This is the news
The Secret is finally out!
Ben plays clarinet on Paul McCartney’s new album ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’, recorded in the iconic studio 2 at Abbey Road. He plays on three tracks, including ‘Life Can Be Hard’, where he improvises around Paul’s vocal at the end of the track. The beautiful arrangements are by Ben Foster and Giles Martin.
Ben Castle playing with Paul McCartney
Wah Wah Bass Clarinet anyone?
Ben is featured on all kinds of flutes, clarinets and saxophones throughout Oli Julian’s much celebrated score and David Byrne’s songs for The Twits, on Netflix.
The film and the soundtrack are out now.
Ben guested with Gorillaz on bass clarinet to kick off their Demon Days performance at Copper Box in London.
If you want to hear Ben play a lot of woodwind instruments and you like laughing (not just at his woodwind playing), Amandaland is on the BBC iPlayer now.
The score is by maestros Oli Julian and Ethan Jeffrey. Ben played some sax on the score for Oli’s Motherland score, but this is a whole new level. He even got to utilise some prog flute, a skill he knew it would come in handy one day.
Ben did all the orchestral arrangements for The Late Late Show New Years Eve show on RTÉ1. This year he arranged songs for James Blunt, Picture This & Aby Coulibaly with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra conducted by Cormac McCarthy
This will confuse James Blunt fans as James had a guitarist called Ben Castle in his band for years and they were always getting mixed up for each other. Ben was often asked by JB fans in around the world if he could tell James to play certain songs and the other Ben was presumably incessantly asked what saxophone reeds he used.
Ben once turned up to his own gig in Brighton to find a poster outside with the other Ben Castle’s face on.
To add to the confusion, the other BC wrote songs for a Robbie Williams album that Ben played sax on. To avoid confusion, they added his middle name to the liner notes. His middle name is Roy! Confusion cleared up.
Clarinet Cam for Sam Smith’s Prom at The Royal Albert Hall.
Ben guested on a few songs, including this version of Clare Teal’s ‘Playing With Fire’.
Full show on BBC iPlayer now.
Ben wrote the music for the new Taylor’s Coffee advert.
Music Composer - Ben Castle
Music Producer - Luke Fabia
Sound Design & Final Mix - Jack Patterson & Henning Knoepfel
Soundtree Senior Producer - Neil Athale
Agency - Lucky Generals
Director - Björn Ruhmann
Production Company - Smuggler
A clip from one of Ben’s recent performances with Diana Ross at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Listen to Iggy Pop laugh along to 'Cut Loose - A Lesson in Jazz' (featuring Matt Berry) on his BBC6 Music show. It’s a shame that we can’t release this version. This is the first single from Ben Castle and the Blah Street Band’s EP, ‘An EP’
‘AN EP’ IS A COLLECTION OF PREPOSTEROUS VERSIONS OF CLASSIC JAZZ STANDARDS, WITH GUEST APPEARANCES FROM MATT BERRY, BETH ROWLEY AND ROY CASTLE.
The band is comprised of long-term collaborators and friends, Mark Edwards, Tim Harries, Troy Miller and many others.
Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story has won the Grammy for best music film.
Ben and Paul Pilot scored Ryan Suffern & Frank Marshall’s excellent Sony Pictures film.
The long awaited single from the preposterous Jazz collective ‘Ben Castle and the Blah Street Band’ is finally here and features the distinctive voice of Matt Berry, explaining definitively what Jazz actually is.
When: Winter Solstice, Wednesday 21st December, live online at sunset.
Where: anywhere in Ireland and the world, running time 30 mins.
Register for free at thisispopbaby.com/book-now
The darkest time of the year is upon us. It’s time to face the sun.
GRIANSTAD is a solstice audio experience, celebrating and marking the winter solstice or “grianstad” (literally: sun stop). Join people around Ireland and the world with this meditative audio journey at sunset, guiding you to greet the solstice, in a mode of healing reflection.
With an original soundscape composed by Jane Arnison and Julie Fogarty, and original music by MayKay, Ben Castle, and Adam Matthews, GRIANSTAD calls on us to connect with ourselves, each other, and this potent time of year in a collective audio ritual.
This is a free event, registration required, for people (aged 12+) to enjoy with family, friends, or alone, on speaker or headphones, at sunset on December 21st.
Click the album to find it on Spotify
Ben wrote the music for Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story with Paul Pilot for Sony Pictures, directed by Emmy nominee Ryan Suffern and five-time Academy Award nominee Frank Marshall. It features the Marsalis Family, Herbie Hancock, Bruce Springsteen, Gregory Porter, Jimmy Buffett, Katy Perry, Earth, Wind & Fire, and many others.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell, aka “Jazz Fest,” is the signature annual music and cultural event of the city and has been called America’s greatest festival. Celebrating the music, food, and arts and crafts of all of Louisiana since 1970, Jazz Fest is an essential showcase of the rich heritage of the region, and hundreds of thousands attend the event each year. Local music heroes are joined on 14 stages by some of the most important figures in entertainment, highlighting the connections between Louisiana culture and the world.
JAZZ FEST: A NEW ORLEANS STORY weaves together live performances and interviews from the 50th anniversary of the iconic festival, featuring some of the biggest names in the music industry, along with a wealth of archival documentary footage from the past half century. This film not only captures the Festival in all of its beauty and glory, but also delves deep into the rich culture of The Big Easy.
Ben will be the musical director for Murmuration (live and live-streamed) at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on 24th October 2021. Part of Una Mullally and Conner Habib’s exciting Utopia season, it will be a live musical performance emerging in the moment, as a group of musicians come together as a collective to find their way to and through songs and sounds as they are conjured live on stage. This one-off experimental process rooted in risk, trust, improvisation and potential, asks the artists and the audience to cross a threshold, and see what happens.
The evening will feature Saint Sister’s Gemma Doherty, folk star Daoiri Farrell, the remarkable contemporary classical pianist Izumi Kimura, Rory Friers of rock experimentalists And So I Watch You From Afar and many more to be announced.
For more info and to buy tickets for the live or live-streamed show, click here
#Refractions #NCHat40
Ben wrote the brass arrangements for ‘Mister Holland’ and ‘Long List Of Troubles’ from Gregory Porter’s new album ‘All Rise’, out now on Blue Note.
Ben and his bass clarinet are featured in Alex Baranowski’s soundtrack to Staged on BBC.
David Tennant and Michael Sheen star as two actors whose West End play has been put on hold due to Covid-19, but whose director has persuaded them to carry on rehearsing online.
The whole series is up on the BBC iPlayer now
Next in the series of jazz legends playing iconic British TV theme tunes, we have Ray Charles, Chet Baker, John Coltrane & Acker Bilk playing The Sweeney.
