We are pleased to announce that Bryan Davis has been appointed as Lead Trumpet in the newly formed Lower Austria Concert Jazz Orchestra (no, not Los Angeles!) under the direction of Thomas Ramsl. They play their inaugural concert at the St. Pölten Jazz Festival, in Austria, on Saturday, 27th September 2008. They will be playing a programme entitled “Murdering The Classics” which, among other delights, features the Stan Kenton version of “West Side Story”!

There is a further tour planned for March 2009. More details about that will, of course, be passed on in due course.

Following all my good intentions at the end of 2007 about keeping up with News updates, I singularly failed to actually write anything! Here’s the next installment of my Rat Pack US Tour ‘07-’08 adventure.

Los Angeles - Dec ‘07

We had a great time playing at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverley Hills for the first 2 weeks of December. I previously mentioned that I had the legendary Rick Baptist and Dan Fornero joining me in the Trumpet section but that turned out to be just the beginning of the story!!

We had a great time playing the show and I count myself as extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to listen to, play with and learn from these wonderful musicians first hand. Both are players I’ve admired on records for many years and it took me some time to get over the fact that I was playing with them at all! To put it in context; I was asked on the rehearsal break, by one of my friends and colleagues on the stage crew, how the band was in LA? My response: -
“I might as well be sitting between Santa Claus and Superman!”

More important even than the musical side of things was the friendship they both showed me. I was invited on various excursions with them throughout our stay in LA. Rick did me the honour of taking me to work with him one day! Sounds ordinary when you put it like that but, in fact, he took me to the recording stage at Fox Studios to watch a session for the TV show “American Dad”. That was a tremendous thrill! Not only because it’s the same production team that works on my favourite of the current US cartoons, “Family Guy” but also because of the living legends I met in the band! The other Trumpets flanking Rick on this occasion were none other than Warren Luening and Charley Davis! The trombones were no slouches either: Bob McChesney, Charlie Loper, Ira Nepus and Bill Reichenbach! It was a fantastic day out - thanks Rick!

Dan was kind enough to take me on an equally star-studded excursion the following day. We met up at the Musicians Union building in Hollywood where I had a chance to sit in on the rehearsal with Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band! It was definitely an experience to sit back in the Trumpet section with Dan, Wayne Bergeron and a pair of stellar subs; Willie Murillo and Serafin Aguilar. Willie, who also subbed for Rick on the show for a couple of days, is best known as Lead Trumpet with Brian Setzer’s Orchestra, and Serafin was a member of the last Big Bop Nouveau band led by the late, great, Maynard Ferguson. Of course, the particular thrill was to hear Wayne Bergeron who is undoubtedly one of the greatest trumpet players out there, and a really nice guy! It was awesome to watch them all put through their paces by Mr Goodwin’s wonderfully complex music - I’m glad I didn’t have to play!! It was also great to meet the other guys in the band as well as seeing some familiar faces; the two Tenor saxophonists, Brian Scanlon and Jeff Driskill, were playing the show with us in LA, and Baritone saxophonist Jay Mason had been with us a couple of weeks before in San Diego. The rehearsal was for a gig the following week, on the day we were due to leave (!), but it was such an experience to see this band live that I changed my flight and stayed the extra day - well worth the expense!!

While we were in LA, I was delighted to be invited to head down to Fullerton College to coach their Jazz Band I. The Director of the Fullerton Jazz programme is Bruce Babad, a fine saxophonist who also played the show when we were in San Diego. More importantly, Bruce is better known for playing in the Big Band of legendary composer/arranger Bill Holman! Bruce has been doing a great job at Fullerton and the band was really good. We had a lot of fun and I particularly enjoyed having the chance to give my demonstration of “what not to do” as a member of the trumpet section. That can sometimes be as important and useful as demonstrating the right way to do things and has proven helpful in previous workshops I’ve participated in. I’m also pleased to say that Bruce has invited me to come back and be Guest Artist with the band in October ‘08. There will be a proper announcement about that in due course.

That just about wraps up my highlights of the Rat Pack trip to Los Angeles. I’d like to thank all the guys who joined us in the band and I’m pleased to say that I can name them all for a change! They were:

• Trumpets: Rick Baptist/Willie Murillo, Dan Fornero
• Trombones: Jim Sawyer, Bob McChesney & Craig Gosnell
• Reeds: Brian Scanlon, Jeff Driskill, Gene Cipriano & John Mitchell
• Guitar: Mike Higgins
• Bass: Kenny Wild/Chuck Berghofer
• Keyboards: Nelson Kole

…and not forgetting our regular travelling team of:

• Andy Rumble - Piano/MD
• Dave Bryant - Drums

More Rat Pack Roundups shortly….

News updates have been few and far between around here lately, mainly due to the fact that I’ve been so busy playing the show in different corners of the planet! Here’s a little round up of what I’ve missed out on passing along….

St Louis

Following our opening week in Atlanta, the Rat Pack - Live At The Sands US tour made it’s next stop in St Louis, Missouri. We had a great time during our two weeks there with a really good band. A big thankyou goes out to Andy Tichenor, Dan Smith (Andy’s emergency sub!) and Bob Ceccarini - trumpets, for a great time playing the show. Bob also contracted the rest of the band which was amongst the best we’ve had in the US since Oct 2006!

While in St Louis, I also had the chance to meet, and sit in with, the folks of the Sessions Big Band during their Monday residency at BB’s Jazz Blues and Soups! It was particularly nice to meet trumpeter Steve Shankmann, who also happened to have been Manager to the late, great Maynard Ferguson for the last several years of his life.
Later that week I also had a chance to go and hear, and sit in with, the extraordinary Jim Manley during his Friday night gig at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. If you don’t know who Jim is, you are REALLY missing out - he’s quite simply the most remarkable jazz/high-note trumpet player I’ve ever heard!!!

San Diego

Mid-November saw us returning to the US for our six week run which takes us to the end of the year. It was great to visit the wonderful city of San Diego. The local musicians we encountered were not only fine players but some of the nicest people we’ve met thus far. My thanks, as ever, go to Frank Glassen and Jack Houghton who joined me in the Trumpet section.
Another great pleasure in San Diego was the chance to catch up with my good friend Allie Laurie. Allie played Sammy Davis Jr on the European Rat Pack Tour for almost 2 years until an ankle injury forced him home. He’s been living with his partner down in San Diego for a little over a year now. It was great to see him again!

Tucson

Tucson, Arizona, was our next stop on the tour. It was one of the more bizarre weeks we’ve had in the States as we were in the desert and it rained for most of the week!! Most odd. Thanks go to trumpeters Kenny Smukal and Michael Harrison for their hard work and fine playing. It was a pleasure to meet Ken - a name I was familiar with from his tenure as Lead Trumpet with the Airmen of Note, the premiere US Air Force Big Band. A wonderful player and true gentleman. I also had a great time with Michael Harrison who was kind enough to let me sit in on his late-night gig on the Saturday evening with Salsa-engue. It’s been far too long since I’ve had the chance to play any Salsa music which has long been one of my favourite styles! Thanks Mike!

Los Angeles

We’re currently, at time of writing, halfway through our first of 2 weeks in LA. The band here, as you might expect given the thriving Studio scene, is just astonishing. Can I say more than to say that joining me on Trumpets are none other than Rick Baptist and Dan Fornero!! Wow!!

I’ll be back with more LA news as it occurs. Exciting times indeed!!

The last couple of days have seen several pages of the site updated. Amongst these have been updates to the About page, Schedule, Current Activities and even some new Sound Clips! These updates, many of which are quite overdue, are the first in a series of changes which will be implemented before the end of the year, by which time we are hoping to have a new and improved site design ready.

Most importantly, we have finally been able to update all of the dates for the Rat Pack US Tour which continues into the early part of 2008. It promises to be a busy time for Bryan as he goes directly between the US Tour and European dates in Austria and Germany without a break! He will be visiting Graz, Hannover, Bremen and Essen in January. Please come and see the show and then come and say hello afterwards! Lessons are, as always, available so please contact Bryan if you are interested.

We had a great start to this year’s Rat Pack - Live At The Sands US Tour in the fine city of Atlanta, GA. It was a pleasure to meet and play with all the local musicians, in particular the brass players. My thanks go to ‘Lee’ King and Andy Hagans (trumpets), and Eric, Jason Altieri and Lee Watts (trombones) for making the first week back so easy for me. We had a great time hanging out after the show too!!

One particular thrill for me was the chance to go and help Lee Watts out with coaching the Trumpets at the Wheeler High School band program. Mark Hoskins runs a great program over at Wheeler and we had a great time working with the concert band section. All fine young players whom I look forward to hearing again in the future!

It was also great to have a chance to catch up with some returning Rat Packers. Alonzo Saunders rejoined us for a brief stint as Sammy cover and we even had a visit from Henry Prego; who returned as an emergency Frank cover at the end of the week. Great to see the guys again.

The next leg of the tour took us to St. Louis, MO. More about that shortly…