(Review by Russell/Photos
by Mike Tilley)
The Gateshead
International Jazz Festival is in danger of becoming a round-the-clock, twenty
four hour event! The Saturday evening/Sunday morning jam session at the Jazz
Café went on into the early hours. Downstairs the Slowlight Quartet entertained
the early arrivals (11:00 pm) and the newly refurbished upstairs room opened to
the public for the first time at midnight with the committed and the curious
out in force. The festival’s big hitters were absent (did anyone really expect Esperanza
Spalding to show up?) but some of Tyneside’s finest were present, keen to have
a blow.
The house rhythm section for the
occasion – Alan Law (piano), John Pope (double bass, electric bass, suit and
tie) and drummer Tom Chapman – invited a succession of musicians to join them
on the stand and a most encouraging factor was the age profile, most in their
twenties and thirties.
A list, in no particular order,
of those on the session: Guitarist Simon Stephenson (first to throw his hat
into the ring), tenors Matt Forster, Paul Gowland and Jamie Toms, Liam Gaughan
(bass), Strictly Smokin’ MD Michael Lamb, Newcastle University final year music
students Jamie Stockbridge (alto) and Adam Stapleford (drums), pianist James
Harrison and Caff regular Lindsay Hannon. Festival organisers put in an
appearance (at the bar) and couldn’t fail to be impressed with Mike Tilley’s
efforts to get the venue ready on time (a week or so earlier the place
resembled a building site).
The festival’s late night club
has moved around in recent years, the Jazz Café could well be its long term
home. A jam session isn’t a jam session without Monk. Well You Needn’t heard the horns, chorus upon chorus, rhythm
section cookin’. Trumpeter Michael Lamb all but blew the roof off, jam session
cheers, cool nods of approval, smiles, laughter, more beer. Lindsay Hannon, hot
foot from Sage Gateshead, got up to sing Basin
Street Blues. Introduced as the ‘incomparable Lindsay Hannon’, the boys on
the stand were having none of that insisting she was the ‘incompetent LH’ then
the ‘incomprehensible LH’. We’ll stick with the ‘incomparable’.
Lamb’s late night muted trumpet
pitched just right, Alan Law played it just right (as always), as did JP (the
Man in the Suit) and up stepped Paul Gowland to have his say. The Chicken went round and round the
Jazz Café farmyard led by the stupendous piano playing of James Harrison. Liam
Gaughan’s bass lines did Jaco pround and the horns earned their farmyard corn.
The house lights went up, whatever time it was (around stupid o’clock) it was
too early. What a night! Photos.
Russell.
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