Me? A fair few jazz gigs on double bass, bit of folk and indie stuff as well which I love - overall still mostly jazz though. Really, I'm happy to play anything as long it's heartfelt, honest and communicates - oh dear, that sounds a bit earnest - but hopefully you get what I mean. A lot of my time also now goes into arranging and composing - I was recently commissioned to write a jazz suite for Arundel Festival which has just been performed with a band including me and Bobby Wellins and Christian Brewer.
Tunes posted are from two projects. "Pelican Rising", a new CD featuring me, my original compositions and the considerable talents of Mark
Edwards, Jim Mullen, Bobby Wellins and Alex Eberhard. JazzWise magazine gave it 4 stars calling it "breathtakingly lovely...a stunner". Go to www.alexeberhard.com to purchase.
The other tunes come from a really special forthcoming CD with the wonderful Polish/Scottish singer Magdalena Reising. The music reflects her dual upbringing and contains both traditional Scottish songs arranged by me and newly composed songs by me and Magdalena with lyrics by the Polish war poet Galcynski. The other musicians featured on the CD are my good friend, the superb Austrian drummer, Alex Eberhard and the amazing Italian pianist, Tony Pancella. It's a real flag of nations band and I'm very excited about the project. The last track is a duo with me and the fantastic guitarist Nils Solberg playing the standard Stella By Starlight. If you know me get in touch and say hello...if you don't know me still get in touch and say hello. For
anyone who wants/needs/requires my official "proper" biography look below -
.
Steve Thompson grew up in Wales. His first professional job
was playing guitar - and talk about University of Life/School of Hard Knocks - with the "legendary" blues band, Juke,
based in Germany.
Almost on a whim he decided to switch to double bass and has
never really looked back. He is now a much in demand sideman
for jazz gigs across the South and considers himself very lucky to have shared a stage over the last
few years with amazing musicians like Kenny Davern, Danny Moss, Paul Lacey, Spike
Wells, Martin Drew, Don Rendell, Mark Edwards, Nigel Price, Terry Seabrook, Matt Wates, Alan Barnes, Geoff Simkins,
Roy Williams, Mike Piggott, and many other great
players.
STOP PRESS: I'm hosting a new regular Jazz Club in Arundel with house trio (featuring Terry Seabrook, me and Alex Eberhard) with guests. Dec 3rd Heather Cairncross. Visit www.myspace.com/arundeljazzclub for more details.
Thanks for the positive comment Steve. I went for an interview at Thames Valley Uni last week re. the MMus course. It sounds great and I plan to apply to start part time next Sept. Tell yiu more when we meet up. Just started a jazz harmony course at City Lit too.
Are we still on for running through songs and arrangements next Thur 8th Oct then? What time shall I get to the station and which one is closest?
Thanks for the add. How's the jazz scene doing there? Its non existant here. I used to play bass for my dad's band doing songs like Satin Doll, East of the Sun. No Moon At All, Tenderly but all those guys are either dead now or they switched to country to make a living. SO SAD! Hope jazz has some life where you're at. Anyway keep on pickin. That stand up bass sounds so good. If you'd like I could throw one our old jazz tunes on my players list maybe Lets fall in love or tenderly if I can find those old recordings. Best of luck.
