Following successful Sunday lunchtime Tom Smith Big Band concerts at Dean Street in the last couple of years and a sensational opening concert launching the EFG London Jazz Festival 2024 at Piano Smithfield, we had no hesitation in inviting the band’s return to celebrate their new album “A Year In The Life”, across these two Summer and Autumn 2025 concerts.
(With thanks and acknowledgement to UK Jazz News, here are some extracts from their recent interview with Tom Smith about his music and the new album)
“I have a relationship with everyone in the band.As friends from music college, as my mentors, or as someone I got to know because I love their playing. Everyone’s chosen for their unique sound, and what they can bring to the music. The music draws on big band traditions, but I’ve been enjoying experimenting with different influences: Pat Metheny, Carla Bley, Guy Barker, Chris Potter, Ellington, Basie, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Maria Schneider.”
A Year in the Life arose from the band’s first gig, for which Tom produced a concert’s worth of music in just 2 or 3 months (a tough task, as he writes and arranges all of the band’s repertoire). “I had to do a whole lot of writing very quickly.It sounded really good the first time we played. It came together quickly.”
“The tunes sometimes come from stories, sometimes they arrive fully-formed and I have to work out what they remind me of, other times I go in with a plan of action. When I’m composing, it generally takes about three weeks just working through ideas at the piano. I’ll think about it when I’m on the tube, record myself playing on piano or sax, trying to create something that will ensure it’s different. Then I’ll start committing it, where it changes a lot. Because each composition takes such a long time, there’s no point writing anything if it doesn’t mean something, if it doesn’t have an arc or story. It’s got to be quite personal, something that makes sense to me.
Tom writes for specific players: “The trumpets are a good example: Tom Walsh, Freddie Gavita, George Hogg and Alistair Martin all approach the instrument in a unique way, so it’s fun to produce interesting combinations across the section, thinking about how each player sounds, or approaches a solo. I was really pleased by the soloing on the album. I’ve spent a huge amount of time picking who was going to play what. At gigs we open things up a bit, but on A Year in the Life there were definitely specific people put in specific places for their own vibe.”
“I’d say it’s pretty free,” Tom says of his composing style. “If it was a smaller band I’d probably try to keep things a little freer, ‘cos that feels a bit more ‘jazz’, but the nature of the big band beast means there’s a lot more through-arrangement. Maybe as a result of what’s happened at gigs I tell the band more of the story of the songs. So, for example, when we recorded ‘Speedboat in Trouble’ I explained the story to both soloists – on the album it’s Trevor Mires on trombone and Alistair Martin on trumpet – and they approached their solos totally differently from the gigs. It definitely gives the music more of a narrative arc if the musicians know what emotions they’re meant to be conveying, rather than just giving them chord changes and saying, ‘Go for it!’.”
Tom’s now working on the band’s next project, aiming to record towards the end of 2025. “Since recording A Year in the Life I’ve written Trailers, a suite of six pieces inspired by film music, referencing different genres, directors or composers. It’s gone down really well with audiences. For example, ‘Shades of Noir’ references film noir, Hitchcock, Bernard Hermann. I tell the story before we play it and it captures the audience’s attention way more than if I simply said, ‘We’re going to play a jazz ballad’.”
Here is a glimpse of Tom and his Big Band
However, his focus is on the album’s release: “The whole of 2025 is going to be devoted to this music – a year of A Year in the Life.”
“These new album concerts, from Tom Smith, one of our younger outstanding jazz musicians and composers, promises to be must get to events in 2025- The Hoste Of Jazz
