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| (Screenshot by Ken Drew) |
It was almost three years to the day - give or take a couple of weeks - when I first heard Nishla. It was in the old Jazz Café, now the Prohibition Bar, at one of the legendary Tuesday night jams.
Since then, apart from an occasional return to the area, Nishla is now firmly established on the Manchester jazz scene and the choice of her quintet proved to be a fitting finale to The Globe/Jazz Co-op's innovative Summer Festival that crossed the genres and set down the ground-lines for what, hopefully, next year will be even better - tough call!
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| (Collage by Ken Drew) |
Most of the band were familiar faces. Johnny Hunter frequently turns up on JNE gigs (of which this was one) either with bro Ant, John Pope or various bands of his own.
Bassist Joshua Brierley-King currently has an album out which has been enthusiastically reviewed by our Man in Manchester, Mike Farmer and our Man in Morpeth, Dave Sayer. He lived up to their kind words.
Aaron Wood is a new name to me. A trumpet player with that rare quality (these days) of combining lyricism with fire. Remember the name, in years to come you'll be able to say "I was there" whether you were or not!
Richard Jones, no relation to pianist Richard M. Jones of whom legend has it that King Oliver once said to him "Beat it out in Bb Jonesy" before standing at the door of a "sporting house" in New Orleans and blowing a 12 bar to woo the deserters back to the fold. If tonight's Jonesy had been playing, they wouldn't have left in the first place.
Friends; Starlight; Blue Dreams; It Might as Well be Spring; Julian; You'd be so Nice to Come Home To; Comes Love; Home; Up.
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| (Photo by Russell) |
Earlier, by way of a contrast, we had a robustly entertaining set by the Tenement Jazz Band from Edinburgh - surely the best 1920s' style band in the whole of the UK and that's the rub. Jazz being, even in this day and age, still very much a partisan thing, one questions the wisdom of a double bill featuring two bands from such opposing ends of the spectrum and I suspect the somewhat select turn out may have deterred the die hards from turning out which is a shame as they missed what was a fantastic two sets from two totally different bands.
There used to be a record label called Good Time Jazz and that is also an apt description of the music played by the band from Rebusland.
They're a sitting down band which enabled me to observe their foot tapping idiosyncrasies. Youngs, Dearness and Fotheringham were mainly southpaws whilst Clark was more ambidextrous with his feet, stomping on the off beat with his right foot in a sort of syncopated two-step. Trombonist Darley, who appeared to be wearing odd sox, was only an occasional activator of his digital extremities and then, only when the creative juices were flowing from the other end of his body. His Ory-like glissandi would have been a credit to the Kid himself.
Just as Aaron Wood would do later with Nishla, so did Chuck Dearness in this set - wax lyrical that is - with a hint of Red Nichols meets Red Allen in his Bixian approach.
Doctor Jazz Fotheringham is always on call when the Tenements are in town and tonight he excelled on clarinet and on soprano.
Clark, making his debut with the band added colour to the gig, not just with his matching yellow sox but with his agility on the sousaphone.
Youngs aided and abetted him in the rhythm section and had a good line in patter between numbers.
Dave Holland's quote could easily have been applied to this set: "I've always enjoyed the joyousness of that music [traditional jazz], and the sound of everybody fitting together beautifully, improvising together." - Jazzwise, August 2021. Lance
Dusty Rag; Canal St. Blues; South; Milenberg Joys; Meat on the Table; Chocolate Avenue; She's Cryin' For Me; Blue Drag; Weary Blues; You May Leave But This'll Bring You Back; Bogalusa Strut.
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