Brendan Rothwell

New! June, 2020 interview with Brendan at BassMusicianMagazine.com!

UK-born and now proudly Canadian bassist, composer, and producer Brendan Rothwell counts the bass as his primary musical voice among the many instruments he plays.

Brendan describes the 1986 album from Miles Davis,“Tutu”, featuring the great Marcus Miller, as the trigger and driving force for his decision to play the electric bass. Soon after learning the fundamentals of the instrument and developing his own sound, Brendan was chosen to perform with leading UK artists including Miles Gilderdale (lead guitarist with Acoustic Alchemy), Snake Davis (saxophonist with Lisa Stansfield, M-People…) and locally in his home town of York with the Legendary Trevor King (LTK), the jazz drummer who taught him the fundamentals of “the music business”.

Since moving to Canada and performing with a variety of artists, Brendan has put additional focus on recording his original material and to-date has released two solo albums. “This Is The Love”, from Brendan’s debut recording “Time On My Hands” (Independent, 2016), landed top positions on several of the global contemporary jazz “Best of 2017” charts, alongside winning “The People’s Choice” in Calgary’s 2017 YYC Music Awards.

Following the success of his debut recording, Brendan took a step up with the release of “Sentiment” (Independent, 2019). “Keep On Keepin’ On” chased the success of the first album, landing top positions on several global charts and making Brendan the first independent artist to reach the #1 spot across all three smoothjazz.com charts in June 2019. With 11 tracks of bass-focused contemporary jazz, this album displays a unique and genuine identity that has remained on the global charts for more than a year. On this entirely solo recording, Brendan once again optimizes the tone, scale and musicality of the bass, developing meaning, feeling and depth by bringing it to the foreground as a lead instrument.

Current collaborations include “Anyplace, Anytime” with R.L Walker, and “Free Your Soul” with Coldjack. Outside his bass work in the contemporary jazz world, Brendan has recently collaborated with Calgary prog-rock/metal band Heyoka’s Mirror as they write and record material for their debut album. The art of business and leadership is inextricably linked in all of Brendan’s projects, and he firmly believes in applying a business mindset to the industry of music.

“I was introduced to the DNA brand and sound by bassist Neil Bentley (Discovery Music, Calgary) and I immediately invested in two of the versatile DNS112 cabs. The opportunity to join the family of endorsing artists opens up a whole new sound for me with the addition of the DNA-800 amplifier, along with the network of world-class bass players. The dynamic and harmonic tone from the DNA-800 will add an exciting new dimension to my sound as I create my third album.”

Links:
brendanrothwell.com
instagram.com/rothwellbass/
facebook.com/rothwellbass
twitter.com/rothwellbass
brendanrothwell.hearnow.com

Videos:
Heyoka’s “Mirror” (Brendan’s prog-rock band)
Quarantine video: facebook.com/smoothjazzglobal/videos/2589196344739446

2019 Highlights:
SmoothJazz.com Top 100 Album Chart June/July 2019 #1 (Album: Sentiment/Single: Keep On Keepin’ On) First Independent Artist to reach #1 on all three SmoothJazz.com charts.
SmoothJazz.com Year End Top 100 Album Chart 2019 #3 (Album: Sentiment)
Cool Jazz Countdown Top 10 Albums of 2019. #9 (Album: Sentiment)
96.9 The Oasis Top 100 Indie Songs of 2019 #83, #73, #33 and #27 (Single:
Sentiment/Single: This Is The Love/Single: Your Move/Single: Keep On Keepin’ On)
SmoothJazzNetwork Top 100 of 2019 #36 (Single: Keep On Keepin’ On)
Nominee: SmoothJazzNetwork Breakout Artist, 2019
WPKN Jazz On Ice (Doc Hardy) Jazz Album of the Year 2019 (Album: Sentiment)
WAVE.fm Fusion Flavours with Steve Quirk Best of 2019 #9 (Album: Sentiment/Single: Keep On Keepin’ On)
Radiowave Monitor Smooth Jazz Chart July 2019 #11 (Single: Keep On Keepin’ On)
Billboard Smooth Jazz Chart June 2019 #12 (Single: Keep On Keepin’ On)

2018/2017 Highlights:
Radio Guitar One Fresh Cuts Chart March 2018 #1
96.9 The Oasis Top 100 Indie Songs of 2018 #52 and #61 (Single: Time On My Hands and single: This Is The Love)
96.9 The Oasis Top 100 Indie Songs of 2017 #3 and #12 (Single: Time On My Hands and single: This Is The Love)
SmoothJazz.com Year End Top 50 Album Chart 2017 #25 (Album: Time On My Hands)
The People’s Choice, YYC Music Awards 2017 (Album: Time On My Hands/Single: This Is The Love)
Groove Jazz Music Top 100 of 2017 #86 (Single: This Is The Love)
Groove Jazz Top 30 June 2017 #18 (Single: This Is The Love)
SmoothJazz.com Top 50 Indie Chart June 2017 #2 (Album: Time On My Hands/Single: This Is The Love)
SmoothJazz.com Top 50 Chart June 2017 #6 (Album: Time On My Hands/Single: This Is The Love)