Home » Member Page

Al Swainger

Al Swainger is a musician who happens to be a bassist, composer & educator.

About Me

Al Swainger is a musician who happens to be a bassist. He is also a composer, improviser and FX enthusiast. His eclectic tastes have led to making music in a wide variety of genres over the years with literally hundreds of musicians. Covering ground from pop to progressive rock , traditional to modern jazz and fully improvised soundsculpture. Al is always keen to explore new musical territory. Currently he is focusing his unique style on his own experimental composition project Pointless Beauty. An album (After & Before) is due for release later this year featuring Neil Yates, Mike Outram, George & Mark Whitlam.

Other current projects include recordings with omnifusion trio Snow Giants – UN (Mike Outram, 05Ric), the Art Trip – The Music of Art Pepper (Alan Barnes, Craig Milverton, Nick Millward) and art-rock band GRICE – Alexandrine (featuring Grice, 05Ric, Luca Calabrese, Richard Barbieri, Steve Jansen, Hossam Ramzy, Steve Bingham, B.J.Cole). A recording with the Gary Bamford Trio (Gary Bamford, Robert Brian) is also in the pipeline for later this year.

Al regularly works live with the Annika Skoogh Quartet (Annika Skoogh, Matt Carter, Coach York), for which he arranges and composes, the Tomasso Starace Quartet (Tomasso Starace, Frank Harrison, Chris Nickolls) and Digby Fairweather’s Half Dozen (Digby Fairweather, Julian Stringle, Chris Gower, Dominic Ashworth, Craig Milverton, Nick Millward).

Past tour highlights include working with Roger Beaujolais, Scott Hamilton, Peter King, Steve Lawson, Tina May, P.P. Arnold, Ken Peplowski and Steve Waterman

My Jazz Story

The first jazz record I bought was Miles Davis - Amandla. I'd heard varying amounts of jazz on recordings from my parents collection and what I'd found at the local library but this was the first one that actually made me seek it out and buy it. I hadn't heard jazz with such a dramatic atmosphere before. It totally created its own sound world. Production was such a pivotal ingredient in making the music work, equal to the performances of the players. I think that's always stayed with me and definitely informs the way I make my own albums. It's not that the music won't work if you took the electronics and studio craft away but it would certainly feel like a vital ingredient was no longer there. Pop and rock records do this all the time but, until fairly recently, it's not often been part of the jazz approach.