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 Born on the Isle of Wight in 1972, I began my life in music playing drums but was quickly persuaded onto the guitar by my father's homemade instrument. From age 14 to 19 I played with blues-rock outfits Eat Your Cabbage and The Rhythm Method on the Island and began to broaden my musical horizons by playing in theatre pit orchestras.
A year in Chichester studying with, amongst others, saxophonist Bobby Wellins was followed by three more at Leeds College of Music to study jazz with such players as Adrian Ingram and Mike Walker. This gave me a solid technical grounding and during this time I also gained performing experience playing with street band Bassa Bassa as well as my own jazz quartet. Feeling unfulfilled in my life after college I took the step of moving to Budapest, Hungary in 1997.
Although teaching English to pay the bills, I began to rekindle my musical interests and became involved with various groups including stints with local jazz-funk-triphop-dubsters Ez a Divat and ex-pat rockers Fabulon. This led to several recordings and many performances across Hungary including on the Sziget festival (Central Europe's Glastonbury).
A chance meeting with an American on a train, though, was to be the beginning of my most successful musical venture in Budapest - the Tea Thieves. The group of four from three countries was a diverse mix of musical styles to which I contributed guitar, songs and vocals. The band's weekly residency in a local bar set my song-writing juices flowing seriously for the first time.
Upon my return to the UK in 2002, I formed rock band mFISH with my brother Bruce on drums and began performing regularly with French Jazz singer Mel Stempinski.
I am very excited to have recently (Summer 2008) started up my own Blues/Funk outfit The Jamie Howell Band - an organ trio with influences from The Meters to Hendrix featuring the considerable talents of Fabio Iacono and Tonewheel Jackson. The band is currently drumming up gigs around the South and we are getting a great response wherever we go.
Other current projects include playing and writing with Triphop band BassDrum and running the Reading & Wokingham Jazz Jam where my Jazz trio is the house band. This Jazz Trio is also starting to gig in the area.
Other recent work includes performances with The Platters, Poppe and Stonefoxx.
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