L-R Mark King, Mike Lindup, Dominic Miller and Ian Thomas
Taken at the studio in London

www.dominicmiller.com

The Prodigal Son makes yet another promise to keep you all informed more regularly….

I am now officially a North Londoner. Sam and I moved up from our rental flat in Putney 5 weeks ago to Hampstead Garden Suburb, which is a bit like Wimbledon, but feels different -different community, different air. I am in the process of getting my bearings which have been hard-wired to SW London for the last 48 years! My north London friends old and new are sure that I have made the right move (including Mr C. Hobson and Mr B. Cullem), whilst my south London ones have accused me of various things including being a traitor (Mr A. Lafone) and leaving the “homestead” (Mr J. Joseph). All in jest of course…meanwhile Sam is very happy to be here, and I believe that uprooting will be beneficial creatively.

I am already benefitting from the fruits of recording 5 tracks towards the new song album: I spent 2 very inspiring and productive days in a great new studio called Cream in West London with Phil Gould (drms), Miles Bould (drms&perc), Yolanda Charles (bass), Dominic Miller (gtrs,) with Mike Westergaard engineering, laying down backing tracks the old-fashioned way, and it was reeeeaallly great.My co-producer, Kipper (of Sting fame) has told me he hears my pre-Level 42 influences in the songs, i.e. soul music influences (Mr. A. Green, Mr J. Brown, and Mr S.Wonder to name three). It’s not all old sounding though, as you will eventually hear when I post up some excerpts. The songs sound great, i am really happy to be recording again. My intention is to get these 5 as-finished by the end of this month (July) and to “go get a deal” as they used to say.

I have recently finished mixing (also with Mike W.) a CD of devotional Sanskrit Songs or Bhajans, entitled Sai Satyam, which I co-wrote with Gustav and Sabeenamayi Tilmann, and recorded mainly at the Ashram of Sri Sai Kaleshwar in Penukonda in South India. The three of us are spiritual students of Swami Kaleshwar (I have been so for the past two-and-a-half years), and it was a great experience to take my MacBook and bits to Penukonda, where we found space to be inspired and also to overcome the challenges of power surges and cuts. The end result is really a beautiful CD, and I will let you know how and where to buy it when I get that information.

I got to play at Ronnie Scott’s last monday evening, courtesy of a phone call from Mark King, who had been asked to present an award to bassist Charlie Haden, as part of Radio’s 2 & 3 Jazz Awards, which took place at the Mermaid Theatre in London. Mark did a great job, and what was marvellous was that everyone who got an award then played a tune, which ranged from upcoming young singers and musicians such as Christine Tobin, Tom Cawley’s Curios, Tony Kofi and Kit Downes from Empirical, through to established artists such as Tommy Smith, and 3 special awards – Lifetime Acheivement went to Return to Forever, and it was very special to hear them play as they are musical heroes of mine and the rest of Level 42, and probably everyone else in the room! The late Humphrey Lyttleton was honoured with an award for artist of the year, and Sir John and Dame Cleo received a gold award, and did a short set that included the old “Tomorrows World” theme. I feel a particular connection with them as my father David worked as co-arranger with John and Cleo, and he and my mother, Nadia, invited Cleo to become my godmother. Another delight was ta surprise collaboration on stage of Jamie Cullem, Kyle Eastwood and Jeff Beck! Magic! After the ceremony was over, there was FOOD!, and I got to chat and hang with the great and good of the jazz fraternity, and then the party moved to Ronnies for drinks upstairs, and a jam session downstairs, where I jumped in with Nigel Kennedy, Julian Joseph, Cleveland Watkiss and other brilliant players. I now need to go to my woodshed for a bit….

Finally, the concerts with 42 are going very well, we did a nice one at the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart the other day. We have a couple more festival gigs in August and Sept before rehearsals start for the tour proper which starts the UK in October, which I’m really looking forward to: I’m thinking of getting my MiniMoog out of retirement (it had it’s first public “airing” in 25 years at the show in the Hague with Billy Cobham last May, and was a hit with band and crew). Did I mention that gig? It was amazing to be playing with the original master, and we hope to do some more shows together next year. There will be a “mini tour’ in Germany with the Dominic Miller Band (myself, Rhani, Nicolas and Dom) in beginning of November including a show at the JazzFest in Leverkusen, which is going to be filmed for a live DVD-about time too as the chemistry and interplay is wonderful in that band.

Phil Gould’s album is now finished, and it sounds great, I call it a gradual masterpiece, see if you agree or not when it comes out – he has started to look for ways of getting it released. I hope to do some live playing with him before too long, and I will definitely be putting a cooking band together to play my stuff live.

that’s all for now…

Best Wishes to you all, Mike Lindup

Just finished doing 3 shows with Level 42 in Denmark, which went very well, preceded by 2 shows in London and Manchester with Reel People (see Upcoming Dates for more details plus a link to their MySpace site). For me their music has echoes of Shalimar, Benson, Wonder, plus that Black British Soul thang, some good old Jazz-Funk and a bit of Steely Dan thrown in too. It has been a particular delight to work with some great Singers, proper voices that you can’t keep still listening to, and a bit of a Da Lata reunion with Oli Savill (percussion) and Tristan Banks (drums). We just recorded a session for 1 Xtra (BBC radio 1) which should be broadcast soon.

On the Zeep front, I will be going into the studio with Chris, Nina and the band this month (feb) to record 3 new tracks, a couple of which we played live on the tour we did last November with Vieux Farka Toure.

2008 is set to be my busiest year as a musician for a loooonnng time, not only am I doing some european dates with Level 42, plus a full UK tour in October (and at this point I should make special mention of a show we are doing as part of The Hague Jazz Festival on 24th May, in Gary Husband’s absence we have a very special guest on drums -Billy Cobham! I am very excited and looking forward to that).

I will be doing various things with Dominic (Miller) this year -recording wise there is an EP to finish, and he has been asked to produce a CD by Avitall, a Jewish Cantor based in Berlin, which I am part of (we already recorded some classical and traditional songs in January. Avitall is playing a concert with the Dominic Miller Band (myself included) this thursday, 21st February 2008 at the Synagogue Rykestrasse, Berlin. There are also some dates with his 4 piece band (Dom, me, Nicolas and Rhani) in the UK and Germany.

I am making good progress now on the song album now, it is sounding like a mixture of McCartney meets Stevie meets Vaughan Williams. I am meeting and working with some fantastic musicians that I hope will be inspirational companions on this epic journey! When I have something to share I will give you a taste.

I am awaiting final confirmation of a 2-3 month tour with Otto Sauter and his “Ten of the Best” project. Dominic, Rhani and I recorded several arrangements for a new CD last August, and Otto has planned a tour that will involve large concert venues in France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Spain and Portugal, between May and September. Again, once i receive confirmation i shall post up the dates.

In the meantime, take care and try not to get too upset by all the “Bad News” that we get fed every day from our various media-it’s not the whole story!(This is one of the themes to my song album)

Mike

As we approach the end of another year, a lot has happened that I need to let you know about. had a great time playing festival dates with Level 42 in Indonesia (Jakarta Jazz Festival in March plus a mini tour in June), also in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Germany and ending with a wonderful show at Arundel. It was fantastic as always to be on stage with Mark, Gary, Nathan and Sean, who recently celebrated the birth of his first child, Kyla. it was great playing some of the older tunes such as “Eyes Waterfalling” along with “It’s Over” and “The Sunbed Song” at Arundel, and as soon as Mark has finished his building work at home, I’m hoping to collaborate with hiom in his studio to re-record songs from the Level 42 catalogue, in acoustic arrangements, inspired by doing quite a few live radio renditions with Mark and Nathan on acoustic guitars and myself (and sometimes Gary) on piano.

I was recently in France to visit and work with Dominic, he has rented a place out there with his family in Provence, and has a wonderful farmhouse which is his studio. We (Dom, Nicolas Fiszman and I, being members of the Dominic Miller Band) started work on an EP where we each brought a composition along (Rhani Krija wasn’t free but will add his parts soon if he hasn’t already done so), the whole idea being that we have new material to play live, and something that is our own to record and perform compositionally. we did some fantastic shows this year, as a duo (Dom and I) at the Wartburg Festival in Eisenach, Germany, playing in a historic long hall previously used by Liszt and Wagner (no pressure, then!). This festival was organised by trumpet player Otto Sauter, whom Dom, Rhani and I recorded a session in August near Cologne for a project called “Ten of the Best”. We also did some shows as a 3 and 4 piece, including a very special one in Muenster in September, where some beautiful pictures were taken by Zigi and Kirsten.

I also had a fantastic opportunity to play a gig with one of my all-time heroes, Billy Cobham. I was invited by Italian Fusion group/production team Novecento to join them on stage with billy, as part of a series of concerts to promote his Drum ‘n Voice albums they made together. I had written and performed a vocal on the second album, Drum ‘n Voice 2 Due, called “One More Day to Live”, and it was fantastic to be onstage with Billy and the band, in the very south of Italy in Catanzaro, singing this song, as well as covering some of the others from the first album including Gregg Kofi Brown’s “Shadow”, and playing synth on his now classic compositions “Stratus” and “Red Baron”.

I have also very much enjoyed being in the studio with Phil Gould, and have ended up doing vocals on several songs on his what I call masterwork, an album that has taken a long time to produce (although there’s me as kettle calling him a black pot!). Some of you may already have heard “Innocent Abroad” floating around on MySpace. The tunes are really amazing, and I pray that he will find someone with zest and integrity to help him release it to the world when it is finally finished.

As I type this I am about to begin a 2 week tour of the UK with Zeep, the latest project from Chris Franck and Nina Miranda (previous projects are Smoke City and Da Lata). We are playing concerts in a bill (titled “Heatwave”) with Vieux Farka Toure, from Mali, (son of the late Ali Farka Toure). It’s a cracking line up, and Zeep (Mike Mondesir, bass, and Davide Giovannini, drums along with Chris and Nina) are sounding sharp and ready to go -plus we are to all be on stage for some kind of jam with Vieux and his band at the end. The tour kicks off on thurs 15th Nov in Bristol and ends on the 25th in Glasgow. During (19th Nov in Birkenhead) and following the tour (28th Cologne, STOP PRESS 2 shows in Mumbai CANCELLED due to venue being unfinished) I am with the Dominic Miller Band, click HERE for a list of all upcoming dates.

When I get back we are moving house to NW London, which is a first for me, I’m going to have to find some thick-rimmed glasses and a trendy jumper!

Best Wishes,

Mike

Exciting news, I have just moved into a new studio space, for writing/recording. It’s in NW London, which is where we (Sam, Angelo and I) hope to be moving. It’s the first time I’ve had a workplace not in the house, so I will be trialling it for the next 3 months. Roll on the song album.

I had a meeting with Nitin Sawhney a few days ago, having bumped into him at The Sage, Gateshead during last year’s Level 42 tour. We hope to be working together on something creative, which I am very excited about, as he is a very talented and busy man.

I went to Ronnie Scotts (newly revamped) last night, to see a phenomenon by the name of Eldar. He is an outstanding jazz/not just jazz pianist, and was in concert with 2 young guns on bass and drums. I first saw him playing with Harvey Mason and Ron Carter at the Java Jazz festival in Jakarta last march, and next day had lunch next to him, so we chatted about music, life, London, exchange rates etc. I am really looking forward to watching him grow as a musician-please if you get a chance, check him out live (he has a MySpace profile).

There are some interesting live dates coming up with Level 42 (in UK, Denmark, Sweden and Belgium), as well as with Dominic Miller, though these are yet to be confirmed – I won’t post any dates until they are definite.

Best Wishes,

Mike

As i sit here I realise the many blessings that are in my life or coming my way. I have 2 cats that love me (one of which insists on sitting between me and the keyboard), a beautiful wife who puts up with all my lesser qualities, a gorgeous son who is a free spirit and a wonderful companion already at just 2 years of age. I have some wonderful friends, some of whom are musicians, that I have been working with and will be again soon, specifically:

Mark King – having invited me to come onstage at the Forum last year february, then a second invitation came to participate on the recording of Retroglide last year summer, then he asked if I would like to do the tour coming up this autumn, and finally some festivals this summer, which have been a great way for me to get “back in the saddle again”.

The first one in Esbjerg, Denmark was special, as it was the first one, plus Sam and Angelo came and joined my brother in law and his wife, and I had the experience of playing onstage with Mark, Gary, Nathan and Sean, whilst waving to Sam and Angelo during The Sun Goes Down, with a beautiful audience, then hanging out backstage with Tony Hadley, Kim Wilde and their bands-ok, it was an eighties day at the festival, but it was wonderful chatting with and catching up on what we’d all been doing since then.

We have 2 more dates before the autumn (Kazakhstan on the 9th Sept, Sofia, Bulgaria on the 18th Sept), and then it’s rehearsals last week of sept for the tour which kicks off in Dublin on the 4th October, goes all over the UK and then Germany Holland Belgium Austria Switzerland Luxembourg. I will put the dates up on the site in the next week, and will also be updating the photo gallery and make it possible for me to upload pictures audio and video, plus change the text from grey to black for those (like me) who may have some difficulty discerning certain words.

Phil Gould – i went down Dorset way to see Phil a couple of days ago to carry on the work on his album (as yet untitiled) which he hopes to have finished recording by September, he’s got some great music on the go.

Dominic Miller-have done a couple of shows with Dom, the last one was a midnight after Sting show at a open-air Danube-side club in Budapest.

Lovely audience, some of whom had seen the Sting show in it’s new stripped back to basics form, and were obviously Dom fans, plus there were a few L42 fans as well. The next shows are a festival in Pantelleria (an Italian island off the Tunisian coast) on the 20th August, then 3 german shows on 20,21st & 23rd September in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Hamburg, all in support of his latest solo album out in Sept entitled “Fourth Wall”, which I feature on as guest Prophet 5 player and wordless vocalist.

Da Lata – have played at a festival in Slovakia, plus Jazz Cafe and Womad. The next show is at a new-ish Brazilian Club in London called Favela Chic on 14th Sept (a sister to the one in Paris we played at about 4 years ago). They are in the process of writing their next album, and I hope to be contributing to that in the next couple of months, which leaves..

Mike Lindup’s next album. This has taken a back seat while I have been doing all the other stuff (including writing and singing a vocal on the next Billy Cobham album), but I intend to demo up 3 to 4 songs before the tour, and I may post excerpts up on the site, which will no longer say last updated 8th Feb, I promise!

Best Wishes,

Mike