April/May ’09

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During April, Bryan Davis will be playing the last 2 weeks on The Rat Pack – Live At The Sands US National Tour. The show visits the Keller Auditorium in Portland, Oregon from April 7th-12th, and then the Segerstrom Hall at the OCPAC in Costa Mesa, California from the 14th-19th. There are lesson/clinic spaces available in both these cities – please check the Teaching section of the site for more details. These are the last Rat Pack dates for a while – there are apparently plans for the show to start up again later in the year but we have no specific details about that at the moment.

Following the end of the US Tour, Bryan will be returning to the UK to finalise his emigration to the USA. He will be home in Leeds until early July – at which time he should be, finally, making the move. He will be available for any and all performance and teaching opportunities during this period. If you’d like to take a lesson with Bryan but have been putting it off, don’t delay!

A highlight during March was Bryan’s trip to Austria to play with the Lower Austrian Concert Jazz Orchestra on their Spring Tour. The band played six concerts in Lower Austria and the final performance, in Schloss Grafenegg, was filmed. Hopefully, there will be sufficient footage to produce a DVD. The inaugural concert last September was recorded and will be released on CD during the coming months. Early mixes sound great and we hope that the final product will capture a good amount of the excitement this fine band generates! There is another LACJO tour planned for the Autumn. Unfortunately, depending on the progress of Bryan’s emigration, he is unlikely to be able to leave the USA to perform on that occasion but he will be back for the tours in 2010.

Looking ahead to May, Bryan will be attending the TrumpetParty 2009 in Noordwijk, Holland on Sunday the 17th. The concert features a number of wonderful players including Roger Ingram, Eric Miyashiro and Lee Thornburg. Bryan is very much looking forward to having the opportunity to see these wonderful musicians perform live. He will also be attending Roger Ingram’s clinic at the event. If you are also there, please come and say hello!

Speaking of Roger Ingram, Bryan will performing alongside him at the Glasgow Jazz Festival on June 27th. They are both playing in the Ryan Quigley Big Band. Ryan is a tremendous trumpet player in his own right and one of the leading lights on the Scottish scene. He has put together a great band for the festival and it should be a great concert.

There has been some great feedback about the new Bryan Davis podcast – details of which can be found on the homepage of the site. Please take a listen and contact Bryan with any feedback or suggestions for topics he can speak about. New episodes will be added at least once a month and hopefully more regularly than that.

Bryan Davis is available to teach Private Lessons and Clinics, whether at home or on the road. Online Lessons via webcam are also now available. If you would like to organise a lesson, please check Bryan’s schedule to find out if he is visiting your city (or when he might have time to meet you online) and then contact him directly to set it up.

Finally, the video clips which have been a feature at the bottom of this page for the past few months can now be found in the Media section of the site, along with Bryan’s Discography and Photo Galleries. Enjoy!

Greetings from Austria

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I’m in Austria right now, performing with the Lower Austria Concert Jazz Orchestra on the Spring Tour. I was hoping to have stopped by with some news about it already but, unfortunately, our accommodation doesn’t have internet access. Luckily, a couple of the other ‘foreign’ guys on the band with me have their cars here. Trumpeter Erik Veldkamp was kind enough to offer to drive ‘in search of civilisation’ – another way of saying that he wanted to check email too!

The tour got off to a heavy start on Sunday with a 7 hour rehearsal in the small town of Langenlois. We’re playing the same “Murdering The Classics” programme as we did back in September and it’s a heavy book! Included are the Stan Kenton versions of “West Side Story” as well as a couple of the things he did based on opera/classical music themes. For the tour we’ve added a few other things as well to make the gig up to 2 sets. The long rehearsal would have been taxing enough without the jetlag I was ‘enjoying’ at the time.

We’ve now played the first 3 concerts; at the Radiokulturhaus in Vienna, and Stadthalles in Mistelbach and Zwettl. Despite some sound problems it’s really starting to kick now and is proving a lot of fun. I’ve now also slept enough to feel a bit more like I’m in the same time zone as the rest of the band!

I’ll be back with more news from the tour and hopefully some photos before long. I’m also almost finished recording the first episode of my new podcast, which has been under consideration for some time. This episode, and possibly one or two more to follow, will be largely based on questions I’ve been asked, by audience and band members, in the last couple of days on tour. More on that when it’s done. If you have any trumpet/touring related questions you’d like me to speak or blog about, please email me via the Contact page and I’ll see if I can help out!

Bye for now…

March ’09

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Bryan is very busy this month, keeping up with his touring commitments, both with The Rat Pack – Live At The Sands US National Tour and the LACJO “Frühjahrstournee” (Spring Tour) in Austria. He kicks off with a week with The Rat Pack in Dallas, takes a few days off in New York, then heads to Austria for 10 days before returning to the Rat Pack in Tampa, FL – hopefully in time for the downbeat at rehearsal!! You can check out the full madness on his calendar!

The Rat Pack Tour got off to a great start again in Louisville, KY at the end of February. Bryan will be writing about that in his new Blog very shortly. The website has had a facelift in the past few days, with some new features being added and a few existing ones being moved around a little. We hope you like it! If there are any problems with the new design please let us know so we can fix them – details are in the news post about the redesign.

Bryan Davis is available to teach Private Lessons and Clinics, whether at home or on the road. Details can now be found in the Teaching section of the new site. Online Lessons via webcam are also now available. If you would like to organise a lesson, please check Bryan’s schedule to find out if he is visiting your city (or when he might have time to meet you online) and then contact him directly to set it up.

Finally, the video clips which have been a feature at the bottom of this page for the past few months can now be found in the Media section of the site, along with Bryan’s Discography and Photo Galleries. Enjoy!

February/March ’09

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February sees the recommencement of The Rat Pack – Live At The Sands US National Tour. Bryan will be flying out to Louisville, Kentucky at the end of the month to get started again. The tour is visiting 6 cities between February 26th and April 19th. The dates are as follows:-

  • 26th February – March 1st :- The Kentucky Center, Louisville, KY
  • 3rd – 8th March :- Majestic Theatre, Dallas, TX
  • 10th – 15th March :- Proctors Theater, Schenectady, NY
  • 24th – 29th March :- Carol Morsani Hall, Tampa, FL
  • 7th – 12th April :- Keller Auditorium, Portland, OR
  • 14th – 19th April :- OJPAC, Costa Mesa, CA

Bryan will be performing at all these venues with the exception of Schenectady – this clashes with the Spring tour with the Lower Austria Concert Jazz Orchestra. While Bryan is away in Austria, he will be ably replaced by Augie Haas – a wonderful Miami-based trumpeter who played the show a couple of years ago when the tour travelled to West Palm Beach, FL. Many thanks to Augie for taking the gig on.

The LACJO tour dates can be checked on Bryan’s calendar or on the news item you’ll see listed in the sidebar. We’re visiting 6 towns/cities over 7 days. Bryan will also have the chance to enjoy a day off in Vienna – one of his favourite cities in the world. He’s very much looking forward to catching up with so many dear friends who live there.

Before all of that, Bryan is spending the early part of February catching up with life at home. He’s now getting set for his emigration to New York. The good news is that his Visa is approved. The bad news is that it’s not available straight away if he’s to fulfil his touring commitments. He should get it soon after the end of Rat Pack US dates in April and hopes to make the move shortly after that. In the meantime, he will find time to visit his friends at the Gordon Tetley Big Band in Bradford each Monday in February. In addition to this, he will also be performing as part of the Leeds Schools Big Band concerts – a week of concerts in schools. The band mostly comprises Music teachers from the Leeds area under the direction of Dale Gibson – a wonderful trumpet player best known as Lead Trumpet with the Glenn Miller Orchestra UK. It promises to be a lot of fun, as well as a great opportunity to introduce live music to local children – something they may not otherwise be exposed to in this day and age!

During January, Bryan was delighted to have the chance to coach the GCDYO Swing Band at two of their weekly rehearsals. This was a special event for him as it was the first Big Band he ever played with, when he was a teenager. Many thanks to Leo Solomon, their Musical Director, for the invitation.

Bryan is available for teaching opportunities of all kinds, whether at home or on tour. Please contact him for further details about one-to-one lessons, clinics and ‘Guest Artist’ performances. He is also in the process of ironing out the logisitics of offering Online Lessons via webcam. There will more information added to the site about all of this before long.

Finally, if you’re looking for any of the video clips that have been lurking at the bottom of this page for the past few months, they can now be found on the new Media page. Happy viewing!