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!

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

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.

(YouTube playlist embed currently not working – sorry!)

A playlist of songs from the Gansch and Roses concert in Frankenfels, Austria on 11th Sept. 2009.

Trumpets: Thomas Gansch, Bryan Davis | Trombone: Johannes Herrlich

Saxes/Woodwinds: Florian Truebsbach, Klaus Dickbauer
Piano: Oliver Kent | Bass: Uli Langthaler | Drums: Mario Gonzi

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!

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.

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

There’ll be a news item added about this once we’ve ironed out the details and figured out who else will be playing with us. In the meantime, I’m busy writing some new tunes so we have something to play! Back with more soon….

Since last I blogged, I’ve completed the LACJO Spring Tour and also the last leg of the Rat Pack US National Tour. Both were tremendous experiences. I’ll give a more thorough account of the last 3 weeks of the Rat Pack tour in my next post.

The tour with the LACJO was great fun. It was slightly marred by some technical issues but ultimately the band really gelled and made a great job of some challenging music. My thanks go to all involved for their tremendous musicianship and their patience with my lousy German. I don’t know how many of you reading have ever been in a situation where you speak the minority language but it can be incredibly frustrating; particularly when you can see the clearest route to the resolution of a problem but can’t successfully articulate it. Unfortunately there were moments where this frustration led to anger – not something I’m proud of. I hope, as it seemed, that the rest of the band considered my playing to be of a sufficient standard that they could forgive my mood swings. I’ll be learning more German before my next visit!

Unfortunately, due to my impending immigration to the USA, I will probably be unable to join the band for the next tour(s) in the Autumn. Once in the USA, I have to wait until my residence is finally processed before I can leave again. Since this is likely to take up to a year, and I’m planning to move in July, that means that a September/October tour is sadly out of the question. I just hope that whoever takes my place doesn’t do too good a job – I’d very much like to rejoin in 2010!

Meantime, we should have news about the LACJO CD which was recorded at the ‘Premiere’ concert in St. Poelten in September 2008. Early mixes sound very promising and I’m looking forward to an album of which we can be really proud. We also filmed the last concert of the Spring Tour at Schloss Grafenegg for a potential DVD release. Hopefully that will also come to fruition.

Right now, I’m back in the UK following the end of the Rat Pack tour. I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of teaching and playing. I already have some of my previous students coming back for more punishment(!) and a few gigs in the book. We’ll get the details posted on the site as soon as they’re confirmed. One confirmed date that I’m very much looking forward to is at the Harrogate Jazz Club, this coming Tuesday, the 28th of April. I’ll be playing with my dear friend Jim Corry and his band “A Tribute To Atlantic Jazz“. It’s a great band, with whom I played a few hits last summer. Please come out and support if you’re local – details are in a news item we posted about it earlier. I shall be trying to record some of the gigs I play in the next few weeks, with a view to adding some live audio to the podcast. We’ll see how that pans out…

For now, have a great weekend and I’ll be back with more soon.

The Details:
Harrogate Jazz Club
The West Park Hotel
19 West Park
Harrogate
HG1 1BJ

8.30pm start

Door charge: £3