We finished the tour last week and, despite my best efforts, I didn’t manage to document any of it…  I got some lovely pictures at the end of each night when I remembered that I had a camera.  Luckily there were some people at our gigs – people with cameras – so here is a selection of snaps from our travels.

Photo credit – Alan Hough
		Photo credit – Peter Fay
	Photo credit – Ken Drew

23.02 – Darwen was a good start to the tour; an appreciative audience and a cheese buffet!  The promoter Gary Ward deserves a special mention for the amount that he does for the music scene in South Lancashire.  The county would not be the same without him.

24.02 – Rehearsal (without Ben) was spent mostly playing standards and realising that a trumpet/double bass/drums trio sounds great!

25.02 – We were honoured to be the last group ever to play at Liverpool’s Parr Jazz whilst at its home in Studio 2.  See below for a video from the gig.

26.02 – Sheffield was the best city for CD sales (mainly because I made a group of my old friends pay for their copies…)!  The Jazz at the Lescar weekly nights are a really great establishment and should supported!  It’s been running for over 10 years and consistently brings in some of the best in UK Jazz (and sometimes me) and it only costs you £5.

28.02 – Echo…o…o…  Playing in the foyer of the Royal Exchange Theatre was a good exercise in control!  Stew and I then hotfooted it back to Liverpool to play some heavy Coltrane-inspired Jazz with Marley Chingus.

01.02 – Back in Liverpool again (again)!  I was able to fit in a gig at the Liverpool Jazz Festival with the Blind Monk trio.  I went over early to catch Jamil Sheriff‘s Trio and Colin Towns‘s group, both of which I really enjoyed.  I also ended up spending more than my gig fee at Jazz House Records‘ brilliant pop up shop in the Capstone‘s foyer.

02.02 – The lowest audience turnout of the tour, but the 15 or so people who did come to watch us were by far the best people in Newcastle!  Andy even raced back from his gig with ACV at the Liverpool Jazz Festival; that’s dedication.  It was definitely a good gig to finish the tour with.  You can read Lance Liddle’s review of the gig on the ‘Be-Bop Spoken Here‘ blog.

Thanks to everyone who came down to our gigs, and thanks especially to Graham, Ben and Stewart for coming!  Here’s a video of us in Liverpool, filmed by Paul Necci.