Splinter @ The Seaside - The Trojan Rooms, Whitley Bay. July 3rd - Part 3: Ex Extreme.

Ex Extreme: Stuart Collingwood (piano), Pete Tanton (flugelhorn), Mark Williams (guitar), Stuart Davies (electric bass) & Steve Wall (drums).

David Carnegie's departure cast doubt on the future of Extreme Measures. How to replace him? Why continue? Well, the alumni assembled in the Trojan Rooms with new recruit Steve Wall to give it a go as Ex Extreme.

Opening with Stuart Collingwood's familiar piece Nautical (how apt...nautical, seaside and all). Pete Tanton wrote Barbados by way of bon voyage (the nautical theme continued) to Davd Carnegie - nice one Pete. Stuart Davies, the one surviving original member from Carnegie's band brought Double Bubble to the party and it wasn't any toil or trouble to these guys. It was a jazz funk workout, energetic, fun and for guitarist Mark Williams (another one on double time) this was a case of cut loose, hang on, get out of the way, phew!!!

Collingwood's Bananas was right up Steve Wall's street. This was loud jazz fusion territory and to the drummer's credit he was himself, not in any way trying to be a clone of David Carnegie. At times the volume levels made it difficult to hear Tanton's oh so lyrical lines. Tanton deserves to be heard!

I get the impression that pianist Stuart Collingwood has a whole book of tunes he's written over the years. One of them - The Tank - from way back (1981) was a high point. It had a Blakey's Messengersfeel to it and if he's got more like this then lets hear them! A cracking set from an evolving, cracking band.

Russell.