Tenement Jazz Band @ the Prohibition Bar, Newcastle - June 17

John Youngs (guitar/banjo/vocal); Charles Dearness (trumpet); Paddy Darley (trombone); Tom Pickles (soprano & alto sax); Doug Kemp (bass).
(Review by Lance).

For a brief moment, I was back in time at The Cavern. No, not that Cavern but the Beverly Cavern in Los Angeles where, in the late 1940s/early '50s, Kid Ory was the resident band and I was listening to Savoy Blues (the Mutt Carey version). No, I'd got it wrong, it was much earlier and I'd just graduated Summa Cum Laude from Austin High School and, along with my buddies Frank (Teschemacher) and Bud (Freeman), we were listening to Bix and His Gang - our pulses racing with Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down. This was when I awoke and discovered I'd been dreaming and was actually in Newcastle's version of Jimmy Ryan's, the Prohibition Bar, listening to the Tenement Jazz Band from Edinburgh.

It wasn't that outlandish a dream, the TJB has recaptured the spirit of jazz as performed anywhere from Storyville to Eddie Condon's and back again via Chicago, Natchez and Mobile - wherever the four winds blow. Tonight those four winds did indeed blow: trumpet, trombone, sop. sax and alto sax - they wailed! Frontman Youngs provides solid backing and chorded solos on both guitar and banjo which, along with newcomer Kemp, and Darley's foot dispensed with the need for a drummer.

Second time I've heard the band and both times I've been knocked out by them. This time it was slightly different as they included a few first-time numbers so, in a sense, we were guinea pigs. If they hadn't told us we wouldn't have known except maybe on, I think, Freddy Keppard's Stockyard Strut which required two takes - ah well, that's jazz!

Dearness, on trumpet, brought Bix to mind whilst Darley successfully alternated between Kid Ory and Big T. Pickles plays in the jaunty style of the early saxists and, happily, avoids the excessive vibrato favoured by Bechet on soprano.

The previous Tenement gig attracted a host of swing dancers but this time there were fewer - I'm told it clashed with a swing dance class out in the suburbs - unfortunate planning. Still, even without the dancers, it was a great night and with fewer distractions.

Come back soon.

Lance.

San Antonio Shout; Barataria; Dusty Rag; Copenhagen; Till We Meet Again; Meat on the Table; Chocolate Avenue; Parkway Stomp; New Orleans Wiggle; Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down.
-----  Tailgate Ramble; At a Georgia Camp Meeting; Down Home Rag; Hindustan; Stockyard Strut; Savoy Blues; Snake Rag; South; White Ghost Shivers; Shake it and Break it + 1.