KEN MATHIESON
20 Kylepark Crescent, Uddingston, Glasgow
G71 7DQ
SCOTLAND
Tel: 0044 (0)1698 814475 Fax: 0044 (0)1698 801194
Hugely experienced drummer/arranger/bandleader who first started playing in traditional jazz bands while still at school, and was very active in the Scottish jazz scene throughout the 1960s with a number of local bands. Lived in Brazil 1970-1971, played in a night club in São Paulo, and developed an enduring love of all kinds of Brazilian music.
Following return to Scotland, worked as a freelance drummer playing all kinds of jazz, theatrical, cabaret, radio and television work. For fourteen years was resident drummer at the Black Bull Jazz Club in Milngavie, near Glasgow (which was on the circuit for top-flight touring American and British jazz musicians), and worked with a diverse range of star players such as Bud Freeman, Benny Carter, Sonny Stitt, Art Farmer, Al Cohn, Sweets Edison, Ruby Braff etc.
Following closure of the Black Bull Jazz Club, ran the first Glasgow International Jazz Festival (now in its eleventh year) featuring Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, MJQ, Chick Corea, Gary Burton and numerous others, but decided all the fun in the music business is in playing. Subsequently toured extensively in Europe and North America with Edinburgh-based Fat Sam’s Band for which he wrote and arranged a substantial part of the repertoire. In addition, formed, arranged for and led 3 bands of his own: Picante, a quintet playing a mixture of bebop and Brazilian music, Jazz Ecosse All-Stars, a fine Dixieland band featuring singer Fionna Duncan, and The Celebrities of Jazz, a septet specialising in the small-group music of Buck Clayton and Buddy Tate. These bands continue to play all the major Scottish jazz venues and festivals.
In recent years researched and presented a long-running programme of popular music from all over the world for BBC Radio Scotland, and is about to start work on a biography of legendary 1940s drummer Big Sid Catlett.
Favourite drummers include Catlett, Jake Hanna, Philly Joe Jones, Max Roach, Louis Hayes and Billy Higgins, while favourite arrangers include Benny Carter, Neal Hefti, Duke Ellington, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Gil Evans.