Giacomo Smith (clarinet); Laura Jurd (cornet); Dan Higham (trombone); Joe Webb (piano); Dave Archer (guitar, banjo)
The early show on Frith Street. Kansas Smitty's Giacomo Smith rolled up with his Hot Five. These guys have maintained a residency across town for something like eighteen months but this was a first time appearance at Ronnie's. Given the calibre of musician on stage it came as little surprise to find the room was all but standing room only. If Kansas Smitty's is a brand, bandleader Giacomo Smith did little to discourage the idea.
Smith cuts an amiable figure, smiling all the while, full of praise for his fellow musicians, himself a student of the music. The music in question? Think Armstrong's classic Hot Five recordings, that's the ballpark. Talking eloquently about the music, Smith made a telling point: It's what happens in the music, rather than when it happened. In one concise sentence our London resident American dispelled the notion that jazz from fifty years ago, a century ago, is somehow less relevant, less valid than contemporary trends. And look who was sharing the stand with Smith...Laura Jurd, as 'contemporary' as they come (Jurd will be at Sage Gateshead on Wednesday 28 September), and Joe Webb, someone else who works at the 'cutting edge'. And then there's the new kid on the block, the mightily impressive trombonist, Dan Higham. Kansas Smitty's lockdown sessions exposed Higham to a wider audience. One imagines the young man has a full-to-bursting book of engagements.
Cutting edge stuff in the shape of Jubilee Stomp, Lonesome Road, Willie 'The Lion' Smith's Echoes of Spring (Joe Webb's yer man!), a distinctive take on Perdido Street Blues, a rip-roaring Milenberg Joys, Dave Archer taking a solo banjo feature on a Johnny St Cyr number*, Laura Jurd playing cornet as if born to the instrument and the idiom, Smith and co won hands down.
* Smith offered the thought that Dave Archer playing banjo at Ronnie Scott's was a first. Never before had a banjo been heard on Frith Street. If BSH readers know different... Russell
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