Uncle Vanya Guitar Music [DSPCD004]
Released in 2012 to co-incide with Lucy Bailey's award winning production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in a version by Mike Poulton, this is the original guitar instrumental soundtrack with music composed and performed by myself in the play as the character Ilya Ilyich Telegin or 'Waffles'. it's all solo acoustic guitar work in the Russian style with effects on only two or three tracks which were used for the scene change music. The play was performed at the Print Room, Hereford Road, London W2 and played to packed houses although it must be said that the auditorium could only accommodate 100 people. You can hear the album on  www.cdbaby.com/cd/davidshawparker  and buy it here [£4.99 plus p & p £1.51 total: £6.50]
Noucentisme [DSPCD003]
Noucentisme, [a word coined by the Catalan writer and philosopher Eugenie d'Ors loosely translated as 'the spirit of a new century'] was released in 2002 and marked by last collaboration with the most wonderful producer Livvy Georgiou whose skill and wisdom I miss greatly. The album consists of purely instrumental original Mediterranean guitar music and my modest attempt at Flamenco style playing on certain tracks. D'Ors once wrote 'what does not come from tradition is plagiarism' and he set out to make Noucentisme an artistic and cultural movement exclusive to Catalonia; the statue on the cover is by Aristides Maillol, La Meditérranée, one of his many Noucentiste works. This is an album to eat warm bread and fish to, with a few olives and a fulsome bottle of wine...  you can listen to Noucentisme here http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/davidshawparker  and buy it here for £4.99 plus £1.51 p&p [total £6.50]
Bistrovia [DSPCD002]
Released in 1999 after an interminable period of waiting, this album commemorates our time together at 27 Cadogan Street or 'Bistrovia' as we christened it after creating a garden patio bistro paradise from beneath a mountainous pile of dumped rubbish, rusting bicycles and discarded filth which took almost a month to clear. We painted the stone and paved cement brilliant white and designed a quasi-Mediterranean dining area which excelled beneath summer moonlight. There in the heart of Chelsea between 1986 and 1997 we had our own dining club in the restaurant capital of London. The music is original Mediterranean guitar instrumentals with the simple intention of transporting you effortlessly to the European seaside landscape of your choice. You can listen to Bistrovia at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/davidshawparker  and you can buy it here for £4.99 plus £1.51 p&p total: £6.50
Euromance [DSPCD001]
In 1989, when this first went on sale on cassette, my excitement was indescribable and its transition to CD took place in 1999, along with the release of Bistrovia. Euromance was inspired by a childhood experienced in the 1960s from Jack De Manio to Jack Wild, encompassing Andy Pandy, Fireball XL5, The Prisoner, Psychedelia, Barbarella, Secret Agents, Bikini's - preferably with Brigitte Bardot in them - Jet-Set espionage, Aeroplane travel, Paris chic, your first love and your best holiday. The music is again all instrumental [apart from Andy Pandy] with sixties retro-back beat, Greek bazouki tremolo and acoustic guitar harmony to effortlessly transport you to Monte-Carlo, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Cannes, Naples or any of your favourite 1960s film locations. You can hear Euromance at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/davidshawparker and buy it here at £4.99[ plus £1.51 p&p: total: £6.50]
Dreamfood [DSPCD005]
We never had it so good. The 1960s promised us much and delivered on a good deal of it; it flew us to the moon, it let us play among the stars, it gave us James Bond films, the Bossa Nova, hallucinogenic drugs, free love and, if you were English, our one and only world cup win so far in 1966. Most of what I wanted as a ten year old in 1964 I couldn't afford and probably wouldn't have known what to do with but the sixties gave me a Mediterranean schooling, a school trip to Paris, the Eleven Plus, four senior school plays and a grounding in acoustic guitar. This album is only available as a download  at  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/davidshawparker  but here are two tracks to listen to...
  • Companero
  • Dreamfood
Again, if you're using an iPad or and iPhone, you can listen to three tracks here:

Music

One of my life’s most edifying moments occurred at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in 2018 when my wife took me to a gig and pre-show Q&A with the globally acclaimed guitarist Al di Meola. The host took questions from the audience - mostly requests or queries as to practise time and how long he’d been playing - and relayed them to Al in a kind of interview style and, as I had my hand in the air, I was invited in turn to ask my question which was; ‘is practise time also composing time’?

Someone coughed and I was asked to repeat my question which I did with faltering confidence. An awkward pause ensued and the host leaned into Al and repeated my question with some deliberation. Al looked puzzled but then, in a split second exclaimed brightly ‘Oh! That’s a good question!’ and then stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like five seconds before peering straight back at me, saying quite loudly; ‘Is practise time also composing time? Yes!’. My one conversation with a genius.

Moonbathing, then, is the result of practising and coming up with compositions along the way: in our back garden for the neighbours if it’s ‘play-throughs’, or the front patio for ‘drills’ which can be conveniently subsumed by London traffic noise. The tuning E-A-D-G-B-E is the standard throughout, there is no double tracking nor any effects but bum notes were edited out and cleaner ones dropped in although, of course, single passes would have been ideal.

It’s a wholly solo effort comprising original instrumental guitar pieces - chordal melody and rythmn, - with a kind of jazz/bossa vibe borne of those many nights beneath a benignly indifferent moon when practise time becomes creative time.

DSP London October 2019
I'm gratified and elated to announce the launch of this new album as a download only. You can listen to it here and you can download it here, or on iTunes and Spotify. My thanks to that wonderful team at CDBaby and to Ben and Sam at DMSVinyl. Also to Dave and Paul at D-Sound for some 'sound' advice, if you will, about 'doing less'. The album format is 'me playing guitar, for you, pure and simple.' I hope you enjoy it: there was, I can assure you, no other reason for making it.
Moonbathing [DSPCD006]
in the night garden
spell-bound by the soft guitars
we’ll go moonbathing

[haiku]
At long last, I'm thrilled to announce the release of the new album...
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