Bad Ass Bras at the 2010 St Lucia Jazz Festival

Trumpeter Paul Munday writes about the first UK tour by BAD ASS BRASS

2012 has been an amazing year for Bad Ass Brass so far. We were shortlisted for the 2012 London Jazz Award. After some fantastic gigs, we’re off on our debut UK tour this month for a series of six dates around the country.

When planning the tour, we approached many different venues with no particular preference as to which cities we visited, just a desire to try and play a few gigs and push the Bad Ass name outside of the M25. I guess there was certain inevitability that it was going to be easier to sell the group to venues in cities where band members had links. Over the next two weeks we visit Sheffield (3rd October), Newcastle (4th October), Tewkesbury (7th October) and Manchester (13th October) with a couple of London dates thrown in for good measure (10th & 11th October).

Jimmy has great links with Sheffield, Mike has strong family ties in Newcastle, Jon and Gemma are both from Tewkesbury, the band is based in London and we are delighted to have Russell Bennett covering the lead trumpet pad who has recently moved down to London from Manchester. Whilst in Tewkesbury we are also going to be spending the day working with young musicians from the Gloucestershire Music Service and the Gloucestershire Brass Band Association as part of their Blast Off series.

With lots of original new tunes mixed in with some old favourites, our first tour promises to be a fantastic experience both for our audiences and for us.

Bad Ass Brass will be playing 2 nights at the Spice of Life in Soho on Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th October.

Bad Ass Brass are:

Russell Bennett, Paul Munday & Gavin Broom – Trumpets
Jon Stokes – Trombone and Vocals
Sam Bullard & Gemma Moore – Saxophones and Flute
Mike Poyser – Sousaphone
Jimmy Norden – Drums

Bad Ass Brass New Website