Sunday Night @ the Globe: Pop Jazz - August 13

(© Sheila Herrick)

David 'Showtime' Gray (trombone, trumpet, ocarina, perc., vocals); Richard Herdman (guitar); Jude Murphy (vocals, bass); Alan Law (piano); John Bradford  (drums)

I liked the idea, pop songs jazzified. Over the years, for time immemorial, bands have mined the infinite that is the Great American Songbook leaving no page unturned irrespective of the fact that most of the tunes have been worked over many times before by the jazz greats.

The alternative is to either write your own music or to look at the songs that have 'charted' over the past 50/60 years. Pop Jazz have taken the latter course and the results were interesting albeit still a work in progress.

(© Sheila Herrick)

All five impressed solowise. 'Showtime' played trumpet and trombone and, suitably attired, sang the Kinks' classic Sunny Afternoon. Jude sang the Monkees' Last Train to Clarksville. The song doesn't say which Clarksville (there are at least five in the USA) but it didn't matter our girl would have been welcome in Arkansas, Indiana, Maryland, Tennessee or Texas. In fact anywhere that needed a singing bass player (or flautist or saxist). Herdman, Law and Bradford didn't sing but all contributed massively.

I'll look forward to their future development. I didn't catch all the titles as often they weren't announced other than to say 'you'll know this one' which, as a pre-baby boomer, I usually didn't! However, listed below are some of them. Lance

Sunny Afternoon; Let's Dance; The Sound of Silence; Don't Dream it's Over; Last Train to Clarksville; You Make me Feel (Mighty Real); House of the Rising Sun; Roxanne; Wichita Lineman; Stairway to Heaven; Oye Como Va.