(Preview
by Russell)
This year's Darlington Jazz Festival,
the eighth, promises to be the best yet. Established venues will continue to
play host to top-flight jazz and a new initiative will see major concert
performances presented in a town centre marquee. And, for night owls, there
will be a late night jam session. From parish centre to church to cafe bar to
ancient hostelry jazz will spill out onto the streets enticing the unsuspecting
passer-by...Is this jazz? Yes, come on in!
Walk into the Voodoo Cafe on Friday
evening (May 3) and you'll fall under the spell of the Matt Roberts
Sextet playing the music of Blue Mitchell. Year after year
Darlington-born trumpeter Roberts returns from his London home to present
workshops, conduct ensembles and, here on Skinnergate, blow the roof off the
joint! Down the years the affable Roberts has chalked-up some killer sessions
featuring the music of (invariably Blue Note hard bop) trumpet legends
including Nat Adderley, Lee Morgan and Fats Navarro. Year after year Roberts
brings in an absolutely stonking sextet and this year it won't be any
different. In recent times we've had to make do - make do! - with tenor players
of the calibre of Leo Richardson and Riley Stone-Lonergan, this year, how
about Josh Arcoleo? Oh, yes! Add the brilliant George Grant on
alto, Sam Watts, piano, the fabulous Daisy George,
double bass, and drummer Sam Gardener and you've got yourself
the dream band. This Voodoo Cafe gig is always a sellout. If you want to be
sure of getting in - the atmosphere is terrific - arrive by eight o'clock, buy
a beer, queue on the stairs, eight quid in for a nine o'clock start.
Unmissable!
Saturday (May 4), blue skies (here's
hoping!) and more jazz than you can shake a drum stick at. Noon, can you be in
three places at once? Friend of Darlington Jazz Festival, Darlington New
Orleans Jazz Club presents the New Century Ragtime Orchestra with
not one, not two, but three special guests. Multi award-winning trumpeter Enrico
Tomasso will join the NCRO along with period percussion virtuoso Nick
Ward and Tyneside's star vocalist Ruth Lambert. Doors at
twelve, £10 admission for a half past start. But wait! You'll need to be around
the corner in Mechanics' Yard for a similarly early start to catch the Josh
Arcoleo Quartet. It's free admission to the Quakerhouse session and
following tenor man Arcoleo it's MGB (that's the Debra
Milne - Steve Glendinning four piece) and after the
Tynesiders' set it's playtime with Jamie Toms' Not Now
Charlie. Three bands for nowt (there will be a bucket collection), now
that's a bargain! Oh, yes, the CAMRA recognised Quakerhouse keeps tip-top
beers. And there's more free jazz - that's free admission as opposed to the
genre - in Darlington town centre which will include the ever-popular Northern
Monkey Brass Band, again, from midday.
Saturday evening will be
interesting. A new venture for Darlington Jazz Festival sees the first use of a
marquee in the Market Square. At 7:00pm drummer Sebastiaan de
Krom leads a starry quintet. Mere mention of the names should
guarantee a full house - Martin Shaw, trumpet, Brandon
Allen, sax, Gareth Williams, piano, and double bassist Steve
Watts. £12 admission, recommended. And if you still want more there will be
a late night jam session with a plethora of sitters-in (Dean Stockdale,
piano) at the Pennyweight pub. Two pints of your finest and a packet of crisps,
please!
Sunday (May 5). Come on, wake up!
The Gypsy Jazz Brunch starts at ten! At Hush Bar on
Coniscliffe Road, free admission - do buy a pastry - there will be a world-class start to the final day of this year's Darlington Jazz Festival. James
Birkett and Emma Fisk of Eddie Lang-Joe Venuti fame
will be partaking of a latte in between playing some six and four string
'classic era' jazz. As a bonus Strings Attached (the guitar
and violin of Shaun Henderson and Gordon Dyke)
will be brunching with James/Eddie and Emma/Joe.
Get me to the church - St Cuthbert's
- on time...two o'clock prompt for a rare appearance by Triptych (Paul
Edis, piano, Paul Susans, double bass, bass guitar, and Rob
Walker, drums, percussion), and a special guest from London Aga
Serugo-Lugo (clarinet, sax, vocals) together with a full-scale Darlington-based
choir. £5 on the door. At six o'clock in the Market Square marquee Matt
Roberts conducts County Durham's premier big band Durham
Alumni Big Band in what promises to be a Darlington Jazz Festival
concert finale with a difference. Think iconic 1980s tunes, TV themes - who
knows what else?! - the DABB has been busy working on Roberts'
wonderfully bizarre Born in the 1980s' charts. £12
admission, it should be fun!
Darlington Jazz Festival in
association with Darlington Food and Drink Festival, Creative Darlington,
Durham Music Service, Musicians' Union, Arts Council England, Darlington
Borough Council. For further details visit: www.darlingtonjazzfestival.co.uk
Russell
5 comments :
Wow! It sounds like it's going to be a great weekend. However, for those staunch Tynesiders who think Darlo is 'doon sooth' then all is not lost. You can cut your journey by half and go to Durham where the ace of aces, Simon Spillett, will be wowing us with some of the greatest tenor playing either side of Tubby Hayes. Yes, Simon - who is to tenor playing what Billy the Kid was to gunslinging (and he has yet to meet up with a tenor-toting Pat Garrett who could out blow him) - plays two sessions on Friday in and around Durham. Friday lunchtime, catch him with Paul Edis at the Gala Theatre then, in the evening, long before sundown, Spillett and Edis are in quartet mode at Ushaw College. Both sessions are unmissable but, as the Gala is invariably sold out, Ushaw is the place for me!
Not to mention the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, one of the biggest and worst organised in the country. As always, the listener must decide for themselves where the genuine quality ends and the naff stuff begins.
For me the big attractions are Swing Out Sister, Dave Sanborn, Joshua Redman, Soweto Kinch, Partisans, Sergio Mendes, Vula Viel, Yazz Ahmed, Bad Plus, Omar Sosa, Kandace Springs, John Surman, Abdullah Ibrahim, Incognito and Level 42, so I'm guessing a couple of surprises there.
Leading the naff end are Jamie Cullum, Gregory Porter, James Morrison, Katie Melua and Madeleine Peyroux.
And not forgetting Ribble Valley Jazz Festival, featuring ace north east guitarist Mark Williams. I recall last year or the year before planning to do a festival crawl from Darlo to Ribble to Cheltenham but the long suffering, eternally skint Mrs T put a stop to it so we missed out Ribble.
Emma Fisk's six string partner at Sunday's jazz brunch session in Hash Bar on Coniscliffe Road will be Dave Harris not James Birkett.
Another fine guitarist who knows his Gypsy Jazz.
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