A full house at the Quakerhouse

(Review by Eales/Russell)

Alto saxophonist Ray Dales played to a full house at Darlington Jazz Club on Sunday evening. The upstairs room at the Camra award-winning Quakerhouse pub was full to capacity with the ante room as busy as the main performance space.

Bebop Spoken Here’s man covering the Darlington beat, Tony Eales, reports that Dales was on form from the off playing a set of standards in the company of  James Harrison, Anth Ord and Tom Chapman. For a while the early evening gig (it’s a six o’clock start) looked as though it could well be a Ray Dales’ solo saxophone performance as Harrison and the boys were nowhere to be seen! The Teesside-based pianist couldn’t find the pub and only just turned up in the nick of time. 

The trio is a regular working unit (Anth Ord, bass and Tom Chapman, drums) and, once set up, gave sterling support to the main man. Fans of Ray Dales can hear the man every Sunday lunchtime at the Park Inn, Hartlepool, sitting in the Musicians Unlimited reeds’ section, the roaring big band led by Mick Donnelly.

Tomorrow night though (Wednesday, October 12), the man in the pork pie hat can be heard at the Cherry Tree (9 Osborne Rd., Jesmond) this time with the Jeremy McMurray Trio. It has to be said that the man, deservedly, moves in the right company.

And the food at the Cherry Tree is great (Editor’s observation)

Next month (Sunday, November 13) should see another capacity audience in Mechanics’ Yard with the return of the brilliant young drummer Abbie Finn. An alumnus of Durham County Youth Big Band, now studying at Leeds College of Music, Finn is going to make it in the jazz world, no two ways about it, so get along to hear a fine talent working with her equally talented bandmates Joe Whettam, guitar, and Alistair Rhodes, bass.

Russell.