In Praise of BL

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been busy working on a couple of websites for my good friend Brian Lynch. In addition to that, I’ve also been spending a fair amount of time at NYU (New York University), subbing for Brian as lead trumpet in, and director of, their Bebop Big Band. It’s been a great experience, as well as a lot of fun, working with these talented young musicians. This afternoon I had the great pleasure of hearing the band play at the Bowery Poetry Club here in New York. They’ve come a long way this semester – the book is quite challenging. They did a great job and I was also proud to be invited to play a couple of tunes with them, while Brian Lynch conducted and soloed with the band from the front.

I’ve admired Brian’s playing for many years; he was actually the first American Jazz trumpet player I ever saw live, back in the early 1990s, at home in Cleethorpes, with the Phil Woods Quintet. He is an inspiration to me, not only as a trumpet player, but in the tremendous attitude he has towards the world around him. Yet again, this afternoon, he completely blew me (and I suspect the assembled few watching the gig) away. The depth of his understanding of the music, along with his seemingly unlimited Jazz vocabulary is simply astonishing. If you haven’t checked out his playing, I heartily recommend that you do. If you haven’t heard him lately, you should really check out some of his recent work, either live or on record. The continued growth in his musical concept is alarming!

The new BrianLynchJazz.com

A quick break of radio silence to let you know what I’ve been up to lately. I’ve been quite busy, although not with the usual trumpetry! I’ve been working with my good friend, and one of the great trumpet players today, Brian Lynch on bringing his websites up to date. What started out as an innocent offer to help out with a new WordPress-based site he’d started turned into a full-on project. It’s been a steep learning curve for me; some of his feature requests lay outside of existing plugins – but I’m pleased to say that it’s coming together nicely. So nicely, in fact, that even though we’re not quite finished, it went live today!

Check it out for yourself at BrianLynchJazz.com!

I intend to write more about I wrangled some of the features over on my other site – rather than boring those of you who come to read about my musical endeavours. Meantime, I’ll be posting more here shortly about some other things I have going on. I’m pleased to say that I finally have some gigs coming up! More soon….

BD

February ’10

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

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!

Last Minute – Jazz at the Swan

Bryan Davis will be playing at The Swan in Liversedge, W.Yorkshire tomorrow (19th Aug ’09) evening. He will be guesting alongside Stuart McDonald on saxes with the Brian Jackson Trio. The festivities begin shortly after 8.45pm!

Please come along and support live jazz in West Yorkshire!

The Swan is located at the junction between the A62 and A638 in Liversedge, West Yorkshire. Here is a Google Maps link.