Agh. Teddy Charles has passed away. One of those amazing people you never hear a lot about, who played with EVERYONE and ought to be wider known. My favourite, The Quiet Time isn't on You Tube, but here's another great track of his tentet with Gig Gryce and Art Farmer under the pseudonym "Peter Urban".

I own a ginkgo biloba. Its leaves are coming out again, almost right on schedule.

Ginkgos are wondrous things. Did you know that they're dioecious? Or that they can survive nuclear attack? You normally see them as street trees in city centres as they are easy to care for.

The sad thing is as the rotting fruit create a smell, the trees we tend to see in the U.K. are almost exclusively male cultivars—we are selectively breed so that female trees don't occur; so a species that has survived for about 270 million years is actually endangered purely by human activity.

Here's a first—a REHEARSAL. Pianist Adam Fairhall's putting together a new trio with me and drummer Rob Turner. Exciting...!

Fantastic cult music film. Parental guidance required as there's nudity, violence and quite a bit of swearing—but remember that it's from The Seventies!

Still buzzing from Sunday—second set duties with Steve Noble, Alex Ward and Olie Brice. Just got the material for Nick Malcolm's gig on 31st May... lovely stuff!

And with any luck, I've now switched on posting from XMPP to both Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.

It's been quite a stressful few weeks. My constant worrying over One Note Sunday has paid off, but at the expense of not being able to focus on other things. Really looking forward to today; moderately free, with just some learning of songs to do, and some listening to mixes. I may even try and enjoy the sun!

Is my "posting to social network silos nightmare" finally over??

This month has really crept up on me—got a trip up to Leeds this week... will have to post details soon. AND Liverpool!

Just caught my eye... there's some real resonance there for me with the One Note Sunday nights.

Off to Leeds tomorrow! If you're about, maybe I'll catch you there.

On my way to Leeds on Saturday, I popped into the International Print Exhibition in the Arboretum, England's oldest public park.

The International Print Exhibition has been running for three years now, bringing great art from around the world right into Derby. It's run by Green Door Printmaking which is based in Normanton, the area where I was born and bred.

Green Door doesn't receive the plaudits or subsidy that are given to other arts organisations in the city, but they're doing international work, and have been doing it for just as long. Not they're under threat with rising costs—I'm hoping the city doesn't forget about them... but I am not so sure.

Anyway, I was looking at the work while I was waiting for an appropriate time to head to the train station; and they asked me to play for a bit while I was there—so I did, with great pleasure.

If you get chance pop to the Arboretum, see the exhibition; and learn about an arts group that brings the world to Derby. The exhibition ends on 31st May.

I'm looking for a ghost story for some music the trio has made.

No one's heard the music yet; but I'm thinking of setting it to a ghost-related narrative. If anyone is interested, please let me know in the comments; or contact me.

Totally gutted. I can't make it to Liverpool #

First time in about 20 years I've had to cancel a gig. Many many apologies to those in Liverpool, was looking forward to tonight... really miserable.

Gig was epic: such fun. But I'm VERY tired...

I've just updated my descriptive harmony style guide. If you haven't seen it before take a look! Comments and criticism welcomed.

Slightly more work on musify. I've moved the main development from Sourceforge back to my site—SVN was total overkill for the project; and it's already quite stable, so there's little to add to it that I cannot do easier from here. I've also added a news page to it—and there are new developments!

Shabaka FINALLY has a web-site. Visit it and find out what this creative musician is doing!

musify work moves apace, but I have to remember I have a gig today as well!! Hope to see Derby people down...