Congratulations Andy Hamilton MBE

West Midlands Jazz Legend, Andy Hamilton has been awarded the MBE in the New Years Honours for services to music in Birmingham. The award recognises Andy's achievement not just as a great musician, but also as a promoter and a teacher who has brought students through in the Blue Pearls Big Band project where Alvin davis and Luke Shingler both started, and currently the Ladywood Community School of Music and the ever improving Notebenders Big Band.

This award is the latest in a series of accolades which include an MA from Birmingham University and The Prime Minister's Medal for services to Jamaica, and it makes a fitting tribute to the great man in the run-up to his 90th Birthday. Andy has come a long way since his birth in Port Antonio while the First World War was still raging in Europe and stories of how he built his first Saxophone from bamboo and worked as Musical Director on Erroll Flynn's Yacht the Zaca are legend, but for now we'd just like to say congratulations Andy and thankyou for the music.