Hope to see you at the first gig with my new band on Sat March 1st 8pm, Nolia’s Jazz Cafe (Ex-The Union Jack), 225 Union Street London SE1 0LR. Admission free! All welcome! 2 mins walk from Southwark Tube (Jubilee Line).

I'll be playing tracks from my latest album 'Fresh Air' as well as previous albums with a new band including Thomas Rees, trumpet; George Millard, sax; Ed Arm, guitar; Pete Hutchinson, bass; Hamish Burchall; drums. Admission for this warm-up gig is free! to minute walk from Southwark Tube. Come along and enjoy the band at this great new venue!

Music is everywhere in Salvador, the first capital of Brazil, a place that culturally is almost a part of Africa. Visiting the old city-center yesterday, we first heard, at a small street-café, some beautiful bossa-nova with vocals, guitar and drums.

This however, was almost over-powered acoustically by the sound of the Olodum percussion from their open-air concert hall a few metres away. Olodum is a Bahian percussion-based performance group, so famous they even made a video with Michael Jackson in the nearby Pelourinho (Pillory) Square. Intrigued by the sound, I walked a little down the narrow street, but could not enter as the concert was already much progressed. Still, just the sound from outside was very impressive, and reminds you that music on CD or video can be a very pale imitation of the live version! The sound of the drums reverberating through the ancient streets delivers a powerful emotional response that is hard to describe, not to mention the rhythms and groove, which could be the beat to any contemporary dance-music production!

We're hoping to attend an actual concert in the same place this evening.

I'll try to post a few photos of Salvador and Bahia later after I'm finished at the pool!

To celebrate, I'm giving away a CD of my new album Fresh Air to the first 20 people to answer a simple question about the site*! The next 30 will receive any one track of their choice emailed (as an mp3) from any of my albums, present and previous! Click here for  entry-details!

My aim is for this site to be as inter-active as possible, with links to Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud and your feedback positively encouraged! (see comments box below each page).

I also aim to keep it as up-to-date and "live" as possible, with news and blog updates here most weeks, plus new stuff that I will add as I go along, including new photos, videos , music demos and anything else I can think of!