in the US, or indeed the world!

You can find all Bryan Davis’ contact information on the Contact page of this website. He looks forward to hearing from you soon!

In December 2009, Bryan was on the road with the ‘Christmas with The Rat Pack – Live At The Sands’ holiday show. They spent a very pleasant, although colder than expected, 2 weeks in Dallas, TX, followed by a week in Hartford, CT. While in Dallas, Bryan had the opportunity to visit the University of North Texas and not only attend a rehearsal of the famed One O’Clock Lab Band, but also visit the Maynard Ferguson music collection at the UNT library. They have the entire surviving library from Maynard’s estate, some 400+ charts, and have archived and preserved it – a task that took a little over a year! A fascinating look into Jazz history!

During September and October 2009, Bryan Davis paid a couple of visits to Austria. During the first, he played a couple of concerts, and spent 3 days in the studio with Thomas Gansch and his band. For the studio sessions and the concert at Porgy & Bess in Vienna, the trumpet section was augmented by Adam Rapa – a wonderful trumpet player and great guy. Thomas wrote a few new tunes for this 3 trumpet line-up. These included his tribute to Bill Chase – ‘Der Rock des Trompeters’. Fans of high note trumpet are not going to disappointed when they hear the resulting CD. We are informed that the resulting CD, entitled ‘Resal’, will be released by the Schagerl Company; makers of fine brass instruments in Austria, including Thomas’ ‘Gansch-horn’. We hope to have news of a release date before long. In the meantime, you can enjoy a couple of videos from the Porgy & Bess concert including this one:-

Bryan returned to Austria at the end of September for the Autumn Tour with the LACJO – reprising their ‘Murdering The Classics’ programme. We are pleased to announce that the CD of this programme is now available. You can currently only order it directly from the LACJO website, although we understand that it should soon be available from the ORF Shop in Vienna (and online). We are inquiring as to whether there is any plan for international distribution – ultimately, it is likely that Bryan Davis will procure a few copies to sell through this site. More news about that as we have it.

New Gansch & Roses videos

Aside by

I was surfing the internet this afternoon and came across some new videos of a concert we played with Gansch & Roses in Frankenfels, Austria, this past September (2009). I’ve put together a playlist on YouTube – you can view them by following this link: Gansch & Roses – Live in Frankenfels.

I’ll figure out if I can embed a playlist player on the Videos page here on the site. Will update about that when/if it proves possible!
Update: The Playlist player has been added to the Video page. Enjoy!

Checking In and Catching Up.

Aside by

It’s been some time since I’ve had an opportunity to sit down and write a blog post. Between preparations for my emigration and some gigs to play as well it’s been a busy few weeks! Some highlights have included:-

Ryan Quigley Big Band

I had a great visit up to Glasgow to play with Ryan Quigley‘s band at the end of June. It was tremendous to have an opportunity to play, and hang out, with Roger Ingram, who Ryan brought over from the US to play Lead Trumpet. The concert was a complete sell-out and the audience were, rightly, very enthusiastic about the band. Along with some great instrumental charts, we were also performing with Justin Currie; best known as lead singer with Del Amitri. I had a fantastic time in Glasgow and had the chance to enjoy some other concerts, as well as participating in the nightly festival Jam Sessions. Good times!

Stephen Triffit’s Frank Sinatra Tribute

We had an enjoyable, although tiring, visit to Amsterdam in early July with Stephen Triffitt. We performed his “Tribute to Frank Sinatra” at the beautiful Theater Carre. It was a long couple of days, between travelling and much rehearsing but it was great to see some friends from the Rat Pack crew and band, as well as meeting so many fantastic Dutch musicians. The local musicians, who made up the majority of the band, did a wonderful job. I hope we’ll have another opportunity to get back there and do it all again on some other occasion.

Wigan Jazz Club Big Band

Last night, we had a fantastic concert at the 24th Wigan International Jazz Festival. I was filling in on Lead Trumpet for my good friend Neil Morley; we played the second half of a concert shared with the wonderful Carol Kidd. The Wigan Jazz Club Big Band played about 70 mins of Stan Kenton charts and made a fabulous job of this difficult music. I was particularly pleased to see Terry Reaney among the Trumpet section. Terry was, in years gone by, a stalwart of the Syd Lawrence Orchestra and I always enjoyed his playing. It was great to share my section duties with him – it’s always an education to play alongside musicians of such experience! Many thanks to Neil for asking me to do the gig and to bandleader Ian Darrington for his kind words about my playing!

Coming Up….

I’m pleased to be heading back to Austria in September to play and record with Thomas Gansch and the “Roses”. There’s more information about that on the News page. Hopefully this will be my last gig in Europe before my emigration to New York; I’m certainly trying to organise my calendar that way. We’ll see….

Schagerl Brass Festival ’08 – Jazz Night

Aside by

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The first gig on the Gansch & Roses “X-Large” Tour in May ’08 was at the Schagerl Brass Festival in Mank, Austria. We had a great gig which featured some special guests in addition to the usual band and was broadcast live, over the internet, on TheMusicPage.com.

These are a selection of the photos taken by the Brass Festival team – for the full collection, please visit the Brass Festival website.