La Retaguardia Jazz Band (Chile)
Michael McQuaid's Late-Hour Boys (Australia)
Hot Antic Jazz Band (France)
Keith Nichols' Blue Devils (UK)
The twentieth and last Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival. So much to hear across four rooms, the listener is torn this way then that.
The Sunset Café kicked-off with Chile's La Retaguardia Jazz Band. It was standing room only for this the band's debut UK performance. The eight piece, led by pianist Antonio Campusano, thoroughly entertained, indeed charmed, the audience from start to finish with numbers such as Jelly Roll Morton's Chicago Breakdown and Ellington's The Mooche.
An anticipated highlight for this correspondent was the return visit of Antipodean Michael McQuaid. The intimate confines of Kelly's Stables had the Aussies playing in a corner near the entrance and with good grace welcomed the constant stream of late/new arrivals. Multi instrumentalist McQuaid paired with clarinetist Jason Downes in a series of thrilling duels and drummer Ian Smith can certainly play that washboard! Recommended.
The concert room - The Cotton Club - hosted the French (and one part German) Hot Antic Jazz Band. The Antics got up to some antics in a most professional, crowd-pleasing performance.
The closing concert of the first afternoon promised much with Keith Nichols' rounding-up some of the best talent available to present an Ellington programme in the shape of his Blue Devils. The musicians on the stand were with Nichols the previous evening a few miles up-river in Gateshead. The two set presentation was packed with numbers from Duke's 1920's/1930's period together with one or two tunes from other eminent composers of the day. A selection of tunes including Creole Love Call, Black Beauty, The Mooche, Black and Tan Fantasy, Echoes of Harlem featured the band's soloists in endless permutations. Trumpet summits were frequent (Bent Persson and Enrico Tomasso) and Matthias Seuffert, Jean-Francois Bonnel, Robert Fowler and Graham Hughes featured throughout. The rhythm section - Malcolm Sked, Nick Ward and Martin Wheatley - marshalled by Nichols was first rate. In percussionist Nick Ward they threw away the mould! Absolutely priceless! A great start to the weekend with the promise of much more to come.
Russell.
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