Back to work.. rehearsals, gigs, photoshoot

I'm glad to now be back in London following a couple of months recovering from surgery. I got back a few days ago and have so far been doing rehearsals and even some sound engineering to get the ball rolling. A couple of days ago my 1920s band, the Swinging Magpies, had a really fun photoshoot in Camden where we got all dolled up in our vintage clothes. We also have a function gig this weekend to look forward to. Today I've got two rehearsals, one with Cygnus Flare ahead of a jazz gig next week at the Yamaha London HQ music store. Then tonight I'm rehearsing on timpani with the Amati Orchestra - we're working on Holst's the Planets for a concert in March.

Tomorrow I'm rehearsing with the MO Jazz Orchestra ahead of our gig this coming Sunday at the Vortex jazz club. I was working as a sound engineering assistant at the Vortex over the weekend and was lucky to catch two really good gigs - Huw Warren's quartet on Friday night and Chris Laurence's quartet on Saturday. On Thursday I'm looking forward to playing with a new jazz fusion quintet that I met before Christmas, although I'm not sure what the band is called yet. I'm still a little delicate after the surgery so am trying to not take on too much, but am really happy to be back in London and back to playing drums.