CC25 part 2 - Happy Landings reunion @ Artbeat @ The Craddock.

CC25 - 25 Years Anniversary as pro musician part 2.
A reunion of my jazz trio Happy Landings - self, Neil Segrott & John Runcie we hadn't played as a trio for over 10 years. Our last album was 20 years ago!... Artbeat Festival gave me the idea to reunite the trio as they had suggested a jazz night. We had a little rehearsal the day before but only for an hour or so.
The gig was at the local pub to me The Craddock - there were 3 other jazz bands on - The Afro City Swingsters, The Freestylers and The Not so Big Band. All quite big and brassy bands of different styles. The space didn't make it easy for the folks to see the bands - kind of open plan pub with divisions. Great turnout but I was a bit nervous as the crowd were chatty and after the lively louder bands, we were just a piano bass drums trio. Richard from the NsBB kindly loaned me his piano so I could walk to the gig and have no set up :-)

To my huge surprise everyone went quiet and listened to us... It was quite emotional for me to hear these tunes again and our sound from so long ago. I was glad I hadn't gone for songs or crowdpleasers. Just our instrumental introspective piano jazz. Funny how easier things are now too... 20 years experience, plus the music was now in my long term memory which is better than my short term one... And I was stunned by the audience response. 3 people said they were moved to tears...and not in a bad way. 2 lasses said they'd fallen in love with me... not sure how serious they were about that... but everyone really listened and applauded!!! :-)

20 years ago we never found many places to play our atmospheric European styled jazz, and we would never have got people to listen to us in a pub! So it was quite a treat to play close to home and for it to be appeciated...
See photo album here

Happy Landings - 20 Years Later...


Set - Meet You There, You'll Never Know, Nostalgia, Dodo/Phone Home, Witchi Tai To