VOTE FOR MUSIC

 

VOTE FOR MUSIC!

I don't really do politics, I find them all utterly contemptible. That doesn't mean to say that I won't vote today, because it's important that we make our voices heard and that the powers that be know we are out there and address our wide ranging points of view.

When it becomes personal is when I see the mounting problems faced by our beloved music scene: problems which are amplified the closer to the grass roots you get.

Organisations like the Music Venue Trust are doing really important work to address this, but with ever increasing living costs, transport costs, staff costs, business rates, energy bills and a whole lot more besides the impact cannot be ignored.

Just in the last few days I have seen friends and colleagues struggling with shows being cancelled, audiences woefully short in numbers, and independent, self-supporting events really having to count the pennies.

Key to all this is that all-important word, sentiment. It's a polite synonym for groupthink. As our legacy media bombards us with a constant diet of gloom and doom, so contagion sets in, one of the chief symptoms of which is belt tightening. The last time I saw it like this was 2009, when the global economic meltdown trickled down to street level. People stayed home in their droves, especially many older people on fixed incomes who are such staunch supporters of certain divisions of the UK jazz scene. While we wait for far greater numbers of young people to discover the music we rely on these lifetime supporters of our work.

Our industry is driven by disposable income, and if people feel strapped for cash it's obviously the non essential items that are first to go by he board. Of course it is. We have to eat, power our homes, have running water, get from A to B, and pay for often questionable local services via council tax. You're not going to receive a County Court Judgement if you don't buy a ticket to one of my (or anybody else's upcoming shows) or receive a fixed penalty notice through the post if your are filmed talking during the bass solo.

We all know it's tough at the moment, but we can all do our bit to make it that little bit easier, ometimes without it costing a penny.

Free Stuff You Can Do

Word of mouth. Word of mouth costs nothing. If you have enjoyed a performance by an artist, be it recorded or in person, TELL YOUR FRIENDS. This is invaluable. Given that there is next to no joined up, mainstream media coverage for jazz it's down to individuals to connect and form new chains. (Note, please do not surreptitiously record the gig or burn a copy of the CD. By doing so you are hastening the demise of our business. It's as simple as that).

Share event postings on social media. I know this sounds like something from a Meghan Markle lifestyle coffee table book, but just do it. Sometimes three or four extra ticket sales are the difference between an event succeeding and not going ahead. It's like those few votes that decide marginal seats.

Attend events hat have no admission charge. This really goes without saying. The more of you there are out front the better it is for us. Simple.

Stuff You Can Do That You Have To Pay For

Buy a download. Often as little as £1 a track. You may think that this has no impact, but it genuinely does. Compared to a single cup of chain store coffee it's nothing. It's also yours to repeat play as often as you like, long after the chain store coffee has stopped repeating on you.

Buy Merchandise At Gigs

Those CDs that the artist has brought along can make such a difference. Small venues and independent promoters rarely have huge budgets to play with, and a few CD purchases can really make a difference to the day's wages for the performer. Very often these CDs are produced by small, independent labels without massive marketing budgets. I know this because I run such a label, and whereas I am a comfortable distance from the breadline, I am all too aware that if the necessary support is not forthcoming I will have to take the difficult decision to suspend any further production until such time as I can see a ray of light shining on the balance sheet.

And Finally.... Come And See Us If You Can (Go to Lidl gigs)

When things get a bit tight economically it's time to start budgeting. Waitrose becomes a memory, its place taken by Lidl and Aldi. I should point out at this juncture that Lidl's 'Tower Gate' brand plain chocolate digestive biscuits are second to one, and I am happy to fight anyone who dares to disagree. Haha, you say. There goes Pete again with one of his wryly humorous observations, but there is actually a serious point to be made here, and that point is the price to quality ratio. If you end up spending £1000 for to of you to go and see Beyonce that doesn't make it 40 times better than a £25 show at your local theatre or arts centre. Just just like with the big shop, set yourself a Gig Budget. Make your money go further. Go to five or ten smaller events than one big one. You're more important at smaller events. The people on stage can actually see your faces, and just like with the vote count in the marginal seat, your pair of tickets could be the thing that tips the balance, makes the difference, and secures the future.

VOTE FOR MUSIC, TODAY AND EVERY DAY.

THE DOWNSIDE OF OPTIMISM

 Elsewhere on the laptop I am using to write this there can be found a Word document.  Well, actually there can be found tens of thousands of Word documents but there's one in particular that is on my mind this afternoon.

This document is a list.  A list comprising names, dates, locations, points of view, and notable milestones along the way from half a century as a working drummer.

It's two pages of positivity, I refer and add to it quite frequently.  It serves  as a reminder of quite a number of things that all turned out rather well for me over the decades, and it comes in very handy when, as happens to so many of us so much of the time, hoped for progress, development, and subsequent successes come to nothing.

I should qualify that by stating clearly that victimhood plays no part in my day-to-day thought processes.  In spite of some of the huge disappointments that have come my way (the drum chair with one of the biggest pop bands of the 80s, a six album deal with an achingly hip record company in the 90s, a guest appearance for my band on a top TV chat show approximately twenty years ago are three particular favourites) I tend to set my coordinates towards positivity and optimism.

Setbacks are merely a consequence of stepping up to the plate, rolling the dice, or whichever cliche you prefer.  In other words, if you don't try you'll never know.

What's also interesting about successes vs setbacks (and they can often be mistaken for one another) is that they strengthen our character, and it is important that we use these life events to our best advantage, and try in so far as is possible, not to give a sh*t.  Or if you do, try not to let it show.

Suffice to say that if my Word document were a hard copy, it would be as thumbed, smudged and faded as  the original hand copied parts for 'Splanky'.  I go back to it constantly as the next disappointment is never far away.  Despite what you may infer from that last observation I do remain steadfastly optimistic about my own work and that of my many friends and colleagues who have chosen to tread a similar path, but the ineluctable fact remains that a disproportionately high percentage of what at first seem to be completely amazing new ideas never get as far as second gear, but that in itself is part of the process.

Being at the niche end of the music industry doesn't help matters, but we put ourselves here.  The opportunity for any kind of serious coverage is negligible, but is that elusive coverage (and I wrote about this just the other day) that occupies my business mind on a regular basis.  Not solely in the interest of personal advancement, but for the advancement of other deserving talents, and the scene in a more general sense.  'Twas ever thus.  By my late teens I had already dabbled with big band leading and gig promoting, and would scour the industry press of the day looking for angles and opportunities.   I'm still at it, it's part of my DNA.  Some of the things I have managed to do over the years, when examined with the benefit of hindsight and leavened with a generous helping of rational analysis, seem close to impossible.  If I thought that at the time I was nonetheless undeterred.   Optimism, pragmatism, and a tiny pinch of reality.

If things don't work out it isn't the end of the world.  The only thing that is the end of the world is the end of the world itself.

I try always to remember that the industry (if that's the word) doesn't owe me anything, and in order to bring things about I am going to have to do the majority of the legwork myself.  It's the same for everybody, even those who outwardly appear to lead utterly charmed lives rarely if ever actually do. There is a lifetime of unseen graft and sacrifice that leads up to that memorable gig or fantastic recording, and having just completed the mix of what I have no hesitation in describing as a fantastic recording I know the process of old.  What will become of this recording I don't really know as yet, but I am looking for angles as always.  If it doesn't change my life in any substantive way,  having made it happen is enough.  It's a personal career high water mark, of which there have been disproportionately more over the last five years, so I'm doing something right, even if I'm not entirely sure what that is.

In the company of a hugely gifted fellow musician the other day I joked that niche market artists are a bit like undercover agents if you'll forgive the analogy. Hiding in plain sight, planning in secret, and only needing to get lucky once.

So, let's give this one more try shall we? What could possibly go wrong?

SOMETHING'S COMING (AS SEEN ON TV, OR NOT, AS THE CASE MAY BE)

 Yesterday I was in the company of my dear friend, colleague and audio wizard Chris Traves. Our day was spent producing two tracks by my big band for imminent digital release, one is the old Broadway show tune 'Don't Rain On My Parade', and the other is a quite phenomenal reboot of music from West Side Story.

I've already showered this incredible arrangement with all kinds of superlatives, and it comes with a back story surrounding the generosity of three particular industry colleagues, none of whom I have ever met outside of the world of social media. That story I will tell in full at the time of the release, but for now I will reiterate that in 49 years of big band drumming I have never come across an arrangement quite like it. You won't be disappointed, I promise you that.

Releasing music has been a big part of my post pandemic renaissance, and it's not a secret that it was Simon Spillett's superb big band project that was the catalyst for my reinvention as. a producer. 

So to misquote Alfred Lord Tennyson, in spring a young record producer's fancy turns to thoughts of publicity.

Listening to some of the music that has been created over the last three years I sometimes feel that the very existence of the finished products is sufficient. Copies get sold online and at live events. Releases get extremely favourable reviews, the counter staff at my local post office all know me by name, and some hugely talented individuals get to record great music for proper session fees.

But then there is another part of me, the part that can't help thinking 'what if?' How great it would be to be able to connect this music to people beyond the range of our little niche, and, dare I say it, get some mainstream coverage.

After all, everything we have put out is strong on melody and structure; nothing on the label could be considered experimental (I'm fine with cutting edge innovation but it's not an area for investment as far as I am concerned).

So what's the answer? 

I do spend a considerable amount of time seeking to develop media contacts away from the jazz world. I'm always looking for angles that could be developed. It's not entirely unsuccessful but doesn't always yield appropriate results. In fact, within the last little while, once within the last ten days or so, I have been in receipt of paid offers of national press features, however both offers would have required a level of indescretion that I wasn't prepared to entertain, and so were politely declined.

So that brings me back to an option I have explored on quite a number of occasions previously, using a professional publicist. If you get lucky this can result in radio play, print media coverage, or that holiest of grails, broadcast media coverage.

I have employed several publicists on an ad hoc basis over the years. A couple of whom tried very hard on my behalf and did achieve some actual, tangible results. There have been others who literally took my money and did absolutely nothing. Names available on request.

Looking at broadcast media, because nothing sells a product quite like that famous old strapline 'As Seen on TV' begs the questions what and where? I was born in a two channel world. BBC2 did not go to air until a couple of months after my first birthday, and it would be four or so years later before our family TV set was upgraded to a three channel model with the (for the time) pin sharp 625 line definition of BBC2. This is important too, and I'll get back to it later.

Looking back at TV schedules of that era there is a stark contrast with the world we live in today. The amount of music performance that appeared on those limited schedules, (remember closedown and the beep?) makes up a far higher percentage of broadcast hours than now. Dedicated music shows, variety shows, talk shows, all with house bands and often guest musical performers as well. The lack of choice by today's standards meant almost everybody was viewing the same output, which would cast the die of watercooler conversations, before workplaces had water coolers, for days afterwards. It was also very good for community and societal cohesion. Then as now there could be content that might be considered a bad influence, but there were no trigger warnings back then and people seemed to manage to think for themselves. If a programme addressed really difficult areas, a warning would be given immediately prior to transmission,a white box would be displayed in a corner of the screen and that was that.

So with all these networks with all these hours to fill, why so little music? The lazy answer from the lexicon of received wisdom is expense, and yet our state broadcaster seems to have bottomless other people's pockets where coverage of Glastonbury is concerned, which begs the question that given that 2026 is a 'fallow year' i.e. no Glasto, will the Beeb reassign that money and traverse the length and breadth of our fair land capturing footage of smaller festivals? Don't hold your breath. Five or six cameras, a couple of which could be locked off, a couple of soundies, a half decent director and you're home and dry. Not only that but think of what that could do for grass roots venues and small, self funding events.

I remember being made directly aware of the influence of television on live music as far back as 1980.  Following one of several unforgettable appearances on the Parkinson show, Buddy Rich had embarked on one of his frequent and eagerly anticipated UK tours. We had gone to a show at Nottingham's Albert Hall (that's 'an' Albert Hall rather than 'the' Albert Hall) and this gig was the setting for one of my personal favourite Buddy anecdotes which I have previously shared elsewhere and won't trouble you with again. Buddy's band was great and he played incredibly, very much as you would expect. Also the hall was at capacity. Tellingly about two months later I returned to see another great American jazz big band, the Woody Herman Orchestra. Woody had a great band too at the time, but without frequent television exposure the venue was barely a third full at best. Bear in mind that Buddy Rich had cropped up on Parkinson's show fairly frequently since 1973. In fact, at that time he did ask my former manager Derek Boulton to approach Bill Cotton at the BBC to see if he (Buddy) could host his own chat show. I bet you didn't know that!

My first sight of Buddy Rich had been on our new, late 60s Pye three channel TV. Wearing a white suit and playing at Ronnie's (it's on YouTube) the long since wiped show from the 'Jazz Scene' series was a defining moment in my young life. Hearing greatness on records is one thing, but seeing it done, that's something else.

So the ongoing quest to raise the profile of the music we create continues. Has the time come to swallow my pride and pursue a career in reality TV, or perhaps I go in search of the 'golden buzzer' and offer the artists on my label to Britain's Got Talent. What Alesha and Amanda et al would make of our new epic West Side Story is anyone's guess. Suffice to say it's no from me.

Will AI Throw Musicians Under The Tour Bus Or Not?

 At the time of writing it is 17368 days since my first grown up, professional gig, for grown up, professional money. August 6th 1977 to save you the trouble of looking it up. The band was a quartet, sax doubling vocals, piano, bass and me. In some ways it could be said that little has changed, given that my primary working environment these days is a saxophone-led acoustic quartet. As for the vocal doubling may I take this opportunity to assuage any nervousness about Mister PC Records releasing a Simon Spillett vocal album. This is not currently on our to do list.

The reality however is that with the arrival of the soon to be all pervasive presence of artificial intelligence (AI), the potential exists that the industry that I have been a part of for almost half a century will be subject the biggest changes I have ever seen, possibly rendered unrecognisable.

But is that actually the truth? Without straying into cognitive dissonance I believe that it is and it isn't. One of the benefits of my long innings viewing the world from behind the drums is that I can see that change is not always permanent, and that innovation is not always progress.

So, has five decades of incremental change brought us to the point where technology threatens the very existence and creation of music as we know it? Again it's a yes and no from me, as I shall attempt to explain.

My prepubescent urge to become a professional drummer was forged in the analogue early 70s. A time when almost everybody listened to the same music, and almost all of that music was created in the same manner. The BBC delivered music by the truckload, both on television and radio, Strict agreements with the Musicians Union required the BBC to create a significant percentage of their music content in house, and television shows encompassing A list interview programmes, star studded variety bills, and even lightweight magazine shows would showcase musicianship as a matter of course. You could even get featured on the local news if your band had achieved something even slightly notable. I know. I did it several times and the results are available on my YouTube channel.

What you heard on records was created by musicians playing musical instruments, almost invariably in the same place at the same time. The physical format was the only format, and vinyl records (went away, came back) were predominant, with the more portable cassette tape (also went away, also coming back) the emerging rival. At the time of writing there seems to be no demonstrable renaissance of the eight track cartridge, but you just don't know. 

Also back then, the last smouldering embers of the Lord Chamberlain's office were  still in evidence, in so far as our national broadcaster still made the odd attempt at being some sort of moral arbiter. Song lyrics with even slightly violent or sexual content simply would not be broadcast. 'When Christine Comes Around' (Grudge) or Big Eight (Judge Dread) were unlikely to be troubling the airwaves. As a side note there is no documented evidence of anyone being provoked into committing murder after having listened to 'Ella & Louis Again', or 'The Atomic Mister Basie'.

Imagine trying to explain the internet to someone in 1973. AI would have sounded to them like two Yorkshiremen having a discussion, ('Eh? Aye!" in case you are unclear. Readers outside the UK either look it up or phone a friend). Anyway, the records that we bought with our hard earned pocket money had drum parts played by actual drummers, but even then change was in the wind. 

The next decade ushered in a brave new world of innovative technology, whether you like it or not. From relatively crude beginnings the drum machine rapidly became ubiquitous. The nature of the programming technology was such that you could create patterns beyond the scope of most drummers' facility level. This often seemed to focus on highly evolved bass drum parts. The real world retaliated; we got double pedals, we got Dennis Chambers.

The next seismic shift in the popular music/technology landscape was sampling. When I started out a sample was something you took to the doctor. With the development of digital technology it became possible to create entire new works almost exclusively consisting of bits of old recordings chopped up and reassembled. Some people like to refer to this as reimagining. By and large I prefer not to. So the sea change here was all about the rebalancing of the musician's skill set. Being across the new technology often began to matter more than instrumental or theoretical skill. Again, it was a fashion moment, and over time musicianship and technology have to an extent become able to coexist to mutual benefit.

So creating music based on loops and samples was actually foreshadowing the perceived threat of creating content using AI, but with one significant difference. Copyright.

As a record producer, label owner and rightsholder, anytime I register a newly created recording for release I am legally obliged to declare whether or not that recording contains a sample of anyone else's work. To fail to do so would have the potential to land me in very hot water indeed.

The single biggest threat to the livelihoods of musicians, and indeed all the other creative sectors is the lack of protection for our work, and it does seem to be the case that our elected representatives wish to sidestep our copyright protections in order to curry favour with the big tech potentates of Silicon Valley, in the naive hope that forsaking our fundamental rights as creators is a fair price to pay were it to stimulate inward investment into the UK. Given our ruinously high energy costs only an utter fool would grant this frankly absurd proposition any credence. So far, the outlook is bleak, and if there isn't significant change we are all going to get thrown under the tour bus.

The minister in charge of this has had multiple meetings with the tech giants, but to my knowledge has yet to engage in any meaningful dialogue with the creative sector whatsoever. Look at the tax arrangements of a few of these global corporations and that will tell you everything you need to know. Bottom line trumps ethics every time. It's business for goodness sake. What else would any right thinking person expect? Perhaps the minister is playing a self interested long game by not engaging with the creative sector. An eye to the future perhaps? He wouldn't be the first former government minister to go on to some astonishingly well remunerated big tech sinecure after the sun has set on the political career (circa July 2029, at a guess).

So what can we do to protect our work from being 'scraped' (something until now I only associated with Derek and Clive). A good place to start is to think of your intellectual property as though it was a physical object (hundreds of unsold CDs in the garage notwithstanding). You wouldn't leave your precious instrument in full view on the back seat of your car in pretty much any large UK town or city, would you? Treat your precious creative work in exactly the same way. Don't leave it where it's vulnerable. Remember  all that valuable time you invested in mastering your instrument and crafting your compositions. Remember all those hours  spent perfecting those lyrics filled with your life experience. All your 'content' (dreadful expression) is going to be made copyright free for the likes of Meta and Alphabet before you can say Diego Garcia.            

A good place to start might be to consider closing your Spotify Artist Account. It's never going to make you any money, and we all know that 'exposure' doesn't pay the bills. We decline to go and perform without payment, so why put recorded music in a place where people can just help themselves? We all know that the Spotify business model only really works for the music industry globalists, and whilst it might be gratifying to see your stuff alongside them online, or as part of a playlist, you know in your heart of hearts that you are on a hiding to nothing. People won't pay for something if you have made it available at no cost (ask any hooker) and it can almost certainly be safely assumed that Spotify will be the first port of call when it comes to AI harvesting of recorded music.

With a new release out on my label today (Feb 24th) I've even made the decision to put up heavily edited 'trailer' clips on the far more musician friendly Bandcamp platform. This decision was reached when a radio production assistant went to my artist page and ripped two complete tracks while I sat and watched.

Happily this is one of those times when small, independent labels and artists are not being left to fend for themselves. There are a good many good people of great influence in the upper echelons of our industry who are speaking up to good effect. Simon Cowell, for so long the king of manufactured pop in the UK, has, with the advent of AI, seen manufacturing evolve to a stage where it is beyond even his reach, and whilst his intervention is most welcome it is not entirely devoid of irony,        

Is there any hiding place from this pervasive, high tech army of occupation? Will recorded music contain Net Zero actual musicianship by 2030? Will all drums be electric? Every industrial or technological revolution has its casualties. Any one of us who has been around the music industry for any length of time will have experienced this at first hand and adapted as best we can, Usually it is those of us at the lower end of the food chain who get hit the hardest but this feels different. Has the slippery slope that we, all too often in a place of quiet desperation and a dash of self denial have seen fit to ignore, finally morphed into a precipitous sheer drop off a cliff edge? As I said a moment ago, somewhat surprisingly I don't believe this to be the case.

Earlier in this post I reflected upon change, innovation, progress, and how these qualities are not always permanent, nor do they move in a unified direction. Case in point, back in the 1980s when in my late teens and early twenties I was gigging constantly around the West Midlands, people hardly ever booked live bands to play at weddings. The mobile DJ was king. That changed as fashions do.  Optimism being my default setting, I think this big tech threat may leave the grass roots music industry relatively unscathed. I struggle to envisage a circumstance where largely acoustic performances in small, intimate venues could be replaced by a laptop or an avatar/hologram. When the performers are so close that you can actually even smell them (not necessarily in a good way) the idea of that spontaneous, interactive performance quality to be usurped by microchips strikes me as being as unappealing as it is implausible. I hope I am right.

In conclusion I hope that common sense will prevail (although that's another fashion that seems to be distinctly out of favour at the moment) and that the regulation of copyright in creative work will not be sacrificed to satiate the venal opportunism of big tech, big government, and odious, self-serving lobbyists. 

It is my sincere hope that the global music community retains its seat on the tour bus, rather than ending up under its wheels 

If you have enjoyed reading this please feel free to share it but don't steal it!

IT'S ALL KICKING OFF

 

In an interesting week in which I have had to threaten legal action over infringement of the intellectual property rights of Mister PC Records and its artists, a moment of reverie led me to ponder a world in which professional football was more like professional music.

ANNOUNCEMENT PROPOSED NEW SALARY STRUCTURE FOR PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS IN THE UK Following a lengthy period of consultation with senior figures in the UK live music industry, the FA is pleased to announce the following proposed revisions to salary structure and terms and conditions for all players effective from the 2025/26 season. WAGE STRUCTURE Premier League Home match £200 Away match £250 A discretionary bonus of £25 per goal may be available. This is optional and subject to negotiations between team captains and the management of the opposing side. These negotiations to be finalised prior to publication of the fixture list. Championship Home match £125 Away match £150 Note: players should be aware that no refreshments will be offered by the venue hosting the fixture. Players are welcome to purchase meat pies at a 10% discount but we recommend that they acquaint themselves with the location of the nearest branch of Wetherspoon’s. League One Home match £75 Away match £100 Players should be aware that with effect from the 25/26 season team transportation will not be offered. In order to mitigate fuel costs team members are advised to car share. A good source of supply for five year old Mondeos is Auto Trader magazine. There is no reserved parking at match venues except for a single space for the team van. Players may negotiate a seat aboard the team van as they see fit. Players should park their vehicles in the nearest public car park or on street. If you have heavy equipment to offload assistance may be offered at the discretion of the stadium staff, most of whom are volunteers. League Two Home match £0 Away match £50 or a little bit extra if it does well Whilst League 2 home fixtures are unpaid, match officials will pass round a pint glass at half time into which match attendees may place cash contributions at their discretion. Match payments Via BACS within 28 days, all being well Television Rights BBC4 and Sky Arts will be granted exclusive live broadcast rights to three Premiership matches per season. Selection of matches is entirely at the broadcasters’ discretion but will probably always feature the same few teams. Spectators may film entire matches on their mobile devices and subsequently share them on social media. The consent of players, managers, promoters and venue owners is not required. VAR Use of VAR will be discontinued though spectator’s phone footage may be requested in the event of an argument. Club Fundraising At each fixture a raffle will take place before the resumption of play after half time. Prizes to include moderately priced wine, a tub of Heroes and a souvenir programme from a previous fixture, signed by key players. Kit Sponsorship Individual players may negotiate their own arrangements with manufacturers of boots and strip, which will usually result in players being offered products at a discounted rate compared to that charged in the souvenir shop. Players may purchase replicas of their team strip at cost price and may sell them at half time. Acquisition of a card reader is advised. We recommend Sum Up Solo. Players should also note that with effect from season 25/26 they will be required to purchase their own team strip. Wembley Global Football Festival This is to be an annual event which will show case rising football talent from around the globe. A select number of carefully chosen prominent UK sides will be invited to participate, but frankly, the vast majority of you can fucking do one.

JUMPING THROUGH HOOPS

 "You can't put a download on a shelf", a very wise friend said to me when in 2018 I released a drum instructional video package as a physical product (DVD, as it happens, and yes it is still avail able as physical product or digital download from my website.).

The consumption of music has changed beyond all recognition in recent years, not for the better in my opinion, due in no small part to the global domination of outfits such as Spotify, ITunes and all the rest of them. The ease with which 'content' (hate that word in this context) may be streamed or downloaded does, I feel, rather devalue music, giving it a somewhat 'disposable', 'throwaway' quality which with physical product is simply not the case. Whilst having music wherever you go is undeniably convenient, and a blessing when shutting out the modern world is desirable, turntable versus mp3 player can be a bit like comparing a lavish three course lunch with scoffing a takeaway wrap in the street.

 In the room in which I write there are vinyl records that I have owned for fifty years, and a great many (including a large collection of near mint big band and be bop 78s) that have been in my family since long before I was born.

Ah, yes, the joy of vinyl, the sense of occasion, ceremony even, that comes with putting a vinyl record on the turntable. The satisfaction of having completed the bus journey back from Birmingham city centre having parted with teenage gig earnings in the Record Centre (better known as Jazz & Swing because that's what it said on the carrier bags), The Diskery (best for rarities but premium prices) or the by comparison more prosaic offerings of WH Smiths, HMV or Midland Educational, all of whom in fairness had more than adequate selections of the current jazz releases.

Reading the liner notes, studying the photographs, and of course listening to the music. A whole album would be bought just on the back of one track. I remember aged twelve acquiring the seminal Average White Band 'AWB' LP (its rather saucy cover image precipitating raised eyebrows from our dear Mum) on account of the chart success of 'Pick Up The Pieces', only to find that all the other tracks on the album were, if anything, superior.

Of course if funds were tight one could opt for a 45 RPM seven inch single, freely available from your local Woolworths without necessitating a trip to the city. Also I had discovered former chart hits sold cheaply as 'ex jukebox', a viable means of adding to ones collection at a knockdown price.

However, at this point in the 70s the singles market was very much geared to radio play and chart success. Jazz on 45s was undeniably a thing of the past, and many such imprints were among the records we had at home, perhaps most significantly 'Sounds of the Loop' by the Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring a drum solo by Joe Morello which in many ways remains unmatched to this day, 67 years after it was recorded.

You can see where this is going can't you?

In my early years as  a Midlands based professional musician I worked a lot. I was a capable all-round pro player and by my mid 20s had amassed plenty of experience. What the Midlands lacked though was any record industry to speak of. Yes, we had hugely successful bands that broke through at that time: who can forget all the great music produced by Two Tone records, an organisation that did so much good on many levels. No, what the Midlands lacked was any kind of a 'session' scene aligned to the record industry. A small cabal of musicians had all the local ITV and BBC work sown up, but pretty much all the freelance record session musicians were based in London.

So it was the case that in spite of doing pretty well in the Midlands and playing jazz where I could, (again, some really good musicians, a few places to play but no sort of a proper 'joined up' scene) the one gaping omission in my CV at that point was recording credits. My sole efforts on vinyl were 'Starburst', a bit of a curate's egg of an album by the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra and two guest tracks (also with MYJO) on an album entitled 'Radio Leicester Big Band and Friends'.

BBC Radio Leicester had its own big band. Let that sink in. They crop up again later, coincidentally.

It would be three years into my time living in London before I started to get asked to play on people's records. That really was the toughest nut to crack, and it did irk for quite a while. By this time of course, everything was being issued on CD, and vinyl was, temporarily as it has turned out, extinct.

Anyway, that yawning gap in my achievements has been more than adequately compensated over the ensuing three decades, and I have had the good fortune to play on some very good records with some very good people (selected discography can be found on my website if you're interested). Of particular importance were the three big band albums I recorded and produced as a leader. These releases may well be joined by a fourth and even fifth release, but that's for later.

Meanwhile, having ticked such a big box with my own big band recordings, what better a thing to do than to channel that experience into producing a big band record for somebody else, together with the double benefit of playing drums on the session.

With Simon Spillett's fabulous big band (which forensically examines the compositions and arrangements of Tubby Hayes) came the perfect opportunity. Simon had the product, I had the money (ably assisted by very generous crowd funders who covered about 25% of the cost of the project) and in September last year 'Dear Tubby H' was released on CD to thoroughly deserved critical acclaim. Mister PC Records was up and running. What a way to start. June this year saw a limited edition double vinyl deluxe edition of Simon's album, and there are several sessions in the can with others planned for next year.

Amongst this is a session I hadn't intended to record by a band I never planned to form.

Last Spring I had a studio and engineer booked when at the eleventh hour the planned session could not proceed. Rather than throwing in the towel and cancelling everything, a quick phone around ensured the services of A-listers Simon Allen, Vasilis Xenopoulos, Steve Fishwick and Mark Nightingale. I retained the previously engaged rhythm section colleagues Rob Barron and Alec Dankworth (why wouldn't you?) Repertoire was a no-brainer. In my office cupboard live the charts for the Ministry of Jazz, the seven piece band formed in 2015 as a pragmatic measure to satisfy promoters and venues who did not have the budget or square footage to accommodate my big band performing our hugely popular and successful tribute to Buddy Rich. Requests to play that repertoire with half the band left at home were declined, not always politely, but a bit of contemplation resulted in the decision to offer a smaller group featuring entirely different music and different musicians from the big band.

So an album's worth of material resulted from a highly productive day, and a couple of the tracks I felt were quite resonant and commercially viable, so the idea of releasing a single germinated in my customarily ambitious and over active mind.

The A side is a thing called 'Hoops'. Very much in the soul jazz, boogaloo vein it conjures up images of sharply dressed mods and Northern Soul all-nighters. 

Anyway, here comes the Radio Leicester Big Band again. On my eighteenth birthday I was in the unlikely setting of Golders Green Hippodrome, recording a Radio 2 broadcast for the much missed national big band competition. MYJO had triumphed in the youth category, and alongside us were the senior winners from Radio Leicester, including the fabulous Dougie Wright on drums.  Amongst their repertoire on the show was Peter Herbolzheimer's arrangement of Dieter Reith's composition 'Hoops'. I liked it on first hearing, and stored it in my memory, thinking that I might do something with it one day. And so I have.

The 45 RPM single of 'Hoops' is released officially on September 30th, and  a huge proverbial tip of the metaphorical hat is due to percussionist and DJ Snowboy, who on hearing the track some months ago insisted that I release it as a vinyl single. Sound advice as the pre release sales are little short of astonishing.

Over the coming weeks the all important PR campaign swings into action, and if you see a slightly familiar face on television, in the newspapers, or a well modulated voice on radio regurgitating much of what you have almost finished reading, that'll be me. I might even break out one of the seldom seen purple jackets.

Aiming high as is my default position I'm anticipating a nationwide dance craze and being a breakthrough chart artist at the tender age of 61, because if you don't try, you don't get.

I've jumped through all kinds of Hoops to get here, and I'll see you at the BRIT awards.

You can buy the single via Bandcamp or by following the website link at the beginning of this blog post.

YouTube Update

 Hi everyone,

Just a very quicks heads up to let you know that my YouTube has rebranded as Pete Cater Jazz Drums, and you can find it here

There's all kinds of tuition material on there as well as performance footage from over more than forty years, so subscribe today and I'll see you on the tube.