A Mention on “The Systematic Approach”

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I recently became a member of the newly created Brass Musician forums and, following a post I made there about practising, I was delighted to be quoted by one of the other forum members, David Roberts, on his blog; The Systematic Approach. You may be interested in the original Brass Musician forum post, or David’s article.

David’s site is a most interesting one. He is a come-back player, who has returned to studying Trumpet after a break of 15 years or so. He is documenting his progress online, as he works his way through Claude Gordon’s excellent Systematic Approach to trumpet playing. His site is full of interesting articles about the challenges he is facing, along with videos of him performing the exercises he has been working on.

Many thanks to David for considering my comments worthy of quoting. I wish him the very best in his studies of this infernal machine!!!

Still alive!

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I’m still here, just in case you were wondering. Apologies for the radio silence but, between practicing and working for a living, I’ve been pretty busy!

Not a lot more than that to say right now. Back with more before long…

New Trumpet!

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My new trumpet was delivered this morning. It is the new Jupiter XO 1600i – the Roger Ingram Signature model. Nobody’s more surprised than me that I’ve chosen a Jupiter horn but this model plays so much better than I imagined!

I had a chance to try one a couple of weeks ago when Roger, himself, passed through NYC on his summer teaching tour. He was kind enough to hang out for a little over an hour and play test the Lacquer and Silverplate Jupiters he had with him, along with my Yamaha 8335LA. We both agreed that the Jupiter sounded just as good overall, and better in the extreme upper register, while being easier to play. I feared it was going to be tough to track one down, but I got lucky last week and was able to order one for immediate shipping.

I’ll post more observations about it in the coming weeks. Meantime, I should go play it some more!

Summer 2010

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July commenced with Bryan Davis on the road, playing some dates in New England with Danny Seraphine (the original drummer from Chicago) and his new band; CTA – California Transit Authority. They played shows at the Blue Ocean Music Hall in Salisbury, MA; Twin Rivers Casino in Lincoln, RI; and the 4th of July celebrations in Clifton Park, NY. A great time was had by all – CTA are a tremendous band and Bryan is looking forward to playing with them again in the future.

Bryan is back home in New York City for the rest of July, unless the phone rings! Unfortunately the same is now true of August as well. His previously planned trip to play with the LACJO in Austria has been cancelled – following his recent move to the USA, Bryan is temporarily unable to leave the country without authorization papers, which haven’t arrived in time to book flights. Apologies to the band, and to the students who had requested lessons. The good news is that Bryan will definitely be making the trip to play with Thomas Gansch in late October – lessons will be reorganised for during that tour.

The Gansch & Roses CD Launch Tour is set for October 29th – November 3rd, 2010; further information is on the Schedule page. The current plan is for Adam Rapa to be back with Thomas and Bryan in the Trumpet section once again. The early mixes of ‘Resal’ – the new CD – sound terrific. Included is Thomas’ tribute to Bill Chase – “Der Rock des Trompeters”. Here is the performance of this piece from last Autumn’s concert at Porgy & Bess in Vienna:

We look forward to sharing more information about the CD, as it becomes available. Bryan will be in Austria from October 27th to November 7th, so there will be plenty of opportunities to organise lessons/masterclasses.

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!

We are pleased to announce that Bryan Davis has now joined the Artist Roster on JazzCorner.com – the premier portal for Jazz sites. Big thanks to Lois Gilbert, JazzCorner supremo, for welcoming Bryan to the family. In celebration of that, we will be upgrading and redesigning the site before long. Watch this space…

Have a great summer!

New England, here I come…

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Following a call yesterday, I’ll be heading out on the road again this week! I’ll be playing with California Transit Authority on their dates in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and upstate New York. You can find the dates on my Schedule.

This should be a fun week! The band is built around Danny Seraphine – the original drummer from Chicago – and also features Marc Bonilla; guitarist with Emerson, Lake and Palmer! Always fun to play with the guys from the records!

I’ll try and remember to blog from the road. I’m certainly interested to see how New England compares to the original!