A highlight of 2024 for us was recording the new Fairground Attraction album, Beautiful Happening, working with old friends the old fashioned way, everybody playing together live in the studio. We’ve also recorded tracks for newcomer Nia Smith with producer Jimmy Napes, and for Jimmy’s partner Gus Pirelli – a funky Salsoul passion project. The online session platform SoundBetter has hooked us up with clients from France, Italy, the USA and down the road in Blackheath. Our own Kick Horns Big Band album Tall Tales can be found (with videos) on our YouTube channel, audio also on Spotify, and on Apple Music.
The addition of the Kick Horns for the London dates was a masterstroke. The outstanding sound quality at Ronnie’s meant the section’s superb arranging, accuracy and command of articulation was rendered with the utmost clarity.
Adam McCulloch
Maxi Jazz and the E-Type Boys review for Jazzwise
I hadn’t worked with ‘professional’ musicians until we recorded Popscene, and at that time I wasn’t sure how we’d measure up. The brass section had given the impression of a gang of painters and decorators as they unpacked their equipment. It was as if they were unfolding stepladders and unloading brushes. They splashed their bright paint all over the song.
Alex James
bit of a blur
Those Kick Horns guys are really on top of my thing.
Dr John
In all of my years recording, I’ve only ever been rendered completely speechless by what has come back out of the speakers twice: the first time was in the Nineties, when my former band Pele recorded our first single ‘Raid The Palace’ and the Kick Horns brass section turned up in Metropolis Studios, West London, and tore the song apart, plastering us all to the back wall of the studio…
Ian Prowse
…tightest, hard-hitting, yet sweet…
John Leckie
There were times during this show when Baaba Maal and his band made music that was as beautiful, as glorious and as joyous as any that I have ever heard. Yes: it was that good – percussion, guitars, keyboards, voices, and, crucially, a tight-knit four-piece brass section were locked into a pulsating, hypnotic groove. For a moment, as his band – a mixture of African and Western musicians – created this rapturous noise, Baaba Maal, in his shiny gold suit, stood with his arms outstretched and grinned, as if to say: “Look! Behold my creation.” It was sensational.
David Cheal
Daily Telegraph
Oumou Sangare’s easy fusion with the Kick Horns, who add firepower without treading on anyone’s toes, suggests subtlety can occasionally trump the search for explosive connections… The Parisian audience? They’re dancing.
Gareth Grundy
The Observer
Celebrity Mastermind. John Humphrys quizzes Josh Widdicombe on specialist subject Blur.
JH: The albums Parklife and The Great Escape featured accompaniment from the Duke Strings and which group of brass musicians?
JW: Pass
– – – – –
JH: You had one pass. The group of brass musicians was Kick Horns.
JW: No idea…
JH: No. Nor me. There we are.
BBC1
Christmas 2013
