January is a quiet month for Bryan Davis. Having moved to New York from the UK back in October 2009, he was granted temporary work authorization. That has now expired and the permanent card has yet to come make it’s way through the system. Therefore we have no news about concert dates for Bryan because, at the moment, he’s not allowed to play any! We hope to report that this situation has been rectified before long.
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.