Lewis Watson Quartet @ the Lit & Phil: A John Coltrane Centenary Concert - Sept. 23

Photo © John Lyons

Lewis Watson (tenor/soprano sax); Mark Williams (guitar); Andy Champion (bass); John Bradford (drums)

If you weren't at Blaydon Jazz Club on Monday or the Lit & Phil last night then you have my sympathy - you missed one/two of the great moments in the ongoing saga of jazz on Tyneside. This was a gig worthy of Newport (Rhode Island) on a summer's day.

The spirit of John Coltrane hovered all around and it was given substance by the Lewis Watson Quartet's tribute to the appropriately initialled saxophonist who would have been one hundred years old yesterday had he still been with us in the flesh.

Coltrane was deeply into religion so it wasn't surprising that the concert opened with Spiritual and closed with Dear Lord. These weren't the kind of hymns that you mime at funerals but varied from tenderness to thunderous sheets of sound delivered by an amazing tenor player who makes all the others start woodshedding 24/7.

Of course behind every great horn player there's a rhythm section although to think of Williams, Champion and Bradford as just a rhythm section sells them short, each one a soloist par excellence in their own right. Together it's "come on world - bring it on"!

A switch to soprano for The Promise - a Latin affair that indicated Lewis' (or Trane's) music covered many cultures. Back to tenor for Syeeda's Song Flute before the set closed with Naima, a tune dedicated to his first wife. Incidentally those last two tunes were the only duplications from the Blaydon gig.  

The second set was an uninterrupted continuous performance beginning with Welcome - it had a suggestion of Happy Birthday about it. Amazingly, throughout the whole gig despite the multi-note flurys I can't recall Lewis, or indeed Mark or Andy resorting to that much used crutch 'the quote'.

Photos © John Lyons

Before reaching the promised land of Dear Lord we heard Resolution, Crescent and Liberia. I didn't always catch the transitions - they were that seamless - however, it didn't matter I just let the whole experience allow me to have a butcher's of what's to come 'up there'.

Mark, Andy and John - such a creative team and worthy of the praise Lewis bestowed upon them. They did him proud as he did them.

The great man left behind such a vast legacy that Lewis was able to present the two shows with very little repetition and still have material left over. 

A third gig sometime in the future?

Who knows? Lance