Ambulance featuring Eddie Henderson
AMBULANCE:
Arnie Somogyi’s amazing new band, Ambulance, combines the inventive approach of one of the UK’s leading bass players with the exciting and innovative talents of three of Britain’s acclaimed, up-and-coming young jazz musicians - prodigious saxophonist Paul Booth, evocative pianist Tim Lapthorn and eclectic drummer Dave Smith.
Self-styled ‘specialists in musical accident and insurgency’, this highly creative new band first caused a stir at its launch in November 2004 at Ronnie Scott’s Club in Soho, later returning there to similar acclaim in July 2005 opposite American vocalist Diane Schuur, and catching the eye of The Guardian’s John Fordham.
In 2006 the band was awarded the first-ever jazz residency at the prestigious Snape Maltings venue and music centre in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Joined during the two-week residency by sax player and sound artist Rob Townsend, and inspired by beautiful countryside, fresh fish and appropriate amounts of alcohol, the band created a whole new repertoire of original, inventive material incorporating samples of the infamous Aldeburgh Scallop sculpture on the beach, and the living legend of Captain Courageous.
EDDIE HENDERSON:
Eddie Henderson was one of the few trumpeters who was strongly influenced by Miles Davis' work of his early fusion period. He grew up in San Francisco, studied trumpet at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, but was trained to be a doctor when he permanently chose music. Henderson worked with John Handy, Tyrone Washington, and Joe Henderson, in addition to his own group. He gained some recognition for his work with the Herbie Hancock Sextet (19701973), although his own records (which utilized electronics) tended to be commercial. After Hancock broke up his group, Henderson worked with Art Blakey and Mike Nock, recorded with Charles Earland, and later, in the 1970s, led a rockoriented group. In the '90s, he returned to playing acoustic hard bop (touring with Billy Harper in 1991) while also working as a psychiatrist.