Darlington Jazz Festival. April 26: A Festival Concert Finale @ St Augustine’s

(Review by Russell)

The festival’s now traditional closing event is programmed by Darlington Jazz Club. This year’s guests – the Simon Read Octet – have firm associations with the prestigious Leeds College of Music degree course. The west Yorkshire hot house has established a veritable conveyor belt of talented musicians. Bassist Simon Read leads a superb octet, playing his own compositions with a recently released CD – Times Leap – to tour. The assured Read has assembled a cracking outfit; trumpeter of the moment Laura Jurd, the brilliant altoist Ben Lowman, the equally brilliant Will Howard (tenor saxophone/clarinet), the nu-school guitarist Michael de Souza, the in demand Kevin Holbrough (trombone), pianist/lecturer Jamil Sheriff and ace drummer Sam Gardner.

The set opened with the first track on the octet’s CD, Leaps and Bounds. Nicely warmed-up, Low Point raised the stakes with an exhilarating alto/tenor chase. An untitled number (Read confessed he struggled to come up with titles) and a brace of punning titles – Read Between the Lines and Read All About It (the latter with a swinging jam session feel to it) – gave scope to the soloists. All members of the octet are accomplished soloists. Jurd and Holbrough, flanking the demon reeds – Lowman and Howard – produced extended solos. The academic Sheriff long-since achieved grade eight and made a top-grade contribution throughout the set. A ballad – The Coldstones Cut – heard Howard on clarinet and, flying high on alto, Ben Lowman. Simon Says featured Jurd in an urgent, Mingus-inspired piece stoked by Read’s propulsive bass playing topped-off by Sheriff’s dazzling solo flight and Gardner’s unfailingly impressive drumming.

Keeping together an octet for any length of time can’t be easy. It will be interesting to see how Simon Read’s project develops.

This year’s Darlington Jazz Festival, the fourth, can be described as the best yet. The use of several venues in the town centre worked well. It is safe to assume that next year these venues will be supplemented by others. Darlington Jazz Festival wouldn’t exist but for an army of willing helpers, all giving freely of their time. From one venue to another young volunteers ran the show doing every job that needed to be done. The year round work takes the form of a fortnightly jazz club session. Small group performances can be heard in the Quakerhouse (Sundays, 5:30pm) and big band concerts will be staged at pop-up venues dotted in and around the town centre (also Sundays, 5:30pm). Check Bebop Spoken Here’s listings for details. The next one is a big band session on Sunday May 10 at The Keys on Skinnergate. The swinging Newcastle-based Strictly Smokin’ Big Band will be in town. Admission on the door: £5.00. & £3.00.

Next year’s Darlington Jazz Festival, the Friendly Jazz Festival, is already in the diary.  

Russell.