Digital Pianos - Yamaha P95

This week i was fortunate enough to be able to buy a new digital piano for gigs. I chose the Yamaha P95 having regularly performed with a friend of mine who has the P85. This is a great piano, ok not the most expensive in the world, but for the price has a great action and very good quality piano sound. Furthermore it's light! Very useful if you travel alot. Only 12kg compared to more than 30 of my S90 with the flight case.

For help choosing a new digital piano i found these resources very good:

http://www.pianoworld.com/

http://www.ukpianos.co.uk/

http://www.yamahamusician.com/

I should add the S90 is a wonderful piano too, and for a keyboard synth has a beautiful piano action and sound to match the best.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/articles/yamahas90.htm

New Blog

Considering that i would like to keep Saxindia relatively free from posting of my own material since it is dedicated to more educational postings, I have created http://mattlittlewood.blogspot.com/in order to promote some of my work. Do check it out in a few days when i have had time to put it together.

Please feel free to mail me with any comments or suggestions at matt-jazz@hotmail.com

Little Waltz

This is one of may favourite early compositions, and one we continue to play quite regularly. This was recorded live in 2008 on January 1st. This was a special gig for me as the band came together at the last minute (Patrick didn't even know he was playing till just before) and the playing was so fresh and together.

http://www.toofiles.com/en/oip/audios/wma/littlewaltzlive2008.html

Just click on the file to play or download it. You may need as i did to have the latest update of Firefox for this to work.

Matt Littlewood - Tenor Sax
Patrick Goraguer - Piano
Mishko. M'Ba - Bass
Suresh Bascara - Drums

Stella by Starlight

Several people have been asking me to be able to listen to my music on my blog so from time to time i will post some material. Here is a little home recording i did sometime back of Stella by Starlight. I play both Soprano Sax and piano. Originally this was left on my hard drive untouched for some months but when i came back to listen to it i liked it very much. The photo is taken outside the practise studio in Auroville where this was recorded. Please feel free to give any feedback - in fact it would be much appreciated.

Toto, Bona & Kanza 2008 - Lisanga

Richard Bona has been one of my favourite musicians for a while now but somehow I had never checked out this group with Gerald Toto and Lokua Kanza. On top of it a friend of ours, drummer/pianist Patrick Goraguer is also in the group playing keyboards and Percussion!

Have a look at this video from 2008. Its a beautiful song with a melody that you could listen to for hours. The way they are on stage and the pure enjoyment they show is also a wonder to watch.

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=6r7EjKg_giY

The Agenda - Live in Bangalore - B Flat Bar

Well, for so long Ive had little to post in terms of videos and recordings and now suddenly several have turned up all at once. Here is our band "The Agenda" featuring Sunitha Sarathy - Vocals, Matt Littlewood - Piano, Mishko M'ba - Bass, and Rahul Gopal - Drums. This was recorded at the superb B flat Bar in Bangalore in June of this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtq1WGIzMwM