Swinging into Christmas with Classic Swing @ Gateshead Fell Cricket Club - Dec 14

Bob Wade (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jim McBriarty (tenor sax, clarinet, vocals); Gordon Solomon (trombone); Colin Haikney (piano); Alan Rudd (double bass); Tommy Graham (drums); Olive Rudd (vocals) + Don Fairley (trombone). 

(Review by Russell)

Temperatures hovered around zero some twenty-four hours before a forecast first snowfall of the winter. Turning into Evistones Road the welcoming sight of a brightly lit Gateshead Fell Cricket Club lifted the spirits.  

It Don't Mean a Thing sang Olive Rudd in a less than welcoming function room. Was the heating system on the blink? Perhaps. It didn't help matters that the fire door was ajar as bar staff, victims of the dreaded weed, huddled in midwinter darkness. A bar without a handpull, a bottle of Dog looked the pick. 

The band played on - Bye, Bye, Blackbird - with Gordon Solomon in the line-up. Regular Classic Swing 'bone man Don Fairley sat on the bench this evening,  more a social occasion than a gig engagement. Echoes of Mr Five by Five (Jimmy Rushing) transported the band and its loyal supporters Basie-style to Kansas City in the form of Jim McBriarty's vocal and the now two trombone formation of Solomon and Fairley on Sent for You Yesterday. A top tune, this is one of the very best numbers in Classic Swing's pad. Band singer Olive Rudd closed the first set singing, optimistically, of Summertime.

A sumptuous Christmas party buffet helped a second bottle of Dog go down well. Umpteen raffles prizes with similarly umpteen cries of Put it back didn't yield a winner for your scribe. 

Second and third sets (yes, three sets), more of the same good stuff with Bob Wade's trumpet and flugelhorn playing nudging the band in a small swing combo direction. That said, Olive Rudd challenged the boys with I Double Dare You ahead of a rattlingly good Muskrat Ramble. Now then, here's a departure...Wade and McBriarty retired to the bar as the Solomon-Fairley (Kai Winding-JJ Johnson) partnership dug Monk's Blue Monk. Not sure what the Dixielanders made of it all - Dirty Boppers etc - but this was great stuff! 

You can't go wrong with C Jam Blues and Classic Swing didn't - put a foot wrong, that is. Rosetta, then the band's now traditional closing number, Tuxedo Junction fortified the dance floor jivers as they prepared themselves to face a freezing late night journey home.    

Russell.