Nik Payton

Even so, Gunhild’s style of jazz is not common here so, to be honest, although I knew they would do a great job I didn’t know how great. … I would also like to say that it was a great feeling seeing the audience really enjoying the combination of artists that Leo and I had put together A brief word on Mingus.

Are you a musician who is not yet using Twitter? Have you been putting it off because it seems a bit dumb - why would you want to read about, or tell other people about everything that goes on in your life? If you are then read on!

As with a lot of people I was [...]

Day 12 - Recife
I suppose it’s fitting that the last day off the tour should be the biggest balls up. We were all told to be ready for an 11 a.m. pick-up for the airport. Our flight was at 1.15 and we had a TV broadcast to do before the gig (actually they booked it [...]

Day 10 - Belo Horizonte (again)
I didn’t think there was enough traveling going on during this tour, so I decided to go home in between gigs! Actually, it was my wedding anniversary, so I popped home on the day off. It’s actually between Rio and Aracaju, so it kind of made sense. I needed an [...]

I was almost lulled into a false sense of tranquility with a few days in Sao Paulo. NOW the tour has started! The past few days have been, as was expected, somewhat chaotic. My promise of writing a post everyday after the gig was foolishly hopeful. Of course, when we’re really on the road, then [...]

First of all, let me apologise for the lack of posts and newsletters. After my trip to New York I came down with pneumonia which knocked me out a bit - in fact I’m still getting over it almost 3 months later. Anyway, that’s no excuse. In fact, you might ask, if I wasn’t doing [...]

I’ve lived in Brazil now for 5 years. When I came here I spoke virtually no Portuguese whatsoever. Hello, please and thank you was about it. Obviously to make my self understood I had to learn, very quickly. After a year or so I could hold a conversation quite well and although my vocabulary wasn’t [...]

I’m taking a break from catching up on emails and I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you a bit about the band and the musicians therein because there are some names that you may not be familiar with. … That the band is going to be good, and put on a superb show goes with out saying - it is made up of THE best swing musicians in the world and led by the worlds leading stride pianist, Judy Carmichael .

I’ve had a few emails from musicians who didn’t really know much about the tools and ideas I talked about in my last newsletter. I thought I was well behind in this new movement but it seems there are many musicians, especially in the jazz world, who aren’t sure what is going on. I’m going [...]