Feb 22 2015

New Clare Teal Album Out Now!

Happy Sunday folks!

As many of you may already know, our latest release with Clare Teal At Your Request is officially out now and available in all the usual stores online.

At Your Request

We completed recording the album at the end of last year and it features a stella lineup including a four-piece horn section (Sam Mayne, Dave O’Higgins, Martin Shaw and Ashley Horton) alongside the regular trio of myself, Grant Windsor and Ben Reynolds.

The repertoire consists of all those songs we’ve developed in the live show over the last couple of years that have yet to feature on record including Van Morrison’s The Way Young Lovers Do and Dory Previn’s Twenty-Mile Zone. It’s the final recording with Grant as he has now moved back to Australia.

We officially launched the album at the Cadogan Hall show last Saturday with the ‘mini big band’ as featured on the record. We’ll be doing a few more dates later on in the year with the same band, as well as the Hollywood-style orchestra’s Doris Day show and the new trio featuring the awesome Jason Rebello.

You can grab your copy of At Your Request  from Amazon or Clare’s very own Bandcamp site, where you can also find all the recent recordings. Here’s a little handy Bandcamp player so you can have a listen. Hopefully see you at a show soon…


Nov 11 2013

Nina Ferro’s Into The Light now officially launched

Good afternoon folks,

This blog entry is a little late in the day to be honest as these shows were a couple of weeks ago now, but I thought it was about time I dropped a little post about Nina Ferro’s new record Into The Light. And I’ve just been sent the first video from the show to share with you. Perfect timing!

Nina Ferro, Into The Light

Earlier this year, Nina flew out to Nashville for a month to work on a new record totally from scratch. She met up with fellow Aussie and Nashville resident Sam Hawksley and in the space of one month manages to write and record an entire album’s worth of material.

We were all very excited to hear the new record and the minute I got my copy I knew this was going to be right up my street. We played a show at the 606 not long after Nina’s return and previewed just a few of the new tracks but the official album launch took place at St. James Theatre at the beginning of this month. We had a great lineup including Sam Hawksley (who flew over for the launch), Tim Weller, Grant Windsor and Niamh Mcnally on backing vocals. Over two nights we presented the album in it’s entirety alongside some other original tunes from some of Nina’s back catalogue. The shows went down a storm. Here’s a link to Sebastian Scotney’s review of the first night’s show from the London Jazz Blog.

Nina just sent me this video of us playing Cry Cry Cry at the launch gig. This is the first YouTube video I’ve seen from the shows so it’s a bit of an exclusive!

Nina will be launching the album over in Melbourne on February 1st so if you are reading this from the other side of the planet you haven’t missed your chance! Watch this space for announcements of forthcoming live shows here in the UK. If you haven’t seen Nina Ferro live yet you’re frankly missing out and you’re going to want to get yourself along to a show at the next opportunity! We’ve been lucky enough to have Nina feature on a few shows at Hideaway this year (you can check out some videos from the Aretha Franklin set here). I suspect we’ll be playing the Into The Light set there sometime in the near future too.

You can now get your copy of Into The Light on iTunes or at Nina’s website. Enjoy…

Simon x


Dec 19 2012

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like…

Well it’s coming to the end of the year and I thought I’d better drop a quick post to let you in on all the latest news.

On Sunday we had the last of the Clare Teal Christmas shows at the Chapel Arts Centre in Bath. We’d already played the Christmas show in Southampton, Exeter and Maidstone. And in the traditional fashion, there were festive costumes involved for the big Bath show…

Photo By Nicki Szlovak

Yes indeed, it was my turn to be the Christmas tree this year folks. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy playing the bass in that outfit. And it was particularly tricky playing the bass, the ukulele and a kazoo whilst dressed as a Christmas tree…

Bass, Uke & Kazoo...

Clare and Grant surpassed themselves once again with some awesome costumes. Inflatable outfits are quite clearly de rigueur this year…

Clare Teal on horseback

Ben the SnowmanGrant's Xmas Turkey

There are big plans for next years Christmas tour. Bigger and better than ever. Our next regular show will be at Pizza Express Dean Street on January 24th. Hopefully see some of you there…

As you should all know by now (and if you don’t: shame on you!) the new trio record with Jez Carr and Mike Haughton  Foreground Music, Vol. I was released last week. It’s been getting a great response and has already received a couple of lovely reviews. Check out Oliver Arditi’s review in his Review Of The Year post. The album is available via Bandcamp for a mere £5.00. Gr grab yourself a copy.

And while you’re at it, you should also check out the new EP by our very own Grant Windsor and drummer Richard Spaven. Their new project The Sure Co. released The Sure Co. 5ive on Jazz Re:freshed last week. You should definitely check that out too. It’s also available on iTunes…

So that’s the new music covered. Now onto the big news of the week. Tomorrow night I’ll be playing Shepherds Bush Empire with Duke Special.It’s gonna be a great show with lots of special guests and support from The Shellac Collective and Michele Stodart. We’ve got the big lineup reunited once more. Am currently dusting off the tailcoat and top hat. The Undertaker is making a comeback for one night only. Frankly, you should all be there…

Duke Special, Shepherds Bush Empire Flyer
I suspect this won’t be the last blog of the year, but in case I don’t manage to post again before Christmas; have a good one. I’ll be upstairs at Ronnie Scotts on New Years Eve with Kai Hoffman’s band Kai’s Cats. Should be a great night.

Until next time…

Photo By Nicki Szlovak