The Jazz Jam returns!

The St Albans monthly Jazz Jam restarted on the 29th November 2012 at the Portland Arms and with your support should continue into 2013 on the last Thursday of every month. See the gigs page for details. Musicians wanting a jazz blow are very welcome to join us. We play mainstream jazz standards with guitar based rhythm section and it's a traditional style of pub with some good beers and great food. What's not to like?

There is also another new Jazz Jam at the Rose and Crown in St Albans to be held monthly on a Monday night, see gigs page for dates each month. This is in addition to the monthly jazz trio gig at the Rose and Crown which has moved to the first Monday of the month.

"Old Soldiers arrangement by JJ Williamson"

Chris Flegg's composition Old Soldiers has been arranged for brass band by John Williamson. John has done a great job of interpreting this guitar composition for a full brass band performance, adding some interesting variations and a magnificent ending. The score is now available free of charge to brass bands in the UK on request, simply go to the Contact page and use the contact form to get in touch. A recording of the arrangement is planned with a view to showcasing the arrangement on-line in the near future. In the mean time, you can hear a synth version here.

Lanner District Silver Band  arrangement of "Old Soldiers" makes debut

Chris Flegg's composition "old Soldiers" has been arranged by Gareth Cottrell for the Lanner District Silver Band who performed their world premier performance of the piece at Padstow in June 2011. The arrangement features a flugel horn solo and Gareth has added introduction and ending passages which invoke the sound of the Last Post. The tune will be included in a number of forthcoming events including the Lanner Mining Villages Festival on 18th August 2011. For details of the band and its performances see the website for the Lanner and District Silver Band.  Based at Lanner, near Redruth in Cornwall, they perform regularly throughout Cornwall and beyond and their many achievements include reaching third place in the Boosey and Hawkes National Brass Band Championships 2003.

The following MP3 was made informally at one of their rehersal sessions.

PRESS RELEASE
latest album now available
Chris Flegg has now compled his latest album of original songs, Time Precious Time, to bring his total output to eight albums since 2000. Amongst collaborators on this CD is acclaimed harmonica virtuoso Steve Lockwood. Chris had to wait for Steve to complete a project with the Prague Philharmonic before recording two tracks for the album, including a blues called Mean Old Daddy on which Steve plays in the style of Sonny Terry. The second is a ballad called Across The Wasteland which is a powerful commentary on the futility of recent wars which destroy a country’s infrastructure to the point where the victor raises a flag on wasteland. The harmonica has long been the soldier’s musical instrument making Steve a natural choice for adding a haunting backdrop to this powerful song.
A snapshot from Mean Old Daddy has already made the ITV evening news (10th Feb 2010 Anglia) because a film crew from ITV descended on Steve’s studio while he was rehearsing against the guitar and vocal tracks of this number for a local news item about a pensioner taught to play harmonica by Steve. The news clip included part of this song with Steve playing blues harp so that the album has in effect already hit the airwaves before it is completed! Steve’s rehearsing paid off since he was later able to record the album track in just one take with a performance so stunning there just was no room for improvement.
Vicki Swan and Jonny Dyer, both well known on the folk circuit, have also recorded double bass and accordion tracks for the album and jazz sax man Terry Ede has a clarinet part on a song called T-Rex Would Still Be Here, a novel take on the problem of global warming that attributes the demise of stubborn dinosaurs to their inability to control their use of energy to stop climate change. UK jazz legends Harvey Weston on bass and John Bridge on trombone also add an authentic jazz feel to this track which provides a contrast to the contemporary folk feel of the album. Rod Brown on percussion has featured on previous albums and underpins the songs with some nice touches, such as the military snare drum ending to Across the Wasteland.

 14th September 2010

Radio play - here are details of just some of recent radio shows featuring CD tracks and interviews

Argyll FM Saturday night Folk Show presented by Trevox,  3 Jan 2009,  I'm Not Crazy Yet,

30 May 2009 I'm Not Crazy Yet, 

6 June 2009  Old Ben

31 October 2009 She Got On The Train At Cricklewood

BBC Radio Ulster, 31 May 2009, Walter Love, "Jazz Club", Night And Day, I'm Going Home

BBC Radio Humberside, Henry Ayrton, "The Real Music Show",  May 2009, Body And Soul

Mountain District Radio, Australia, "Folk On The Fringe", 4 Feb 2009 Phil Young, I Knew A Girl She Was So Thin, I’m Not Crazy Yet

BBc Stoke and Staffordshire, Chris Gumbley, "Jazz Beat", 3 June 2009,   Her Favourite Flower

RTE Lyric fm, Eamonn Lenihan, "After Hours", June 21st 2009, Her Favourite Flower

Manx Radio, Bob Harrison,  "Afternoon Extra", 29 June 2009, interview and tracks from Her Favourite Flower  album, Cat House and When Sunny Gets Blue

Jazz FM, 15 August, Bob Sinfield, "Big Band And Trad", Cat House

BBC Cambridgeshire and BBC Three Counties Radio, Sue Marchant,"Big Night In", 26th August 2009, interview and live performance of Her Favourite Flower, Round Midnight, Girl From Ipanema, plus CD tracks Cat House and There's A Sound

Albion And Beyond fm89 Little Rock, Arkansas,  presenter Len Holton  4th November 2009, A boy and his kite, There's a sound

Instrumental albums

I have recorded some instrumental tracks, enough for two albums. Wes Maebe, freelance sound engineer, handled the recording session at Cream Studios in Wembley in a day long session in which no less than 23 tunes were recorded, some solo guitar and some with Double bass played by John Rees-Jones. The first album, released May 2009, is called Her Favourite Flower and is a jazz flavoured collection of standards and originals, mostly guitar and bass duos. The second,  released  in October 2009, is a collection of solo guitar pieces called My Green Guitar, ranging from Cavatina to Classical Gas.

Interview for ExpatRadio

UK Songwriting Contest 2008

I entered my song "I'm not crazy yet" from the album The Sound Of Life in the UK Songwriting Contest 2008. The results just out are that the song reached the semi-finals with a score of 7 out of 10 in the Folk/Country catagory, which means the song was in the top 15% of over 6200 songs. The contest results are at songwritingcontest.co.uk

The UK Songwriting Contest is held annually in association with The BRIT Trust, The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, The Guild of International Songwriters and Composers, BBC Radio, The World Music Foundation, Music Aid UK and other music industry bodies.

Photography Exhibition

Local photographer Carol Toner snapped Chris Flegg and John Breeze while busking for charity in St Albans and included the image in an exhibition by graduates of West Herts College at Cha Cha Cha Café, Cassiobury Park from September til 7th November 2008 visit: www.chachachacafe.co.uk. The photgraph was sold!

Maidenhead Folk Song Competition

My song 'A Hill So High' won second prize in the Maidenhead Folk Club Song Competition 2005. This song is about Wilmington Man, an iron age hill figure carved in chalk on a hillside near Brighton.

Lyrics to 'A Hill So High'

I am the man whose giant shape is carved upon an English hill so high
I am the man who left his mark upon this land
I am the man who stood the test of time, two thousand years have passed me by
And here I stand, I am the man

I felled the trees to clear these fields
With pastures green for sheep and cow
To sow my seed the ground I tilled
I worked this land with ox and plough

I am the man who took up arms to drive invaders from this sacred isle
I am the man who spilled their blood upon this land
I am the man who fought with wolf and bear to save the lamb and spare the child
And here I stand, I am the man

Chorus

I am the man who worshipped ancient gods before you came with cross and church
I am the man who found his faith was in this land
I am the man who built great monuments to sun and moon and mother earth
And here I stand, I am the man

Chorus

But now I'm just a symbol of a way of life that used to be
I am the man who stands alone here in this land