The afternoon session at this year's Jazz on a
Summer's Day attracted a near full house. A welcome break before the
star-studded evening concerts found your correspondent in the Pickled Plum pub,
the sole Pershore hostelry to feature in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide. A pint of the
North Cotswold Brewery's Cotswold Best, a plate of fish and chips,
it was good to chill out for a couple of hours.
County Durham's Emma Fisk would lead the opening set of the evening: Jazz à Paris - Django, Hot Club & the Americans. Violinist Fisk as Grappelli.
Jazz à Paris - Django, Hot Club & the Americans
Emma Fisk (violin); Tom 'Spats' Langham (guitar, vocals); Martin Wheatley (guitar); Curtis Volp (guitar); Harry Evans (double bass) & 'the 'Americans' - Zoltan Sagi (tenor sax); Alex Clarke (clarinet); Graham Hughes (trombone)
Joining Fisk were three Parisian Hot Club six-stringers, Messrs. Langham, Wheatley and Volp. Singing as Freddy Taylor, vocal duties were handled by Spats Langham (I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby). There was a non-competitive air where our guitarists were concerned; tremendous rhythm players, each taking excellent solos, Langham and Wheatley the senior men, Volp, last year's Young Talent Award-winner at the Classic Jazz Party up on North Tyneside.
The 'Americans' dropped by - tenor saxophonist Zoltan Sagi just about stealing the show as Coleman Hawkins playing Stardust, Alex Clarke (clarinet) as Frank 'Big Boy' Goudie playing I Found a New Baby, and Dickie Wells, aka Graham Hughes, knocking out a terrific Dinah.
Ms Fisk's brilliant Hot Club du Nord (based in the north east of England) have played Nuages and Sweet Georgia Brown on countless occasions, the former elicited audible sighs here in Pershore, the latter a barnstorming set-closer.
Hot Harlem - The Fabulous New York Big Bands
Michael McQuaid assembled an all-star band to set up a 'Grand Finale' to the 2023 edition of Jazz on a Summer's Day. At half past eight an eleven piece band, resplendent in evening attire, took to the stage at Number Eight Arts Centre on Pershore High Street. It was to be an evening of Fabulous New York Big Bands, the emphasis on Harlem, NYC. Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson featured prominently. Don Redman, Fess Williams, the Dorsey brothers, they too played their part in two sets of hot, hot, hot big band jazz.
The reeds - McQuaid, Zoltan Sagi and Alex Clarke -
soloed for all they were worth, the ensemble work out of the top drawer.
Sitting behind, the box office trumpeters, R. Tomasso and J. Brownfield, 'bone
man Graham Hughes alongside. At every turn there was an A-lister - Langham, Litton,
Sked and, down from Brum, period percussion specialist Nick Ward. And then
there was Emma Fisk (first set only) and the one to watch - and hear! -
Analucia 'Cia' Tomasso.
AJ Piron's Bouncing Around rattled along, Fisk prominent, Sugarfoot Stomp sizzled, Cia Tomasso impressed (again) on White Ghost Shivers. More Ellington - It Don't Mean a Thing with Cia Tomasso insisting it really don't! MC McQuaid offered an entertaining, informative commentary, not forgetting he had some work to do in the section and as a soloist! Luis Russell's Saratoga Drag, more Ms Tomasso on Ellington's Truckin', it had been a cracking night. Pershore 2023 was an unqualified success, it is to be hoped there'll be a 2024 Pershore Jazz on a Summer's Day. Russell
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