Sunday night @ the Globe: Art Themen w. the Dean Stockdale Trio - April 21

(© Ken Drew)

Art Themen (tenor/soprano sax); Dean Stockdale (piano); Mick Shoulder (bass); Abbie Finn (drums) + Harry Keeble (tenor sax).

In the ten years of its existence the Jazz Co.op - often, like tonight, in conjunction with Jazz North East - has put on many great gigs at the Globe to the extent that it's impossible to draw up a league table. However, if I was foolish enough to attempt that daunting task then last night's concert by Art Themen and the Dean Stockdale Trio would certainly be in contention for a Champions League place, maybe even outright winners.

It was that good!

Thoughts of the 27 bus were banished. I'd get the last one, I wasn't going to miss a single note, chord or rim shot.

(© Ken Drew)

Themen, probably the last survivor of that golden era of British tenor saxophonists spawned by such as Don Rendell, Tommy Whittle, Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes that lead to Don Weller and Bobby Wellins, kept a packed house enthralled. Nobody walked out although, if the gig hadn't sold out in advance many more would have, like love, walked in.

And love was what it was all about. Soloist to band to audience and back again, love was in the air.

Humour too. Art Themen can join those who, in between the serious act of playing can also add a degree of levity. Ronnie Scott, Humph and Alan Barnes had/has it and so has Art. Prior to playing Jerome Kern's I'm Old Fashioned he remarked on Kern's distaste for having his tunes 'jazzed up' and that if there were any strange noises during his solo it would be the composer turning in his grave. Guess what? We heard some strange noises!

However, entertaining as the inter-round summaries were, it was the music that won the day. Good tunes indelibly stamped with the saxist's signature and countersigned by the trio came across as being as original as any original ever did.

Noel Coward's Mad About the Boy is usually only heard in jazz circles when sung by female singers although, as Themen pointed out, it was matinee idol Tyrone Power who inspired Coward's words and music.

(© Ken Drew)

On tenor, his sound and technique seemed to cover the history of the instrument from Hawkins to Ayler, Trane and beyond. He drove down to subterranean depths and soared with glissando sweeps up to where the air was rarefied. On soprano it was what Sidney Bechet may have sounded like if he'd been born 50 years later. When local hero Harry Keeble sat in for a couple of numbers the contrasting tenor styles brought to mind Ronnie, Tubbs and the Jazz Couriers. The boy done good!

In fact the whole band did good on their generously allotted solos and the praise  showered on them by the guest was more than a mere token gesture.

Congratulations to both Jazz North East and the Globe for a memorable evening. Lance

Hanky Panky; Forest Flower; I've Never Been in Love Before; Cheesecake; I Let a Song go Out of my Heart; Mad About the Boy; Country; I'm Old Fashioned; A Felicidade; Tenor Madness.