Jamie Jauncey

music

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Thelonius Monk  is supposed to have said:  "Writing about music is liking dancing about architecture."  I think I know what he meant.  But writers who also play music - and I keep meeting more of them - still find it hard to resist the challenge.  That includes me.  Sorry Thelonius.

As far as I'm concerned music is part of the life force. The essential energy that keeps me moving forward.  It connects me to myself, to others, and to whatever is bigger than us all.  I can't imagine a day without it.

As a teenager I experimented with various instruments and ended up playing drums badly in a Scottish country dance band.  Then rock 'n' roll took over.  I settled for piano and guitar and released a couple of singles.  I was also in a group that played music for insomniacs on BBC Radio Two's graveyard shift.  And I did a spell of touring and recording with Sixties legend Peter (Where Do You Go To My Lovely) Sarstedt.  More recently I ran The Jauncey Brothers Band with my brother Simon.  For 12 years it took us all over the country, to castles and conference centres, mansions and marquees.  Simon continues to run it.

Today, I'm more involved in Scottish traditional music.  Most Monday nights I go down to the Tap Inn, here in Birnam, Perthshire, where some of the most brilliant traditional players from all over Scotland drop by for a tune and a pint.

Stop Press  Out of the Tap Sessions has come an exciting project to record some of the beautiful old tunes Robert Burns set his poems to.  The line-up is brilliant young fiddler and composer, Anna Wendy Stevenson, mandolin genius Luke Plumb and fiddling wizard Angus Grant, both of Shooglenifty, with Jamie on piano.  The Burns Project had its first public airing in March 2006 at Alexander McCall Smith's book launch at The Hub in Edinburgh.