Jazz breaking news: Acoustic Ladyland Go Out With A Bang At The Vortex
Monday, September 13, 2010
Acoustic Ladyland is to disband, the group’s saxophonist and leader Pete Wareham has announced.
“Acoustic Ladyland as we know it will be no more,” he says, but the band will go out with a bang. “To mark this occasion we will be playing four nights at the Vortex in December.”
What comes next is a new band whose line-up is still to be revealed but who are already slated to record for the Leeds-based Leaf Records, the label which released the well received Peepers by sister band Polar Bear earlier this year.
The four Vortex shows confirmed for 8-11 December will feature music on each night at the Dalston club from the band’s four albums. First off on 8 Dec is Skinny Grin from 2006, followed on the 9th by Camouflage from two years earlier, then Last Chance Disco, the Jazzwise album of the year in 2005 on the 10th, and finally Living With A Tiger which came out in 2009 when the band last featured on the cover of Jazzwise.
Original band members Tom Herbert now with The Invisible, and Tom Cawley of Curios and the Peter Gabriel band will join Wareham for some of the gigs as will as vocalist Alice Grant and others including the current line-up. The residency should attract a large turn-out from the band’s substantial fan base. Ladyland, with Wareham joined by drummer Seb Rochford, electric bassist Ruth Goller and guitarist Chris Sharkey, will tour before the December gigs at confirmed dates so far planned for Bristol on 12 November and Brighton on 29 November. Wareham says the Ladyland will be “playing old material for the last time and new material for the first time and selling lots of old and rare merchandise which has been living in my attic!” Then it’s straight into the studio early next year for the Leaf sessions and the beginning of a new phase for the influential Wareham.
– Stephen Graham