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| (© Jeff Pritchard) |
Another busy Sunday night at my favourite jazz venue and by the time the music began the room was full and again I noticed a few new faces in the audience. Mike was pleased to see such a large turnout and, after a short introduction, they went straight into There Will Never be Another You which featured some hard driving pianowork from Richard Wetherall who always gets a great sound out of the house upright. Helping out in the rhythm section were the familiar bass and drum team of Ed Harrison and Eryl Roberts and they did a fine job handling the tunes that Mike called, some of which involved on the spot sight-reading such as the Kenny Baron tune Song For Abdullah.
Mike’s set list tonight contained no less than three Thelonious Monk compositions, the other tunes being by the likes of Hank Mobley, Kurt Weill, Juan Tizol, Billy Strayhorn, John Coltrane and Hoagy Carmichael. A pretty good selection and as Mike mentioned to me during a post gig conversation, he likes to maintain the interest of both the audience and his bandmates by introducing them to new material now and again.
The numbers that I thought worked best tonight were Monk’s Bye-Ya, Coltrane’s Locomotion and Caravan, the latter containing a super charged solo from Richard and some explosive drumwork from Eryl who seemed to be really in high-octane mode tonight.
A great gig and it was good to see some young people in the audience and hopefully we will see a similar turnout for the next jazz night here which is Tuesday Oct 4 with the Steve Oaks Band featuring Andrzej Baranek. Mike Farmer
There Will Never be Another You; Home at Last; Bye-Ya; Ba-Lue-Bolivar-Ba-Lues-Are; Speak Low; A Flower is a Lonesome Thing; Locomotion; Song For Abdullah; Caravan; Skylark; Rhythm-A-Ning.
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