About Al

Al is an extremely experienced musician and bassist with over 25 years of performing experience in a wide variety of styles.

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Bass Guitarist

Bristol

Public liability insurance of £10 million

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 world music to 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. The album 'After & Before' featuring Neil Yates, Mike Outram, George Cooper & Mark Whitlam was released in June 2017. As a freelance musician he is more than used to adapting to new situations quickly and is very comfortable in any situation from fully improvised to complex sight-reading. Other projects have included recordings with omnifusion trio Snow Giants – UN (Mike Outram, 05Ric), the Art Trip – The Music of Art Pepper (Alan Barnes, Craig Milverton, Nick Millward), The Gary Bamford Trio - God, Love & Other Myths (Gary Bamford, Rob Brian) and art-rock band GRICE – Alexandrine (featuring Grice, 05Ric, Luca Calabrese, Richard Barbieri, Steve Jansen, Hossam Ramzy, Steve Bingham, B.J.Cole). New recordings with the Al Swainger Quartet, Snow Giants, Annika Skoogh Quartet & Becky Brine are all in the pipeline for release over the coming year. Al continues to perform live regularly with Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen, The Annika Skoogh Quartet, Ed Leaker's Swing Machine, The Blue Vanguard House Trio, The Tomasso Starace Quartet, King Kong Trio and as a solo bassist with FX in an all improvised context. Past tour highlights include working with Roger Beaujolais, Scott Hamilton, Peter King, Steve Lawson, Tina May, P.P. Arnold, Ken Peplowski and Steve Waterman.

5 out of 5

1 verified review

Satisfaction

5.0

Professionalism

5.0

Communication

5.0

Punctuality

5.0

Al's Reviews

5 out of 5

Al helped enormously, through his musically sensitive and rhythmical playing, to raise the level of our choir's performance. Also he's a very convivial bloke, which always helps.

Reply from Al

2 years ago

Thanks Roger. A pleasure to be involved and the choir sounded excellent.

One of the great bass players of the future

Really should be a lot better known than he is

Read all 5 reviews

1 February 2018

I've had the pleasure of playing with Al and benefiting from his extensive musical experience many times. He's at once rock solid and delightfuly creative, in a wide range of settings and styles.

Encore badges

6th Anniversary

This act has been working with Encore for over 6 years

Musicianship

Genres:

1920s era music, 1930s era music, 1940s era music, 1950s era music, 1960s era music, 1970s era music, 1980s era music, 1990s era music, Jazz, Modern jazz, Latin jazz, Jazz fusion, Swing, Avant garde, Experimental, Ambient pop, Acoustic, Pop, Funk, Funk rock, Hip Hop, Progressive rock, World music, African music, Bossa nova, Brazilian music, Cuban music, Cumbia, Latin, Salsa, Samba, Originals, Motown, R&B, Soul, Pop rock, Ambient, Folk rock, Easy listening

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Instruments:

Bass guitar, Double Bass, Producer, Composer

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Event types:

Recording session, Wedding, Funeral / Memorial service, Church service, Hotel / Restaurant event, Bar / Club / Venue event, Private event, Corporate event, Charity event, Concert, Theatre / Show, Birthday party, Christmas party, New Year's Eve

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Other skills:

Arranger, Composer, Producer, Transcription, Fluent sight-reader, Live looping, Ableton Live, Instrumental teaching, Theory teaching, Composition teaching

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