I have a new band which is gigging under the name 'Ian Ritchie's SOHO Project'. The band is made up of Vladimiro Carboni on drums, Alex Hutton on piano and Tom Fry on bass. In addition Arista Hawkes on bass and Rob Taggart on keys have been filling in for absent members. Our first two gigs at Willesden's Cafe Gigi and Kilburn's Black Lion both went well. The Black Lion was particularily satisfying with a large, appreciative audience. We plan to play out a couple more times before going into the recording studio on the 29th and 30th of June. All going well I will have cd's available for sale by the end of August / early September. Before then I will put some mp3 excerpts on the site. Our next gigs are during the Soho Jazz On The Streets mid summer festival. The recordings are in the mix stage and should be going ito production very soon. In the meantime here are some pics of the studio sessions at Eastcote Studios. They feature Vladimiro, Tom and Alex along with Phillip Bagnell who was in the production chair.
Since writing this the SOHO album has been finished and is available on 33 Jazz records. The band launched the CD at London's Pizza Express jazz club in Dean street. Since then the band have played the 606 club and appeared at the Malta Jazz Festival. I have written the tunes for the followup project ( yet to be named ) and intend to record in late 2006 or early 2007.
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