PETE CATER
Pete Cater has been involved with drums for his entire life and has now clocked up in excess of fifty five years behind the drums. Movie footage exists of him hand drumming aged barely 12 months and the innate talent cannot be missed. His musical tastes matured similarly early, and courtesy of his Dad’s record collection he was, by age 5, already a devotee of Joe Morello, Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson. By 13 he was sitting in several times a weeks with his father’s bands and in 1977 became involved with the award-winning Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra, archive television footage of which can be found on YouTube.
Best known for leading a successful big band over many years and several album releases, Pete also heads up an eclectic sextet, The Ministry of Jazz. Pete works regularly as a sideman with a wide range of British artists from Simon Spillett to Salena Jones and in recent years has featured on album releases by top UK artists including Tony Kofi and Vasilis Xenopoulos. Over many decades as a performer he has played with a wide range of artists including Arturo Sandoval, Charlie Byrd, Terry Gibbs, Buddy DeFranco, Buddy Greco, Spike Robinson and was for many years a member of Don Lusher’s ‘Best of British Jazz’ sextet with whom he recorded an album at Abbey Road studios in 2002.
Pete has been teaching privately since the 1980s and at tertiary level since 1994. He has been a faculty member at Musicians’ Institute, Drumtech and is currently a senior tutor at LCCM, London.
Similarly Pete has a long track record of appearances at events such as The London Drum Show, The UK Vintage Drum Fair, Freddie Gee Drum Academy and The Palace Drum Camp, as well as Music China (Shanghai) and Beijing Teng Percussion Festival.
Pete has published a DVD and book which cover his unique approach to the drums, an approach which seeks to demystify concepts and make them accessible to all plays rather than remaining the preserve of an elite few.
COLIN WOOLWAY
Colin Woolway has been playing and teaching drums professionally since 1976. During those years he has done every kind of gig including theatre pit work, Jazz residencies, Cabaret and Variety shows, eight years with Suzi Quatro, and every kind of situation, from stadium tours with 30,000 people at every show, to scout huts and muddy gardens - you name it, he’s done it.
He is best known these days as the founder of the Drumsense Teaching programme, and the author of “Drumsense” books and DVDs, and has been writing monthly columns for Rhythm magazine for over 20 years!
Colin presently teaches at studios in Twickenham, The Brit School, and East London Arts & Music (ELAM), and regularly presents clinics, masterclasses and lectures, and is a long time endorser of Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks and Remo heads, Bill Sanders practice pads, Roland electronic drums, and more recently the British Drum Company.