We had a lovely little gig last night at Theoc House in Tewkesbury – they’ve opened up the upstairs library room for their regular Jazz Club, with a lovely real fire, as you can see here!

Next gig:

Woodchester – Friday 23 March

The Royal Oak Pub (GL5 5PO), 8.30pm

We love the Royal Oak in Woodchester – it's Andy B’s local and we always enjoy ourselves there. This gig will be in the restaurant, to book a table please phone 01453 872 735. The food has recently received excellent reviews in both the Western Daily Press and Stroud Life.

Just a quick thanks to those that came to see us at The Exmouth in Cheltenham over the weekend. Despite a noisy background, we felt very appreciated and had a great time! Look out for us back there later in the year.

Next gig:

Tewkesbury – Wednesday 14 March

Theoc House (GL20 5PY), 8.30pm

The Theoc House is a fantastic Tewkesbury pub – great beer, great food, and on the 14th March some great Parisian Swing…

March will see us return to some of our favourite Gloucestershire venues – our first is this Friday. Also look out for a special gig in April, which will be a full concert performance…

Cirencester – Friday 2 March

The Golden Cross Inn (GL7 2AA), 9pm

A welcome return for us to this atmospheric Cirencester pub – last time we ended up jamming acoustically after the gig, just because we were enjoying ourselves so much!

Cheltenham – Saturday 10 March

The Exmouth Arms (GL53 7LX), 9pm

This will be our first proper gig at the Exmouth in Cheltenham – it's a very popular venue, we played here for the Jazz Festival Fringe last year and it was great fun.

Tewkesbury – Wednesday 14 March

Theoc House (GL20 5PY), 8.30pm

The Theoc House is a fantastic Tewkesbury pub – great beer, great food, and on the 14th March some great Parisian Swing…

Woodchester – Friday 23 March

The Royal Oak Pub (GL5 5PO), 8.30pm

We love the Royal Oak in Woodchester – it's Andy's local and we always enjoy ourselves there. This gig will be in the restaurant, to book a table please phone 01453 872 735. The food has recently recieved excellent reviews in both the Western Daily Press and Stroud Life.

Special concert

Wotton Under Edge Arts, Saturday 14 April.
Buy tickets

8pm, tickets £8/£7

Hope to see you soon!
Fenner, Andy, Steve, & Andy

Back to the woodshed….

The hit list of new tunes is currently being drawn up. So far it looks like we will be looking at ‘I’ve Found a New Baby’, ‘Americano’, ‘Donna Lee’, ‘Place de Brouckere’ and Monk’s ‘round Midnight’. At some point we are going to have to make difficult decisions of what songs to drop from the set-list!

Dates for the diary…..

February is a month of entirely private engagements (weddings and private parties) for us, but you can catch us in March on the following dates:
2nd March: The Golden Cross Inn, Cirencester
10th March: The Exmouth Arms, Cheltenham
14th March: Theoc House, Tewkesbury
23rd March: The Royal Oak, Woodchester

Thanks to all of those that made it out to see us at any gigs in January. If you’ve not heard us before then to keep in touch you can join our mailing list. We tend to send out an email once a month to let people know when and where we’re playing.

If you’re a Facebook user then pop onto our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/swingfromparis

The year has got off to a good start for us and saw us play at The Chequers Inn (Cassington, Oxfordshire), The Star Anise Caf̩ (Stroud) and The Bayhsill (Cheltenham). We also managed to fit in a private engagement at Hotel du Vin for Cotswold Style magazine Рpictures to follow.

At the Star Anise Café we were grateful to be performing in a concert setting, fitting for the work we’ve put into new material over the last couple of months. It was certainly refreshing for us to play in a room with great acoustics and this meant that amplification was barely needed. The gig saw the first proper outings for ‘Spain’, ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ and ‘Festival 48’. There was also a return of ‘Softly as in a Morning Sunrise’ and rejigged versions of ‘Swing 48’ and ‘What is this thing called love?’ (with added bebop).

Although the first outing for some of the full on stuff is rather nerve-wracking, it is great to finally be playing these tunes to an audience. Thanks for coming out to this gig, we really relish these types of gigs and it was a pleasure playing to an appreciative crowd. We had a great evening and even sampled Stroud’s nightlife afterwards! It helped that the café stocks beer from Stroud Brewery, although my senses were a little confused to be drinking their Xmas ale ‘Ding Dong’ in January.

If you were wondering what we played that night here is the set-list:

Set 1

Honeysuckle Rose
Swing 48
Brazil
In a Sentimental Mood
Swing 39
What is this thing called love?/Hot House
When I was a boy
Jealousy
Nuages
Indifference
Cavalerie/Limehouse Blues
Concierto de Aranjuez/ Spain

Set 2

Softly as in a morning sunrise
Lulu Swing
Under Paris Skies
Festival 48
A night in Tunisia
Ménilmontant
BBD
Groovin’ High
T.Bolero
Tears
Minor Swing
Tiger Rag
La Foule
Encore : Belleville

The Bayshill

Live music has made a strong return to The Bayshill following its change of ownership. Although we’ve played there quite a few times, it felt like ages since we’d played there. A lively post-races crowd made for quite an atmosphere!

In the second set we were joined by local vocalist, Jo Silver. Singing ‘Bei mir bist Du schön’ and ‘Undecided’, the tunes were well received and not too shabby considering we hadn’t rehearsed them. Jo is playing at The Bayshill in April with her outfit Café Bohemia. Hopefully there will be more collaborations in the future.

Ahead of our first full quartet gigs of the year next week, we had a little practice on Tuesday night. We trialed some new exciting tunes, like Chick Corea’s Spain and Django Reinhardt’s Festival 48, and a good time was had by all. For our upcoming gigs check out the gig list.

While we there we recorded a little jam over ‘Limehouse Blues’ mixed with a bit of Django’s ‘Cavalerie’. Have a listen!