If you are a bandleader, a music teacher,
run a jazz band workshop or lead a music
ensemble – why not consider playing the
music of Billy Jenkins?
As
performed by the Arthur Lea Trio, Pigfoot,
the Nathaniel Facey Quartet, Royal Academy
of Music Jazz Ensembles, International
Berlin Summeracademy Freie Kunstschule,
Middlesex University Big Band, The Creative Jazz Orchestra, Greenwich
& Lewisham Youth Jazz Orchestra, The
BBC Big Band and others…
Hear trumpet player, bandleader & teacher Chris Batchelor discussing playing Billy Music on Episode 6/Series 4 of the Billy Jenkins Listening Club.
Why?
It’s
joyous, easy to play, thought provoking,
foot tapping music for all ages to enjoy!
Encourages improvisation!
And you can make it as complicated as you
wish….!
The music is suitable for solo up to 8 to 12
musicians. Playable by all abilities!
How?
By
contacting the Billy Office. We will send
you copies of the original hand written
charts in concert, Bb or Eb (depending on
the composition), or copies of lyrics should
you wish to sing a blues or two…..
The
Billy Office will be on hand via email or
telephone to offer support and to ensure
everything is running and sounding as you
hoped…..
The
composer himself will not be able to
attend any rehearsals or performances.
Does
it cost?
No,
it doesn’t have to. Billy is happy to share
the joy.
But if you perform it in public you will
hopefully submit a PRS Live Performance
form.
However, if you are not financially
challenged or there is a profit from a
performance,
the composer will always happily accept a
voluntary donation…..
I’m interested – what do I do?
Make
an initial approach to the Billy
Office by manually typing
Just some of Billy’s instrumental music
titles….
An Empty River ● Arrival of the
Tourists ● Barcelona ● Benidorm Motorway
Services ● Bhopal ● Big Fights! ●
Bilbao/St. Columbus Day ● Black Magic ●
Blue Broadway ● Brilliant ●Charles Manson
● Commerciality ● Commuting ●Cooking Oil ●
Council Offices ● Country and Western ●
Cuttlefish ● Dancing In Ornette Coleman’s
Head ● Deptford Market ● Discoboats At 2
o’Clock ● Donkey Droppings ● Doris Day ●
Dreadnought Seaman’s Hospital ● Dressing
Up For Church ● Exodus From Bromley ●
Expensive Equipment ● Fat People ● Get The
Poison Out ● Girl Getting Knocked Over ●
Greenwich One Way System ● Growing Up In
Bromley ● Heavy Metal ● High Street/Part
Pedestrianised ● High
Street/Saturday ● Johnny Cash ● Land Of
The Free ● McDonalds ● Monkey Men ●
Motorway At Night ● Oliver North ● Parking
Meters ● Pharoah Sanders ● Rock and
Roll ● Ronald Reagan ● Rope ●
Sade's Lips ● The Blues ● The Drum Machine Plays
The Battlemarch Of Consumerism (Music For
Six Drumkits) ● The Perfect Lawn ●
The Rust On The Screws Of The Churchill
Theatre ● They Built A Ring Road In
My Garden ●
Just some of Billy’s vocal blues titles….
Ain't Gonna Sing And Play No Jazz No
More ● Badlands ● Blues Is Calling Me ●
Cliff Richard Spoke To Me ● Come Round And
See Me ● Down In The Deep Freeze ● Every
Night You Turn Away ● Everything’s Too
Fast ●First Day In Hell ● First Time The
Earth Shook ● Get The Poison Out
● Gonna Throw Them Blues In The Recycling
Bin ● Goodbye Blues ● I Ain’t Going Yet ●
I Am A Man From Lewisham ● I Don't Want
Another Night Like That ● I Felt So Guilty
●I Hate Dogs ● I Like Rain
● I Love Your Smell ● I’m Happy ● I’m On A
Island ● I’m Staying In The Car ● I’m
Stuck On You ● I Took A Walk ● I Want My
Tea ● Jazz Had A Baby (and they called it
avant garde) ● Like John Lee Said
● Looking For Mr Happy ● My Waters Run
Clear ● Pissed Off Boy ● Pointless
Adornments ● Resting On My Bed Of
Blues ● sadtimes.co.uk ● The Duke And Me
●The Tide Is Out ● This Is A Day To Forget
● This Room ● When Money’s Really Tight ●
When The Parents Come To Stay ● Where Did
I Stay Last Night? ● White Van Man
Many of these tunes can be heard online via Billy's own bandcamp,
Spotify, YouTube or other popular digital
music sources.
Much can be found online by simply googling
Billy Jenkins....
~
'Billy Jenkins's music sounds better the more you listen to it. His garrulous,
assiduously planned arrangements
are an inspiring assault on snobbery and mystification.
His musicians (and he
has managed to collect some of the best) have no choice but to play
more
attentively, more spikely - better.'
Ben Watson / The Wire
American readers will
be baffled by him; but he is, along with the Princess Royal and Walthamstow
dog
stadium, one of our national treasures.'
Penguin
Guide To Jazz On CD (5th Ed)
'Billy Jenkins has the
priceless ability to merge serious music-making with absolute lunacy, and make
the one feed off the creative energy of the other'.
Kenny Mathieson The
Scotsman
"Jenkins as tone poet. The aural
imagery is magnificent. All questions about the guitarist's seriousness (in the
sense of viability) as a musician are settled by 'Greenwich,' which remains one
of the most distinctive British jazz albums of the 1980’s. * * * *
The
Penguin Guide to Jazz on Record. (2nd
Ed)
'There is
a kind of genius on our doorstep. Don't let him die in
poverty.'
Stewart Lee / Q Magazine
