tom – Page 19 – Tom Ward

LUME was two

…was great! The dice & hat randomly selected some really nice groups, and I particularly enjoyed playing duo with Joe Wright:

New Albums! Saxoctopus! AKW! LUME!

The forthcoming Saxoctopus album is now available to pre-order! Check it out on bandcamp here:

<a href="http://rawtonkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/saxoctopus">Saxoctopus by Saxoctopus</a>

And in fortuitous style, Live at LUME is also released today, which features a track from AKW (the trio of myself with no-input mixer artist Richard Knight & saxophonist Sam Andreae):

LUME on Tour 2015 Review

It’s taken me a little bit of time to get over all the excitement (and the beer), but LUME on Tour was bloody brilliant!

“The only thing more blinding than the sun streaming through the Bridge’s huge bay window were the performances by these two outstanding bands.” – Bebop Spoken Here reviews the Newcastle gig

More live-tweeting archived on twitter hashtag LUMEonTour

Upcoming gigs Spring/Summer 2015

May 26th to June 16th – LUME (Quadraceratops/Entropi) on UK tour!

This is the big one – LUME on Tour! A string of nine dates featuring the double-bill of bands from Cath Roberts & Dee Byrne around the UK, partially funded by Arts Council UK.

26th May – Jazz At The Spotted Dog, Birmingham
27th May – Jazz At The Lescar, Sheffield
29th May – Fusebox, Leeds
31st May – Splinter Jazz, Newcastle
1st June – Freedom Principle, Manchester
5th June – The Bebop Club, Bristol
7th June – ‘LUME Presents…’, The Vortex, London
15th June – Friends Meeting House, Derby
16th June – Dempsey’s, Cardiff

Thursday July 9th, 7pm – LUME 2nd birthday party – Hat Jam!

I’ll be one of 15 amazing improvisers putting their names into the hat for a night of unexpected & impromptu ensembles at Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton to celebrate LUME’s second birthday!

Tuesday July 14th, 9pm – Overground Collective @ Vortex Jazz, Dalston

The big band returns to the world-famous Vortex, featuring tunes by Paulo Duarte & other band members (possibly including one of mine…!)

Wednesday August 5th, 2.30pm – Madwort Sax Quartet @ Portico Library, Manchester Jazz Festival

We’ve very pleased to announce that the sax quartet will be playing a lunchtime gig in the beautiful surroundings of the Portico Library during the Manchester Jazz Festival.

Various Events Spring 2015

It’s been a busy old time here at Madwort HQ, recent exciting activities have included:

Madwort’s Menagerie at St Pauls Sessions

This gig was amazing, the band played the **** out of my tunes, and a really appreciative audience.

Lovely gig tonight at St Paul's Sessions with @themadwort's Menagerie! @chrisjdowding pic.twitter.com/7JE3ovBBHL

— Dee Byrne (@deebyrnesax) March 13, 2015

Anton Hunter’s Article XI in Derby

#Article11 #rehearsing #lotsofbarsrestformeatthemoment @HunterAnton @FamilyAlbumDBY pic.twitter.com/9GT1SvqXI7

— Cath Roberts (@cathrobots) March 25, 2015

Overground Collective

For the first time in many years, I cracked out a big band arrangement for Paulo Duarte’s Overground Collective which we played at the Others in April. I’d forgotten quite what it’s like standing in front of such a massive powerhouse of musicians all going for it & such a privilege to have musicians of such calibre playing my music… Might have to do some more of it…

New Dark Art

We also did another two gigs – Derby & London – playing Corey Mwamba’s New Dark Art with the Eb Sax Quartet (myself & Chris Williams on alto sax, Cath Roberts & Colin Webster on bari sax). The gigs were a bit different but equally great!

Eb sax quartet sounding amazing! pic.twitter.com/gxUBR2FnWs

— LUME (@lumemusiclondon) May 14, 2015

Rodrigo Constanzo’s Improvisation Analytics

I was also very pleased to get involved with Rodrigo Constanzo’s Improvisation Analytics project in a programming capacity. This was a fun JavaScript front-end project built using dimplejs, d3, regression-js, JQuery & waveform-data.js & Rod was a pleasure to work with. You can interact with a live analysis of Rod’s improvisation Everything. Everything at once. Once. (1a).