Al Swainger

Al began musical life playing the cornet & piano from approximately the age of six. Years of practice progressing through trumpet, tenor horn & french horn in many local wind bands, jazz bands, orchestras, brass bands and anything else that was going eventually led to playing keys in a high school pop group, as you'd obviously expect. Somewhat ahead of its time, perhaps, this band played everything from Green Dolphin Street to Stairway to Heaven. Al taught himself electric & bass guitar at this point for the express purpose of stealing all the best bits from the real bass & guitar players in the band. Even more bizarrely he actually got away with it.

Al took a music degree at Colchester Institute and a PGCE at Bretton Hall before returning to Exeter where he began playing bass for the Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra on a temporary basis that ended up lasting several years. During this time he had the good fortune to back many excellent players at the Teignmouth Jazz festival including - Greg Abate, Alan Barnes, Bobby Shew, Steve Waterman & Bill Watrous. Around this time he also joined his first (grammatically challenged) soul band, Dodgey Practice, and also formed a writing partnership with Nick Lee, under the band name Foundation's Edge, to write & record original progressive rock. Since then Al has been a member of many local bands including Aesculus Hipp, Neil Burns TrioSoul Station. , Cantaloupe, Chris Wilson's Exe City Big Band, Paul Harris Trio, Killer Whale, Jesse Molins Trio, Harry Mundy Band, Maggie Reeday Trio, Mother Popcorn, Rifiki, Sam Elliott Big Band, Scream Machine and Al is currently chief arranger and/or composer for original modern jazz quintet Monkey's Uncle, his own seven piece jazz fusion outfit Time Wasters, disco/funk/pop function band Power of Time Monkeys and The Art Trip (a tribute to Art Pepper).

Al has also had the good fortune to work with many other excellent local luminaries including AJ's Big Band, Andrew Barrett, Rachel Brand, Becky Brine, The Brit Pack, AJ's Caravan Band, Otto Caretta, Andy Christie, City Steam Jazz Band, George Cooper, Martin Dale Quartet, Gary Evans, Harry Fulcher, Maxine Green, Tony Harris Quartet, Charlie Hearnshaw Quartet, Roz Harding, Jeremy Huggett's Band of Gold, The Jazz Company, Steve Laister, Lush Life, Roger Marks' Armada Jazz Band, Craig Milverton Nicky Swann, John Worth, and Bristol based Puravida y Acustica, Mint Julep, Dave Murphy Quintet, Dhevdas Nair, The Organisation, Joy Parke, Louise Parker, Dave Sheen, James Shipway Quartet, Solar.

Other career highlights have included playing alongside Greg Abate, Brandon Allen, Alan Barnes, John Barnes, Ian Bateman, Frank Brooker, Sam Brown, Philip Clouts, Sara Colman, Mike Cotton, Ben Cummings, Andy Dickens, Ian Ellis, John Etheridge, Digby Fairweather, John Hallam, Ruth Hammond and Roy Williams., Claire Hurst, Steve Lodder, Alex Maguire, Roger Marks, Nick Milward, Paul Munnery, Mark Nightingale, Dave O'Higgins, Gary Potter, Raf Ravenscroft, Don Rendell, Zoltan Sagi, Matthias Seuffert, Karen Sharp, Dave Shepherd, Julian Marc Stringle, Scott Stroman, Carol Sudhalter, Enrico Tomasso, Clark Tracey, Andy Tween, Don Weller.