Wanstead – trombone poetry

June’s adventures began in beloved Hull, with a visit to the William Gemmell Ale House, choked with bunting for some reason, to play in a specially-convened sextet with Paul Sharpless, Martin Jones, Gary Hammond, Paul Rodgers and José Canha for HullJazz. The team very gamely and creatively tackled a pile of new arrangements of some of my tunes:

Humber Number
Soldier
Them Back Then
Pearson Poke
Blue Lemon
Elliscope
New Cross Gait
Rum Bar Rumba
La Cocarde
The Fellowship
Float
Cater Canter
Slip & Tackle
Stepney Grin
Salonica
So You Say

The following sun-blessed day weaved in a visit to the alma mater, The University of Hull, to offer a copy of Better Late Than Sorry to Larkin’s haunt, The Brynmor Jones Library. Imagine their excitement.

This was followed by a brief Trombone Poetry set for the 10th Birthday edition of Away With Words at Union Mash Up. John Robinson was there, reading from a new collection, A Ring of Islands: seek it out! Thanks again to host Jim Higo for the invitation.

The last date of the Hull+ tour was another treat: playing as a guest with Jazzmakers Collective at The Lairgate in Beverley (after the obligatory visit to Nellie’s). The amazing trio of Jenni Molloy on double bass, Sean Miller on piano and Chris Sykes on drums, played, without any rehearsal, a different set of original tunes:

Child’s Play
Big Thursday
Glodwick
June Tune
Cruise Blues
Bernie’s Time
Cold Story
Headin’ Out
Jog
One for the Road
Perspective
Still
Drinking in the Dark

Thanks again to Dave Ellis of HullJazz for arranging those dates.

Mike Walter’s project, A Bigger Mouth, generated yet more spontaneous music in the basement of the wonderful Hundred Years Gallery. July’s date (see below) will be some kind of tribute to the late, great Lol Coxhill.

At The Word Bookshop for the launch of Metadesigning Designing in the Anthropocene, as it flew off the shelves, I was pleased to see that the poetry section is now named after Jazzman John Clarke, who used to pop up in these chronicles right from the beginning.

The final highlight of June was another glad visit to a secluded spot somewhere out near Orpington, for the All That Jazz, Blues and Real Ale Festival, where Trombone Poetry regaled a tentful of innocent jazz fans with selections from that book (no, not Metadesigning, the other one) and the odd new poem, such as April In Bermondsey.

Meanwhile, despite optimistic claims on social media, the new edition of Robots (doubling the contents) has still not been finished but may clank into artificial life this summer. More oil!

JULY DATES : click links for more details.

Better Late Than Sorry will of course be available at all these events!