Swanage Jazz Festival: July 8 - 10

(© Jeff Pritchard)

This was a great festival and there were many highlights among the acts that I managed to catch. Most of the shows took place in either the Mowlem Theatre or the nearby Swanage Conservative Club - a much smaller building. There were other venues scattered around the town such as The Centre, a couple of churches, the Purbeck House Hotel and several pubs that were hosting festival events. I restricted myself to the Mowlem Theatre and the Swanage Conservative Club so there were some acts that I didn't get to see due to the schedule making it nigh on impossible to be in two places at once.

The first band I saw was the Nigel Price Wes Reimagined Quintet and this featured two superb sax players in Vasilis Xenopoulos tenor and Tony Kofi alto. They made a big impact and I was also impressed with drummer Joel Barford a name to make a note of.   

The next act was a fine quartet led by Xhosa Cole (pictured) an outstanding Birmingham/London based musician who has an original approach to his tenor playing that I find hard to describe. As well as doing Monk’s Misterioso,  he did a great version of that old standard Almost Like Being in Love. Cole, a former BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year winner, is another name to watch out for as is his guitarist Steve Saunders who is my kind of guitarist.

Then it was a short walk to the Con Club to see my friend, alto saxist Greg Abate, who was due to hit the stage with the Craig Milverton Trio at 9pm. Before Greg’s set we heard Craig Milverton perform his Tribute to Oscar Peterson on a Korg keyboard with bass player Sandy Suchodolski and drummer Nick Millward.  Greg Abate then followed with a brilliant one hour set of hard bop during which time he was joined for a couple of tunes by festival organiser and guitarist extraordinaire Nigel Price. The Charlie Parker tune Yardbird Suite  was well received by the room full of fans and also the Kenny Barron number Voyage. On Donna Lee, Greg got into some high velocity interplay with Nick Millward and so ended one of the most exciting sets of the festival.

Other shows that I enjoyed were the Alan Barnes' Octet, Art Themen and New Directions, Mark Kavuma and the Banger Factory, and Henry Lowther and his Still Waters quintet which contained Pete Hurt who I knew from his days as a music student in Manchester.

The final show from 8-45 to 10-15 pm at the Mowlem Theatre was the Simon Spillett Big Band plays the music of Tubby Hayes  concert and it more than lived up to my expectations being chock full of great musicians and lots of exciting solos. There was even a version of Soft and Supple, a tune I played in Newcastle many years ago as a member of the Kathy Stobart Rehearsal Band. The trumpet section that Spillett selected was a strong one and it was a joy to hear Mark Armstrong in top form and also Freddy Gravita who I had not seen before.

                   

To sum up, I had a wonderful weekend of jazz and I would like to give a mention to the sound crew for making sure the whole changeover process went smoothly. Mike Farmer