Lazy River Jazz Band @ The Exchange, North Shields - Feb 27

Chris Perrin (clarinet, alto sax, piano); Veronica Perrin (trumpet, melodica, vocals); John Crisp (trombone, vocals); Ian Bradshaw (guitar); Phil Rutherford (sousaphone)

(Review.photos by Russell).

You have a tour of southern Spain coming up, band members live across the north of England, how best to arrange a rehearsal session? The Exchange in North Shields seemed like as good a location as any, set a date, turn up and play, oh, and invite anyone in the vicinity to drop by to listen. 

The Lazy River Jazz Band duly assembled in North Shields, an audience materialised and a low key gig got underway with That Teasin' Rag. The five-piece band (two others will meet up with their bandmates for the trip abroad) appreciated the fact that some Dixieland fans made the effort to get along and it was down to Veronica Perrin to make the announcements in between playing trumpet, melodica (on one number), mini washboard (similarly, on one number only) and singing a few numbers. Percolatin' Blues (a rarely heard number, said Perrin) and Someday Sweetheart (a feature for local lad Phil Rutherford on sousaphone) kept things moving along.

Old Fashioned Love followed by The Coffee Grinder kept the pot simmering nicely as Chris Perrin swopped clarinet for alto sax for a Latin oddity - Mama Inez - which John Hallam, sitting at an adjacent table, recalled from dance band gigs. The setlist was nothing if not varied and the Lazy River crew got back on course sailing the down the Tyne/Mississippi King Oliver-style with the appropriately titled Riverside Blues. 

Veronica Perrin diverted the band down a  Kentucky country road for a 'bit of country' playing an instrument familiar (not!) to Buddy Bolden...the melodica. What would the legendary figure have made of it?! Artie Matthews' Weary Blues restored order just in time for an interval pint of Thomas Brown. 

 

During the interval, Chris Perrin wandered over to the house upright to quietly play some impressive piano from ragtime to stride. 

Buddy's Habit resumed matters, Mama's Gone, Goodbye and a traditional hymn - At the Cross - sought to transport us from high above North Shields' Fish Quay to the Louisiana bayou as the Lazy River Jazz Band went for it on Clarence Williams' Cushion Foot Stomp. Two sets of New Orleans to Dixie and beyond, our soon-to-be European tourists were about ready to call it a day but not before a spirited Some of These Days, Gospel Train (by way of a brief waltz into Tennessee country) and, of course, (Up a) Lazy River.        

Russell