News

One Jump Ahead’s line-up, like that of most bands, changes from time to time, usually when members get too busy with other musical projects. In most cases (but not quite all!) they remain friends and occasionally return to help out when current members need a night off. On 8th July, ex-member Hilary Cameron joined us for a function at the Grange St Pauls Hotel, playing wonderfully jazzy piano and singing the lead vocal on several songs. On 24th, Nigel Price, whose organ trio recently received an award from the All Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group, will be playing guitar with us for another function in Wokingham. We have also had, or are about to have the marvellous Derek Gayle and Barry Cook on drums, Steve Kershaw, Dan Quinton and Pete Ringrose on bass, and Richard Busiackewicz and Phil Mead on piano.

As promised a few months ago, the band’s last 2 albums, Jumpin’ on the Bandwagon and From Top to Toe are now available from the independent online retailer/distributor CD Baby. You can order physical copies of the CDs or download the albums or just the individual tracks of your choice. They are also available from the major online stores (iTunes, Amazon, etc). If you already have a copy of either CD, why not leave a review on the CD Baby site to let other people know what you think? There are new links from our CDs page or follow this link to CD Baby.

Unfortunately, the Kit Packham Duo gig at Stile Bridge Cafe, Marden on Friday 12th March was CANCELLED at short notice. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. We recommend contacting the venue before setting out for ANY gig as, sadly, last-minute cancellations do occur every so often, in spite of everyone’s best intentions. We expect to be booking a replacement gig at Stile Bridge soon. Keep an eye on our GIGS page or join our mailing list to get the lowdown.

CLAVE CRISIS!

When the Kit Packham Quartet played at the Grey Lady in Tunbridge Wells on Friday 19th February, there was a large and enthusiastic crowd - a little TOO enthusiastic. Some of the dancers helped themselves to Kit’s Latin percussion from his music stand in order to join in the fun. Although we don’t encourage this, we don’t make a fuss, expecting such high spirits to be tempered with enough common sense and consideration for the amateur percussionists to return the instruments to the stage when the song has finished. On this occasion only one clave was returned to the band. Despite a thorough search, the other couldn’t be found anywhere on the premises and we assume that someone kept it as a souvenir of a great night out. If that person sees this and would like to return it (no questions asked) we’ll reward them with a free One Jump Ahead CD. (We’ve got lots of those but are now one clave short of a samba!) Claves, by the way, are the short cylindrical hardwood batons which are knocked together to make sharp clicks. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claves

The band had a photo session before Christmas & some of these can now be seen on our photo pages. We are always interested in good quality photos of the band taken by our customers or our fans. Please e-mail digital images to Kit Packham at this address: kp.1jump@ntlworld.com.