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| (© Jeff Pritchard) |
This band took me back to those days when I first got interested in jazz when I was about fourteen years old and all you could buy were 78 rpm records. There were certain musicians who were popular with the fans of popular music but also held the interest of jazz fans. I’m thinking of Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, Ramsey Lewis, Louis Armstrong and of course the subject of tonight’s show, George Shearing who became a big name on both sides of the pond with his unusual sound of pairing piano with vibraphone.
Bryan Pendleton, who many may know from his arrangements for local big bands, kept the tunes fairly short with the result that a total of nineteen tunes were played. We heard a selection of well known standards some Latin influenced numbers and on three of these tunes we listened to vocalist Simone whose singing style reminded me of June Christy or Sarah Vaughan.
All the musicians performed well and I would like to mention what a great job was done by the bass player Ed Harrison a major asset to this unit, and also Eryl Roberts who coped well with the demanding arrangements on a scaled down drum kit. Paul Hartley did some tasty solos on guitar and took care of the announcements. At the end of the evening the final number was Shearing’s big hit Lullaby of Birdland. An excellent concert.
The next jazz gig at the Railway is on Sunday May 1 with reedman Munch Manship. Mike Farmer
East of the Sun; Mambo Inn; Do I Love You?; Always True to You in my Fashion; Let's Call the Whole Thing Off; When Lights Are Low; Ghost of a Chance; All I Do is Dream Of You; If Dreams Come True; Mambo Balahu
; That Old Devil Moon; Our Love is Here to Stay; Isn’t it Romantic?; There’ll be Another Spring; Blue Prelude; Kinda Cute; Moonlight Sonata; I’ll Remember April; Lullaby Of Birdland.
1 comment :
Sounds as though it was a good session. I notice that a lot of the numbers were from the album Shearing recorded with Peggy Lee - "Beauty and the Beat" a classic recording.
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