Alasdair Pennington photo: Olivia Da Costa
Drummer and composer Alasdair Pennington, who hails from Oldham now based in London, gets us up to speed with word on his upcoming debut, This Is.
Growing up, I was often around music.
My parents are both music fans and I was brought up with an eclectic mix of records playing in the house: any combination of Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Wayne Shorter, Crosby Stills & Nash, Carole King and Haydn, to name a few.
My mum’s family has a musical lineage, largely through their connection to church. My grandmother played piano in services and she, my mum and aunty would gather around the piano at family events to sing through hymns and carols.
Classic rock listener at an early age
As far as picking up an instrument myself, I had some lessons on piano, acoustic guitar and violin in school but by age 9 or 10 I was listening to a lot of classic rock like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones, so really, I wanted to play something from that sound world. I’m forever grateful to my parents for being bold enough to allow a 12 year old to have a drum kit in the house.
Formative influence
One of my early drum teachers was a great musician by the name of Joe Montague. He was a formative musical figure for me.
Having studied on the jazz course at Leeds College of Music, he had a certain ‘jazz sensibility’ to everything he played, even just a basic pop beat.
I hadn’t really come across that at that time and, as a young teenager, thought it was the coolest thing. Joe introduced me to some seminal jazz recordings and really showed me the fundamentals of swing and bebop drumming.
As I developed, he would let me sit in for the occasional tune on gigs he was playing in town and through those encounters, I met jazz musicians to play with and soon after started going to local jam sessions.
As it turns out, I went on to enrol in the very same jazz programme at Leeds College of Music.
I spent 3 years living and studying in Leeds and it was there that I had the opportunity to hone my skills as a drummer and immerse myself in the work of many great Black American practitioners of the music.
1-1 tuition
I received 1-1 tuition from Tim Giles, Dave Walsh and Dave Hamblett as well as having some valuable lessons with Seb De Krom, Mark Sanders and Asaf Sirkis.
Some of my fondest memories of playing music were made in Leeds and I was fortunate to meet and be around some incredible musicians.
Proud of Platimo
A project from that time I am very proud to have been a part of was a band called Platimo with my friends and collaborators, Norwegian nylon-guitarist Ben Hidas and Nottingham pianist Felix Bertulis-Webb.
We were put together in a college ensemble in our second year and developed a unique, cohesive sound pretty quickly. By our third year, we had a set of music which we recorded into an album over a few days at Valley Wood Studio in North Leeds.
The finished product is a blend of contemporary, cinematic jazz with textures of handpan and synthesisers.
It features some beautiful writing from Ben and Felix, who co-wrote the album, and to me, is a great example of what can happen when people from different cultures and backgrounds with a range of influences come together to create something as a collective.
'Time To' from the album is streaming
Recording my debut album
A couple of years after moving to London I recorded my debut album in the summer of 2022. I put together a group of stellar musicians who I admired and was also familiar playing with.
Altoist Donovan Haffner on Alasdair's debut here in the video leading his own group
That group was alto saxophonist Donovan Haffner and pianist Alex Wilson, who I knew from the Royal Academy of Music, where I was studying for my Master’s at the time; double bassist Isaac Burland who I had recently played with as part of another project and tenor saxophonist Matt Anderson, who was on the faculty whilst I was studying at Leeds.
Before heading into the studio, we had a run of gigs together playing my music around London and everything came together very smoothly and effortlessly in that time.
Matt, Donovan, Alex and Isaac are all such talented and accomplished players in their own rights; they really helped to shape and bring my compositions to life in a beautiful, organic way and I think the album captures that.
We recorded all the music on a beautiful summer’s day at Buffalo Recording Studio in East London.
This Is will be released by Hidden Threads Records on 4 October.
Commentaires