These are videos that I like: The Aviators’ Ball and family

 

One of my very favorite albums of 2015 was The Aviators’ Ball by bassist Matt Owens.  Despite a busy listening schedule, it still gets played pretty frequently.  I noticed that he recently uploaded a performance of the album’s compositions to his YouTube page.  That led to a couple related videos, and, ultimately, to today’s post.

The first video is a performance of the album’s title-track.  It went down at The Bridgewater Hall Foyer as part of the Little Bite Concert series.

You can check out more of the performance on Owens’ YouTube page.

And you can read more about The Aviators’ Ball on Bird is the Worm (go read it).

Putting in a guest vocal on The Aviators’ Ball is Ríoghnach Connolly, whose rendition of “Black is the Colour” is one of the more stunning vocal pieces I’ve heard on any album, anywhere, ever.

This performance of that song is with her own ensemble at the 2012 Manchester Jazz Festival.

You can see more of that performance on Connolly’s YouTube page.  At that time, she was touring in support of her 2012 release Black Lung, which you can listen to and purchase on her Bandcamp page.

The tune “Mouse Song” is one of the many standout tracks on “The Aviators’ Ball.”  Tom Davies does a lovely job with the vocals.

I know the sound kind of sucks on this video, but it’s still a pretty song and, damn, I’ll feature any halfway decent video that takes place in a beautiful church with stained glass and lush greenery on the other side of the glass.  Pretty sure this is St Werberghs’ Church for the album’s official launch.

And I happened across this next video when looking to see if there were any other new Matt Owens videos out there.  This is the Amika Strings performing the Matt Owens composition “Returning” at the Chorlton Arts Festival.  And I believe it’s the same church.

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