WHAT A MUSICAL WEEK!

During last week I spent the sum of £21 and had great music in return, 13 gigs to be exact. Where else in this country could you do that, I ask you?

Jazz gigs included the Claude Werner Quartet last Sunday and the Michael Garrick concert on Thursday, where I got to talk to the man himself, and what a lovely gentleman he was – see the photo. Then there was a ceilidh at Gateshead on Tuesday. I can’t imagine many of the jazz fans I know dancing at a ceilidh (eh Lance?) but it’s great fun if you like that sort of thing, which I do.

But what I mainly wanted readers to know about were the jazz-like influences that I spotted at the Sage folk concerts run by the young people doing the Folk and Traditional Music Degree. There were 10 of these concerts. Nine of them were FREE, each lasting about 45 minutes, and were part of the students’ work which was being assessed. Obviously these were mainly folk music influenced (forget Wild Rovers, there’s a lot more to it than that!) but there were influences from folk music of other cultures such as Mongolian and French, elements of Shakespeare, and even a brass band. The jazz-like elements included a young lad called Simon Stephenson on guitar who treated us to ‘Windy and Warm’ (John D. Loudermilk); ‘The Orange Grove’ composed by the lad himself but influenced by Mississipi John Hurt; and ‘Salty Dog Rag’ and ‘Saturday Night Shuffle’. That last one was originally played by Merle Travis. Simon certainly knew how to play a mean rag.

Another lad to watch for is Ben Church (I don’t think he’s related to Charlotte though he did sing a song in Welsh). He has a most intriguing style of playing guitar which I think would interest jazz musicians. He was finger-picking, playing a quick chord, then doing percussion on the side of the guitar, each in turn, to produce a wonderful lively evocative sound.

Jazz fans may want to try these free concerts next year. You never know, you may get to like folk music if you don’t already listen to it.

Ann Alexander