The Tom Smith Big Band will release its debut album, A Year in the Life, on 21 February 2025. Saxophonist, composer, arranger and bandleader Tom Smith spoke with UK Jazz News about the performance, the album, and his own strategy for writing and arranging songs with stories.
“I have a relationship with everyone in the band,” Tom says, “As friends from music college, as my mentors, or as someone I got to know because I love their playing. Everyone’s chosen for their unique sound, and what they can bring to the music. The music draws on big band traditions, but I’ve been enjoying experimenting with different influences: Pat Metheny, Carla Bley, Guy Barker, Chris Potter, Ellington, Basie, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Maria Schneider.”
“Our sold out launch show at Ronnie Scott’s on 6 January was so much fun, and the room was absolutely buzzing,” he continues. “Because of the tricky logistics of organising shows with 18 musicians, we aren’t touring the album in the normal sense, but we have a number of shows booked in for the rest of the year which I’m treating as album celebration gigs. We are in Letchworth in April (date tbc), Pizza Express Soho on 22 June and 5 October, East Neuk Festival as a septet on 27 June, and the Concorde Club in Eastleigh on 8 October. I’m currently booking some more, so I will update my social media and website with the details when they come out.”
A Year in the Life arose from the band’s first gig, for which Tom produced a concert’s worth of music in just 2 or 3 months (a tough task, as he writes and arranges all of the band’s repertoire). “I had to do a whole lot of writing very quickly,” he explains. “In the following 7 or 8 months I added songs and refined the material. Some of the compositions are quite old, in their original forms. One of them is 8 or 9 years old: I wrote it for a small group, then for a septet, then finally I expanded it for a big band.” Before recording, the band played live on only 2 or 3 occasions and held what Tom calls a “bunch” of rehearsals: “It sounded really good the first time we played. It came together quickly.”
“The tunes sometimes come from stories, sometimes they arrive fully-formed and I have to work out what they remind me of, other times I go in with a plan of action. ‘Saviour Suzanne’ (inspired by saxophonist and bandleader Suzanne Higgins) is a good example. That started out as a small-group song that felt quite Cedar Walton-y, which I liked. Then I met Suzanne and she really helped me out, and I decided to expand it for big band, changing its vibe to something a bit more Thad Jones, Art Blakey. I’ve heard Suzanne do Thad Jones recordings and that definitely influenced the song’s direction. When I’m composing, it generally takes about three weeks just working through ideas at the piano. I’ll think about it when I’m on the tube, record myself playing on piano or sax, trying to create something that will ensure it’s different. Then I’ll start committing it to paper or Sibelius, where it changes a lot. Because each composition takes such a long time, there’s no point writing anything if it doesn’t mean something, if it doesn’t have an arc or story. It’s got to be quite personal, something that makes sense to me. I’m sure ‘We’re Being Watched’ came from spending too much time on social media, getting this awful sense that we’re all just part of The System.”

“I’m writing a song at the moment called ‘Mass Wisteria’,” Tom continues. “It’s a fun shuffle piece that keeps getting interrupted by breakouts, double-time swing or something. It feels settled, then out of nowhere it’ll go somewhere else. I wrote a reasonably standard big band shuffle, which we performed. Now I’ve heard it in its entirety and it works for the audience, I’m going back to mess it up, add in weird stuff. That’s quite a fun process.”
Thankfully, ‘Speedboat in Trouble’ isn’t based on Tom’s personal experience: “That was one of those lovely images in my head. I started writing this bebop head with a driving groove. It put me in mind of being on a speedboat, hurtling through the water, then it turned into a whole story. It’s kind of a word-painting sort of song, a three-act story: starting well, racing forward, and then hitting trouble before reaching calmer waters. But it didn’t actually happen to me!”
Tom writes for specific players: “The trumpets are a good example: Tom Walsh, Freddie Gavita, George Hogg and Alistair Martin all approach the instrument in a unique way, so it’s fun to produce interesting combinations across the section, thinking about how each player sounds, or approaches a solo. I was really pleased by the soloing on the album. I’ve spent a huge amount of time picking who was going to play what. At gigs we open things up a bit, but on A Year in the Life there were definitely specific people put in specific places for their own vibe.”
“I’d say it’s pretty free,” Tom says of his composing style. “If it was a smaller band I’d probably try to keep things a little freer, ‘cos that feels a bit more ‘jazz’, but the nature of the big band beast means there’s a lot more through-arrangement. Maybe as a result of what’s happened at gigs I tell the band more of the story of the songs. So, for example, when we recorded ‘Speedboat in Trouble’ I explained the story to both soloists – on the album it’s Trevor Mires on trombone and Alistair Martin on trumpet – and they approached their solos totally differently from the gigs. It definitely gives the music more of a narrative arc if the musicians know what emotions they’re meant to be conveying, rather than just giving them chord changes and saying, ‘Go for it!’.”
Tom’s now working on the band’s next project, aiming to record towards the end of 2025. “Since recording A Year in the Life I’ve written Trailers, a suite of six pieces inspired by film music, referencing different genres, directors or composers. It’s gone down really well with audiences. For example, ‘Shades of Noir’ references film noir, Hitchcock, Bernard Hermann. I tell the story before we play it and it captures the audience’s attention way more than if I simply said, ‘We’re going to play a jazz ballad’.” However, his focus is on the album’s release: “The whole of 2025 is going to be devoted to this music – a year of A Year in the Life.”
A Year in the Life will be released on Fey Moose Records on 21 February 2025.