This band has an interesting history. It was formed in 2013 to provide the music for a Renault Clio ad campaign which was subsequently decreed to be too lewd for public consumption and immediately withdrawn. No doubt it will reemerge sometime as a much sort after underground collector's item!
Fortunately, this didn't deter the musicians who decided they had a good thing going, as indeed this digital only album proves, and with the addition of a clarinet player they brought a different dimension to the hot club format.
In the period between then and the advent of Covid they toured extensively, sold-out Pizza Express, played live on BBC Radio 3 and managed 8 gigs in 3 days at the Cork Jazz Festival.
The material is a mix of the original and the familiar done in an unfamiliar way. Not all of it works for me, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square could have had the nightingale replaced by a crow. However that is but a minor quibble and certainly shouldn't deter anyone from investigating further.
Apart from some fine fiddling, Massey lays down an idiomatic vocal on a piece he composed based on an actual experience after he'd lost his passport - Down and Out in Paris and Catford. Another vocal is Telegraph Hill, a song of lost love and a place where that lost love is fondly remembered.
As you may have guessed, the songs are all about London but often with a Parisian twist. Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge is reinvented as a French musette waltz and it works beautifully.
Other numbers are: A Foggy Day (in New Orleans?); Limehouse Blues; Cable Street Strut; Le Palais de Crystal; The Cut.
Guitar interprets Django (natch!) clarinet swings, as do bass and drums.
It's all good fun that deserves to be taken seriously.
Lance
See poster for details of livestream launch on April 16.
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