TRUMPETER Chris Hodgkins will be performing at The Angel in Grosmont and the Queen's Head in Monmouth next month to launch his new album with pianist Dave Price, Back in your own Backyard.

In September last year Chris Hodgins returned to Wales to record the album of originals, standards and one or two tunes from the archives. For the past seven years Chris, on his visits to Wales, has worked with Dave Price on piano and Erika Lyons or Ashly John Long on bass who all joined him on the album.

Aside from two originals and the poignant Black Butterfly, the repertoire suggests a formulaic mainstream set that one might hear at a jazz party. But that narrow assumption vanishes once the music begins, for Chris, Dave, Erika, and Ashley offer serene yet searching chamber jazz, refreshing improvisations on familiar songs.

"The players have created an airy, open music, full of pleasant wanderings but solidly grounded in melody and beating-heart rhythms.

One of the most moving performances here is A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, an etude for piano and two double-basses, both celebration and elegy for wartime Britain, with death, romance, and endurance intermingled.

Together, they make Back In Your Own Backyard what jazz recordings should be, no matter what genre: warm, wide-awake, deeply personal”, said Michael Steinman on Jazz Lives at jazzlives.wordpress.com

Chris recently retired after 29 years as the Director of Jazz Services, the national support charity for jazz music and musicians. During his time at the organisation, he was honoured for his services to Jjzz at the 2002 BBC Jazz Awards and in July 2013 at the British Jazz Awards.

Chris Hodgkins will be at The Angel in Grosmont (01981 240646) on Tuesday, April 14 at 8pm and at the Queen's Head in Monmouth (01600 440739) on Wednesday, April 15 at 8pm.