Treehouse are back at the North London Tavern (next to Kilburn tube) on Sunday 5th September. Doors at 7.30, £5 in. Calum's fantastic quintet are playing the other set.

http://www.myspace.com/jazzthenlt

Just a quick post to say thank you to everyone at NYJC for the great summer school at the Yehudi Menuhin School in the past week - I've really enjoyed working with all the tutors and staff, and especially the students. I've been working for the organisation over the last year, which was founded and is now run by my old composition tutor at Trinity, Issie Barratt. Check it out here:
www.nyjc.co.uk

Doing a (last minute) gig on Friday night this week at the City Pipe (Foster Lane, EC2V 6HD), with the house band of Matt Fisher (drums) and Loz Garratt (bass), featuring two brilliant guests in Gareth Lockrane (flutes) and the Anita Wardell (voice). It's free entry, with music from 6.30pm with an early set featuring Jo Arthur. I'd recommend coming down and checking it out...

Had a great time with the ANQ at the 'Last Night of the Con' a few weeks back, and we're playing again at the Old Red Cow in Farringdon on Weds the 28th July. 8pm. And it's free!

The Old Red Cow
71 Long Lane
London
EC1A 9EJ

www.theoldredcow.com

I'm pleased to confirm that Treehouse will be playing at the London Jazz Festival this November - the date is the 15th, and we'll be a double bill with Ryan Trebilcock's 'Holler', also featuring Lewis Wright on vibes (makes sense really!). The venue is the Green Note in Camden. More details nearer the time.

It's the last gig at the fantastic Con Cellar on Monday - it's been a great night hosted by trumpeter Rich Turner and it'll be missed. I'll be playing with the Alam Nathoo Quintet - also on is an intriguing 'Double Double Bass' quartet of Calum Gourlay, George Fogel and Josh Morrison. And a big jam/knees up at the end. It's going to be fun...From 8.30pm at the cellar in The Contistution, St Pancras Way, Camden. £5 in.

Quite a few dates in May to look forward to; firstly, Treehouse are playing at Jazz@ The North London Tavern on Sunday the 16th May - times tba (not sure whether we're the early or late band - in any case singer Jess Berry is the other set so it's going to be a good evening). It's £5 on the door, and there's a jam session later. We're also playing at Olivers, (Nevada St, Greenwich) on the 28th May, 9pm, £4 on the door.
Secondly, a few dates with the Alam Nathoo Quintet - we have Charlie Wrights in Hoxton on Weds 12th (8.30 pm, £5) and again on the 21st at Windies Cove, Greenwich (details tbc). Come on down.

Due to a diary malfunction, I'll actually be playing with the Alam Nathoo Quintet at e17 jazz on the 1st April. See below....was a great gig, looking forward to doing it again. Alam has bought a new tenor sax (well actually a very old tenor sax), so if you want to hear the sound of a happy man, come down to the Rose&Crown. Doors 8pm, £5.

15th March

I'll be playing with the Jeff Chambers variable n-tet at the Macbeth in Hoxton ; great zappa/english brass band/big band type thing - http://www.themacbethuk.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/jeffchambersmusic . £5, music from 9pm. Really good fun!

17th March

I'm playing with the shiny new Alam Nathoo Quintet at Charlie Wright's - featuring:

Alam Nathoo - tenor sax
Hannes Riepler - guitar
Tom Hewson - piano
Ryan Trebilcock - bass
Jon Scott - drums

Going to be a great gig.

Treehouse will be playing at the Rose&Crown, Hoe St, Walthamstow on Thurs April the 1st. £5 entry, doors are at 8pm.

I'm really excited about a new trio I've got together with two of my favourite musicians in London, Calum Gourlay (bass) and Lewis Wright (vibes). The band is called 'Treehouse' . I've made a few informal recordings here - it's early days yet so there will be more news of gigs etc to come.

Zappa was, weirdly, one of the ways I got from the mandatory teenage rock thing (although admittedly my tastes were a bit odd even in that realm) to improvised music and jazz. This band, a sort of big band playing Jeff's pieces, has a big dollop of off-the-wall zappa-ish jazz-rock thing going on, but slightly Anglicised. It's a lot of fun, come and check it out...

http://www.themacbethuk.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/jeffchambersmusic

I’m playing this Wednesday (11th nov) with Rachel Musson’s group at The Others in Stoke Newington, featuring Will Collier, Javier Carmona and Corrina Sylvester. Also playing is Winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Competition Tenor saxophonist Jonathan Iragabon. 8.30 start £4/5.

Just a quick one to say that I’m very pleased to be getting involved with a great new scene in Walthamstow, NE London; the tireless Carlos Lopez-Real has set up E17 jazz (website coming soon courtesy of yours truly), which ran its first festival on Sunday featuring a large ensemble of local players and new music by fantastic pianist Liam Noble. The MySpace page has information about gigs etc for now. It has a really good collective vibe, everyone chipping in to keep things running and build the organisation, and I’m sure its going to keep going from strength to strength. Go and check out some gigs (and some fine beers at the Rose and Crown.....)!

Drummer Alex Gagatsis has put together a great band for Bank Holiday Monday at Oliver’s (Nevada St, Greenwich); Tony Kofi on saxes, Larry Bartley on bass, with myself and Alex rounding it off. Tony and Larry are a couple of the stalwarts of British Jazz, having played between them with musicians from Courtney Pine to Branford Marsalis, so come down and catch the band. 8.30 pm start, £4 entry.

I’m playing solo as part of a Trinity College of Music showcase at 1p.m. - free entry. Will be music from every corner of Trinity; an interesting show I’m sure.

The next few weeks are going to be dedicated to my final recital at Trinity College of Music, which will be a Trio featuring bassist Pete Randall (Tomorrow’s Warrior’s, Martin Speake, Bobby Wellins, Stan Sultzmann...) and Empirical drummer Shane Forbes. Looking forward to it...19th June, 4.25 pm in the Theatre Studio, Trinity.

I’m playing solo at the Bonington Theatre, Arnold, Nottingham on the 4th June - times T.B.C. They are also screening the brilliant ‘Jazz on a Summer’s Day’ documentary about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival that evening - well worth a look!

(update - was a great gig, lovely piano and hopefully I’ll be back to play there again soon!)

I’m having a piece played tomorrow at the ‘Rude Health’ series featuring new work from students at Trinity College of Music. It’s the first year of the Jazz Composers’ Ensemble, run by Issie Barrett - I’m playing in the (roughly) 10-piece band which features pieces by some great musicians at Trinity including Nick Malcolm (trumpet) and Rachel Musson (tenor sax). 7pm in the Peacock Room, Trinity College, Greenwich.

Quick update - playing downstairs at Lena this Friday with Spencer Brown (bass) and Alam Nathoo (saxes), and the following Thursday (the 30th) the trio is heading out West to Teignmouth to play at the Carlton Theatre. Come down!

I’m playing with Alam Nathoo (sax), Phil Donkin (bass), Jon Scott (drums) and Hannes Riepler (guitar). Will be an excellent evening. Start time will be around 9pm....fun......

The trio is playing in the basement at Lena in Shoreditch on the 24th April - it's a great new venue for live jazz, so look out for listings on jazzinlondon.net and come and support it!

Just to finalise - I'll be playing with Nick Weldon (bass) and Trevor Tomkins (drums) on Tuesday from 10.15. Got some good tunes planned, come down.....
Here's the link to the club's site.

I'm playing on the evening of the 18th Feb in the 'In the Moment' festival organised by Trinity College of Music - featuring U.S. pianist Uri Caine, we'll be exploring improvisation and Debussy, specifically ideas coming from his two books of Preludes for the piano. It's at the Laban theatre at 7.00 - see the link for details.
I'll also be playing at the 606 on the 10th March in a band organised by Nick Weldon, a great all round musician and jazz 'mentor' of mine who'll be playing bass on the night - it's looking like a trio gig with Trevor Tomkins on drums (Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Sonny Stitt, Pepper Adams & Art Farmer, John Taylor, Michael Garrick, Kenny Wheeler...). More news when available.
I'm also at a regular haunt, the Dysart Arms in Richmond, on Sunday 15th Feb (lunchtime), and again in the evening of the 16th March (solo piano).

Following on from the last post, our Olivers gig last night was obviously so ridiculously successful that we're doing another one on the 2nd Jan. I think Keith Jarrett must have pulled out or something. Well, always glad to be of service! Matt R (on bass) can't do it so bass player is t.b.c. Check out the recordings from the 27th here.

If you're in London and able to stumble around a bit after the excesses of Christmas, pop down to Olivers in Greenwich (on Nevada St) to hear me with Alam Nathoo (sax), Matt Fisher (drums) and Matt Ridley (bass). Should be a good gig, even if the other guys didn't want to do a half hour christmas medley as I had desperately lobbied for. Oh well.

New discovery for me - nice place in Notting Hill where they have some duo nights I've started to do a few of with Marcus Penrose on bass. Next one is Wednesday the 22nd October - they have a good grand piano and some tasty food if you have a few quid spare!

Up to Nottingham on the 20th to spend a day recording some solo piano as one of the upshots from the Nottingham National Jazz Piano Competition earlier this year...got to decide what to play! Enjoying doing a fair bit of solo piano. Look out for the recordings soon...
T

I"ve got a number of dates booked to play down at the Dysart Arms in Richmond - they have a lovely old Bechstein there, and some good food, beers and wines. It's nice to see somewhere that gets a good balance between being a 'listening' jazz venue and a restaurant. The dates are:

30th Oct
10th Nov
30th Nov
21st Dec

With some more dates to come in 2009. On the back of the National Jazz Piano Competition, I expect to be doing a bit more solo piano playing soon!

Well, I know it's a long way off but if you happen to be way out west on the 30th April the trio is doing a gig at Teignmouth Jazz - more news nearer the time!

Couple of gigs coming up - firstly a trio gig in the bar at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East on the 7th August. Sadly Matt can't do it so it'll be me, Pete Randall (bass) and Chris Preece (drums) ( http://www.stratfordeast.com/freeentertainment.php ). Should be a nice evening - it's a good venue so all you East Londoners get down there, 6-9 pm. Secondly a good gig at Oliver's in Greenwich on the 15th August with Alam Nathoo (saxes), Pete Randall again and Josh Morrison (drums). Good band...

So - I was very pleased to make it though the semi Finals and into the Final of the first National Jazz Piano Competition in Nottingham on the 27th July. Its great to have a competition like this in the UK now, and I hope it continues to raise its profile in the future. There really are some good pianists out there, and the final saw 4 very different pianists playing, the winner being Dan Whieldon from Manchester; my friend Sam Hogarth and Canadian Chris Donnelly were the other two pianists. I've been promised some gigs and potentially a recording out of it, and hope to be back in the area soon! Many thanks to all the festival organisers and the judges, and maybe I'll be back in 2010....

Quick bit of news - I've been selected as a semi-finalist in the first NNJPC, to take place on the weekend of the 24th July this year; here's the website, check it out and come along and support what should be a great weekend of Jazz Piano!

The concert is booked in - its free, and will feature:

Tom Hewson & Pete Edwards (pianos)
Fulvio Buccafusco & Pete Randall (basses)
Chris Preece & Lewis Wright (drums)

Here's a map to Trinity.

Come along and see what I've been up to for the past few months!
Tom

...is nearing completion. Everything's written, and with 3 rehearsals left, look out for a concert on the 3rd or 4th of June...

Ok, so we did the session - 7 tunes in about 3 hours! Not bad, I think. You can hear the standards and some of the other tunes we did under 'Listen' on the right. Most were 'one take wonders', by necessity not design...still, I'm pleased to have got down some of the great music we've been doing over the last couple of months. Have a listen....

So I've only been in London a few months but I've got some interesting things lined up. First of all, I've got a piano trio off the ground with bassist Fulvio Buccafusco and drummer Matt Fisher; we're going into the studio on the 11th to record a bit of what we've been up to over the last couple of months - partly for demos and gigs, and partly because it's good to keep a running record of where you're at... I'll be sure to put the fruits of that session up on the site - it's likely to include a few standards, and then probably at least one of mine and one of Fulvio's tunes, topped by some great Keith Jarrett/Jan Garbarek/Kenny Wheeler 70s ECM things we've been doing. Matt started the thing off by bringing in Kenny Wheeler's 'Smatta' from the Gnu High album, and a few weeks later I transcribed Jarrett/Garbarek's 'Questar' from My Song. I've been listening to a lot of that era in Jarrett's playing recently, and I've got some thoughts on some of those CDs lined up waiting to be made into something coherent. Anyway, it's beautiful, soaring, and deceptively hard music and I think we're getting somewhere with it.
I've got a great project lined up under the watchful eye of composer Issie Barratt too, with the trio above and another piano trio of Pete Edwards (pno), Tom Hanson (bs) and Chris Preece (drms). It's a piece for double piano trio, and it's coming along nicely. Rehearsals are booked and I just have to find a suitable date for the gig (and a venue with two pianos, which probably puts it in Trinity somewhere). Hopefully we'll use the opportunity to showcase some other music by some of the guys and girls on the Masters Course at Trinity too. I'll expand when I know a little more....