Classic Jazz Party 2025 @ The Village Hotel, North Tyneside - Friday October 31 (afternoon)

As is the tradition at the Classic Jazz Party, the first full day of concert performances began with the Tribute to Mike & Young Talent Award Presentation. In remembering Mike Durham, founder of the Whitley Bay Jazz Festival, latterly known as the aforementioned Classic Jazz Party, Spats Langham led a half hour set featuring Colin Hancock (CJP co-MD), Chicagoan Natalie Sharf (reeds), Martin Litton (piano) and an all British rhythm section comprising Malcom Sked (tuba, string bass) and drummer Nick Ward. 

This year's recipient of the Young Talent Award, trombonist Steven Osorio, flew in from the USA to accept the award. Across the weekend, the affable American would sit in at the nightly (late night!) jam sessions.

Friday afternoon's session featured four concerts, each one focusing on a particular aspect or period of a musician's career. Oliver Naylor's Seven Aces didn't simply consist of a few numbers associated with the Birmingham, Alabama pianist, David Horniblow's set drilled down into Naylor's 1924-25 Gennett recordings. Niche? Specialist? Yes and yes. Playing to a packed hall? Yes - see photo of a 'jazz head'.

Rare Trumbauer Orchestra took a look at the work of Frank Trumbauer's larger ensembles. New Yorker Mike Davis led a twelve piece band featuring Michael McQuaid (C-melody sax), CJP debutant Joe Boga (trumpet), fellow debutant David Lukàcs and Lorenzo Baldasso in the reeds, Curtis Volp (banjo, guitar) and local hero Emma Fisk (violin). 

Kansas City Six did what it said on the tin. Basie sidemen, such as Lester Young, Freddie Green and Jo Jones, were in the spotlight, their twenty first century successors Natalie Sharf, Félix Hunot and Cutis Volp (think Freddie Green x two) and Nick Ball (drums) doing justice to the masters and their music.

The Emperor - Phil Napoleon. Our man from Davenport, Iowa, Josh Duffee, proposed a set devoted to trumpeter Phil Napoleon's 'hot numbers'. Proposal accepted, drummer Duffee, in the company of fellow Americans Andy Schumm (cornet) and David Boeddinghaus (piano), hot shot trumpeter Lewis Taylor, Lorenzo Baldasso, Richard Exall and Lars Frank (reeds) and a red hot rhythm section comprising Félix Hunot, Malcom Sked and set leader J. Duffee, ensured the half hour set was hotter than hot.

To close the afternoon session, Colin Hancock (cornet, 2019 recipient of the YTA and recently appointed CJP co-MD), presented two contrasting aspects to the Cotton Club Orchestra. In Cotton Club Orchestra / Harry's Happy Four, Hancock enlisted NYC trumpeter Mike Davis, from Portland, Oregon, pianist Andrew Oliver, TJ Müller (trombone), the reeds of David Lukàcs, David Horniblow and Natalie Scharf, Curtis Volp (guitar), Emma Fisk (violin), Ms Fisk's fellow north easterner Phil Rutherford (tuba), the eye-catching percussionist Nick Ward, and one of the stars of this year's Jazz Party, from Paris, vocalist Nicolle Rochelle. From orchestral proportions to the quartet of Harry's Happy Four (a Harry Cooper subset drawn from within the ranks of the Cotton Club's larger ensemble), this was a cracking way to end five hours' worth of top class jazz. Russell