Elio Pace's Christmas single What A Day was played throughout the Festive Season on various radio stations, including Wake Up To Wogan where it was also chosen to be the opening song for the Christmas Day show.

The dates on tour with Tony Hadley were a real pleasure, both musically and socially as some good friends of mine were in the band. Whilst on the subject of big bands, it was very reassuring to find an audience of 1,700 at the Sage Theatre in Gateshead for the final Back To Basie gig of the year. The Sage is a truly world-class concert hall and it was great to work with such a dynamically-aware band in such an acoustically splendid environment.

The first few weeks of the New Year look like they'll be reasonably quiet gig-wise, but as writing has been somewhat neglected of late (sorry Paul) I still have plenty of work with which to occupy myself!

There is a gig of note on Tuesday 16th January when I'm featured with the Johnny Johnstone Quintet at The Bell Inn, Nottingham.

Andy Daniels has been busy finishing the charts for his new sextet and the first rehearsal is scheduled for 18th January. I'm really looking forward to playing his music with the fantastic band that we're assembling. More details will follow in due course.