Mike Durham's International Classic Jazz Party: London Blues - the Savoy Havana Band + Too Late? Never! - King Oliver 1929-1930 + The Professor + Tubas in the Moonlight + Saturday Night Pub Jam. Nov. 5

Day two of the 2022 Classic Jazz Party opened with London Blues - the Savoy Havana Band. It was noon at the Village Hotel as the ever-smiling Nick Ball led the session from his vintage kit (skulls, probably bock-a-da-bocks, the lot) transporting the full house and an on-stage all-star line-up (when isn't it 'all-star'?) including local hero Emma Fisk to London's Savoy in the early twenties (that's last century, of course). 

Mid-afternoon Claus Jacobi presented Too Late? Never? - King Oliver 1929-1930. Conversation in the bar suggested this was the set everyone wanted to hear. A standing room only audience chuckled at Jacobi's amusing commentary. As for the ensemble, wow! American hot shots Andy Schumm (cornet), Jon-Erik Kellso (trumpet), David Boeddinghaus (piano) and drummer Josh Duffee revelled in the music of the great Joe 'King' Oliver. Frenchman Félix Hunot's piston-like precision banjo playing alongside CJP favourite Malcolm Sked's sonorous tuba work were an object lesson in rhythm section duties. 

Multi-instrumentalist Mauro Porro made a long-overdue return to the CJP and in addition to his outstanding contribution on reeds, the personable Italian produced a tremendous performance as Saturday evening's piano 'professor'. Earlier in the day Mauro confided in your correspondent that he had chosen to play some difficult charts and was, perhaps, a little apprehensive about performing to a packed hall. Our man need not have worried, the reception accorded him said it all. Bravo!

Tubas in the Moonlight featured not one, not two, not three, but four tubas. Who's idea was this?! Step forward Richard Pite. Joining Mr Pite were Malcolm Sked, Phil Rutherford and Graham Hughes. Pianist  Martin Litton supplied a chordal foundation as the tuba boys set about having some big brass fun. At one point Mr Pite left the hall with his tuba. Where had he gone? This being Guy Fawkes (remember, remember, this was the 5th of November), Pite was about to produce a literally incendiary performance. At a given signal, curtains opened and there was Pite on the patio with a flame-throwing tuba! How he did it remains a trade secret.  

As the clock struck eleven the capacity audience made a bee line for the bar. The Saturday Night Pub Jam was about to get under way. New Yorker Mike Davis was to lead the session with Portland, Oregon-resident Andrew Oliver at the upright. From here on in it was nothing short of sensational. BSH's readership will know all about the Black Swan jam sessions down the road in Newcastle. Invariably one loses count of the number of sitters-in, here at the Village Hotel it was all the more difficult to keep track of who was playing what and when with instruments being swapped mid-number. Highlights were many but right up there were Roya Naldi  and the brilliant Analucia Tomasso, Lucas Ferrari (see photo) from Argentina sitting-in on piano, the rhythm sections (plural) and to top it off, young cornetist Magnus Pickering (pictured). What a day! What a night! It was once again silly o'clock, time to sleep for a couple of hours, no more. Russell