You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but Birmingham jazz saxophonist Andy Hamilton celebrated his 92nd birthday today – and he did it with a lunchtime performance at the Drum in Aston. Free entry, and with Caribbean food.
And he’ll be there next week too. He’s there every week. It’s just that this week happened to be his birthday, so I thought I’d go along and hear him play.
He’s very good, of course – but to be fair, he has been practising for quite a long time.
I'm the Director of MTF Labs, a Senior Researcher at the Industry Commons Foundation, advisor to ArtEO and founder of New Music Strategies.
I'm an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I'm also an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker, a public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I am closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them, and my projects typically focus on issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
Most of my work involves surrounding myself with incredibly smart and talented people who would have no other reason to ever be in the same room as each other. That's when amazing things happen.
I tend to talk a lot about music (often jazz-adjacent and particularly on vinyl, but also playlists and mixtapes). I'm enthusiastic about food and cooking, the intersection of art and science, new technologies, vintage technologies, education, social progress, silence, innovation, narrative, data commons, culture, sound art and the spoken word. This blog will continue to reflect those diverse and shifting enthusiasms. I may also digress.
I'm from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have Scottish ancestry, I've spent a decade in the south of Birmingham UK, and another in a forest in the north of Sweden.
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By a strange coincidence I was asked to video a couple of songs performed by Tim Amann yesterday and he has also played with Andy Hamilton, as has Tim’s 10-ish year old son so Andy sounds like a much-loved institution on the Birmingham jazz scene.