Notes on Past Gigs

Wonderful, varied music, musicianship from all four musicians to die for. This evening full of fun and joy was brought to us by Nicolas Meier & Pete Oxley on lots of guitars, Raph Mizraki on basses and hand drum, and Paul Cavaciuti on drums and music stand. After the gig, you could see the audience float home, and the smiles on the faces of the musicians. About guitars, Pete had an acoustic and a rock 6 string and a 7 string. Nicolas had 5 guitars, fretted and unfretted 12 and 6 string instruments. I have forgotten what the other one…

Again, I wasn’t there. I came to rig, and was there for the sound check/rehearsal, but had to leave before the show. All reports on the gig say it was terrific. I am very sorry I missed it. I did get a taste in the sound check In fact the sound check is a good indicator to the enjoyability of the gig itself. First Jonathan Gee sits down at the piano and puts it through its paces. The man is full of style and flair. There was some new music for which he wanted to get the head rhythms just…

This should have been called the Georgia Mancio & Kate Williams Quartet as many of the songs were co-written by the two. But perhaps that would be unfair to the wonderful accompaniment and soloing of Julie Walkington and Dave Ohm. Georgia was on vocals/whistle/scat/sprechen-singen, Kate on piano, Julie on bass and Dave on Drums I keep banging on about vocalists whose production, phrasing and timbre show a love of the words. In Georgia’s case it must partially be because she is a lyricist, writing lyrics for many of the songs with Kate or Alan Broadbent. There was one by Julie,…

From the sound check through the entire gig, the two complementary tones of baritone and alto saxes were a delight, evoking Gerry Mulligan and Paul Desmond. Our band was: Chris Biscoe on baritone sax, Allison Neale on alto sax, Jeremy Brown on bass and Matt Fishwick on drums. The music was all pretty early, ’60s mostly. I do not understand why every alter kacker (yiddish for old person, literally it is what it sounds like) within a 100 mile radius of Stoke by Nayland was not there to hear and see this wonderful music, beautifully played throughout. The gig opened…

I was unable to attend last Friday’s gig, which is a great pity, as all the reports of the gig have lauded it. Jo Harrop Vocals, Vasilis Xenopoulos Sax, Alex Webb Piano, Neville Malcolm Bass, Pete Adam Hill Drums I heard Jo on line, and loved her voice and her treatment of songs. Vasilis and Alex are well known to us as superb players. The reports on Neville and Pete at the gig have been very good indeed, I am sure we will book her again, and I will not miss that one. Next week, the music of Gerry Mulligan…