Some of the house band retire and Have You Met Miss Jones? begins the personnel carousel with a
breathy vocal and a stately sax followed by a sparkling piano solo and piercing,
elegant trumpet; the guitar maintains the romance before the singer rounds it
off. Another quick change sees two contrasting tenor styles for Blue Bossa with one more languid and
lighter (a la Lester Young) and the other bolder; a clarinet is a bit buried
but still buzzing round the edges until she solos more fluidly than the tenors
that preceded her. (It’s her first time today!). The second tenor lifts the
mood, bringing more swing and good cheer before the other reeds add a
comforting wrap around this lead.
A three tenor frontline takes turns to support each other
for Killer Joe before Dan takes the
mic for Ain’t Misbehavin’ over
rolling piano and rattling drums before a lovely, full-toned languid mellow sax
solo. Dan croons his way through All Of
Me, shadowed the trumpet with a viola adding echoes of gypsy swing.
Perhaps, in his mind Dan is singing in a tux to a similarly clad audience in a
supper club in Harlem and, maybe, the rain is hammering down there as it is in
Bathford. Coming Home Baby is two tenors,
trumpet and alto over four in the rhythm section; opening loud and bold, it’s a
bouncing soul blues to close the first half.
The house band reassemble for part 2 with a new singer and
a bassist playing a Hofner violin bass, the like of which that nice Mr
McCartney plays. With Shelley on the mic for a lovely rendition of Satin Doll, full of good cheer with
rich, bouncing piano accompaniment, mellow alto and flugelhorn. Fungii Mama is not a song about
mushrooms but a Blue Mitchell calypso from 1964, with Nick adding a snatch of
strongman circus music. With 8 on the bandstand there’s not mushroom for others
(Thank you, I’m here all week). Four tenors provide a big, bold opening wall of
sound for Little Sunflower playing in
unison with added colouring asides and phrases. A stripped down, but still
swaggering, Blues Walk follows with a
full fat sounding upright bass behind the soloists. A loose and detached Caravan evolves out of the mysterious
East, before a rolling Cantaloupe Island
with 3 tenors, clarinet and trumpet out front, piano driving it along, as you
might expect. A bit of bellowing, questing sax breaks off for the clarinet, a
different voice, to take it for a walk down a different street. With this
piece, it’s all about the fonk. Footprints,
by comparison, is all about the mood. Tenor and soprano saxes capture the
intense focus of the original with the piano acting as a Greek chorus to the
sax lines.
It was home time and folks had started to drift out into
the rain. There had been around twenty players and singers and the same in the
audience and I was impressed with the logistics of the carousel with so little
delay. (It’s all about the all-powerful White board). More impressed with the
musicianship, the beauty of some of the instruments on show and, above all,
that sense of community. Jazz? It’s out there, (on Page 18, square C9) you just
have to go looking. Dave Sayer
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