It’s been a while since I updated this site, but a lot has happened since I last wrote! Things are moving along in London, and i’ve now done about three gigs with a fantastic band called the John Hoare Quartet. Consisting of: John Hoare on trumpet, Phil Peskett on piano, Richard Pryce on bass and Davide de Rose on drums. It has been an interesting journey so far, I’ve learned a lot from playing with them and had a lot of fun too! We started by rehearsing a number of old songs from the previous album, and added some new ones (a few written by John and myself, and others standards arranged by him and the band).

    Our first gig was in Spain! What a way to start things off, and it was the first taster (if tiny) of what it’s like to tour and be constantly on the move. I went a day earlier to do promotions and the band followed the next day to do the gig. We didn’t get much sleep and the days were packed but we had a lot of fun and the gig went very well. The Spanish people are very receptive and a warm audience. We played in a little place in an arty, trendy district of Madrid in a cute little jazz club called the Sala Bougie. It all went very smoothly, and we even managed to pack out the place as the radio stations in Madrid had been playing the album a couple of months before we arrived! The place reminded me of good old 70’s Bistro back in Manila with its friendly vibe. We’ve done a couple more gigs since then and the current agenda is writing and arranging new songs for the second album, which we will be recording soon. Release date is yet to be confirmed.

      Working with the new band is definitely pulling the music in a different direction, but in a direction I like very much. It’s a collaboration of both our styles and has come to something very interesting that I would never have come to on my own… It confirms just why I love collabortating with people; the music you come out with is so much richer.

    That’s all for now, but keep an eye out for new photos that we’ll post on the site as soon as we can.