Not having been in London for quite a while the opportunity to stay in a flat near Covent Garden for a few days was too good to miss - a dozen theatres within strolling distance and just 10 minutes to Soho.
So first things first: what was on at the
theatre? Mark Strong and Lesley Mandeville in Oedipus sounded promising. A
quick look at the web site revealed that anything resembling good seats were
200 quid each - What? Are they covered in gold leaf and upholstered in the
finest Arabian silks? I can tell you now the answer to that is 'no'.
The play itself? Great acting but I think next time I'll keep my £400 and pluck my own eyes out.
What about jazz then? We struck lucky: Joe
Webb was playing Ronnie Scott’s at 6:30pm on the evening we arrived. Perfect!
The first time I went to Ronnie Scott's was in the early '70s and you could get in for free if you went at 9:00pm when it opened, sit nursing one coke until closing time at 3:00am, and also hear three full sets of Ben Webster. Not a bad deal. So I must admit that when the club was first taken over I wasn't overly impressed that there were two sets each evening and if you were at the first one you were kicked out before the second one started. However, now that I am older and wiser, I think that early evening jazz is great as you can hear a full show and be back home in bed with a cup of cocoa by 10:00pm.
However it’s still a thrill to turn into Frith
Street and see the neon sign for the club with the blue saxophone. Now that you
have to book in advance there are no queues and you can walk straight in.
Ronnie Scott’s doesn’t have gold seats or
Arabian silks either but it does have something much more iconic - dark red
lamps on every table.
Having heard Joe Webb before I knew that he is absolutely steeped in the long tradition of jazz piano and can more or less play any style he wants to, but it’s the way he integrates these styles into his own playing and music that makes him so thrilling to hear (for me, anyway).
The reason for this is that as a student I
decided it was time to launch my piano-playing career and for a few months took
lessons with a very good and very patient teacher. Each lesson would follow a
similar path: after listening to me trying to chop up the piano with my bare
hands he would gently say ‘Very good…maybe I should now just show you a few
things…’
He would then proceed to introduce me to the
boogie woogie, stride and swing piano greats - Albert Ammons, Meade Lux lewis,
James P Johnson, Fats Waller, Art Tatum and more - adding to his own playing by
putting on tracks from his vast collection of LPs and original 78s.
It was an incredible musical education and
much more beneficial than adding another hopeless piano player to the world.
The lights dimmed, the trio slipped on to the stage, a quick hello and the music began. As is now usual the set list mostly consisted of Joe Webb's own compositions. The first piece Grey Days (all titles are subject to the limitations of the reviewer's hearing) had a very melodic opening followed by some lovely stride-like piano, a bit of gentle vamping and some then tempestuous solo playing. At the end Webb said the original tune had segued into a piece called Fight Nights - yes, we could hear it!
For the next tune Webb said he had been
exploring the work of Hank Jones and he played a piece called Heart and Soul. The tune was
recognisable but was quickly deconstructed with some incredible piano playing.
Will Sach added a fine bass solo to the mix.
David and
Goliath was written for Webb's brother and had a
slower, more emotional feel with Sam Jesson using brushes on the drums to good
effect.
Joe Webb's love of football is well known so it is no surprise it surfaces in numerous titles of his compositions. The Goalmouth Scramble is a nod to Louis Armstrong's Muskrat Ramble and had a delightful ragtime feel interspersed with ripplingly inventive solos. Sach and Jesson keep up a New Orleans-style marching tempo behind the piano. Another tune was either named after or dedicated to the Manchester City midfielder, Kevin De Bruyne. It had some lovely Tatumesque playing and a nice interplay between piano and bass.
Webb is equally adept at writing slower tempo pieces and a number of these featured in the set but the titles escaped me. He also did his own take on Cheek to Cheek with Sach contributing a great bass solo. Sports Day was a new piece, apparently written the previous day, and it was fast, Jesson keeping up the speed with his drum solo contribution.
This incredible show ended with The False 9 Rag and the trio left the stage to extended applause.
Since this is a North East based blog and a rather important footballing event took place a few days before the gig (which like some comets can only be seen every 70 years) it seems appropriate to say that Big Joe Webb absolutely powered his music into the back of Ronnie Scott's, brilliantly assisted by Will 'Trips' Sach and Sam 'Murph' Jesson.
What about the winning goal? Well, as he always plays a solo piece during his gigs I couldn't have been more delighted that here Webb played a piece by Teddy Wilson, who was my long-suffering piano teacher's musical hero. In contrast to some of the other piano players of the time he loved Wilson's gentle and elegant musical virtuosity and lightning sharp improvisational ability.
It might be said that if Teddy Wilson had been a footballer he would have been Alexander Isak. JC
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