Jim Rattigan’s 12 piece band: Pavillon – 17 January 2020
Jim Rattigan‘s band gave us a heap of joy last Friday. All of the tunes were written and arranged by Jim. The tunes were excellent, and the arrangements special. There were 13 tunes in the two sets, and Jim made use of a lot more than 13 combinations of instruments as well as tempo changes in this well balanced programme. It was a great gig from beginning to the encore, with some avery special moments. The band was named Pavillon after the French word for the bell of Jim Rattigan’s French horn. The band features saxophonists Martin Speake on alto,…
Babelfish – 10 January 2020
Brigitte Beraha is an explorer, an improviser, a singer who thinks deeply about the lyrics. She sang for us on Friday backed by a superb trio. On stage were Brigitte Beraha on vocals, Barry Green on piano, bassist Chris Laurence and drummer and percussionist Paul Clarvis. The programme was very well balanced, with songs by Brigitte and Barry, some standards, and a few surprises. Aaron Copland’s composition of Emily Dickenson’s poem “Heart, We Will Forget Him” was turned into a lovely, sad jazz ballad, which somehow segued naturally into “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” (Harry Carroll composer, Joseph McCarthy lyricist). But…
Ian Shaw with Barry Green – 3 January 2020
After Friday’s gig, I was wondering about why I loved the gig so much, just one voice and pianist, But what a voice, what a pianist! Ian Shaw‘s basic instrument is excellent. It is what he does with it that is so amazing. He has complete control of timbre, intonation, enunciation, dynamics, phrasing, and probably a bunch more components of voice that I don’t know about. More important is how he uses that control. He is an improvising singer, and his flights of improvisation make the words have more meaning. Barry Green says he is working on “the right number…
Kevin Flanagan Quartet – 20 December 2019
Well, it is Christmas day, and I hope you are all having stunningly good holiday. This is the first time I have had time to write some notes out a truly wonderful gig, and I have lost my notes. The Kevin Flanagan Quartet had Kevin on tenor and soprano saxes, David Gordon on piano, Joel Humann on bass and a dep on drums, Oliver Reynolds. About Olivier. One of the joys of rigging the club is watching the musicians rehearse. Oliver was completely new to the music. The the music was complex and nuanced. One of the songs was in…
David Newton Trio – 13 December 2019
I just received the photos of the David Newton Trio gig, with Peter the photographer’s comments: “Brilliant gig on Friday night. ‘The One and Only’ it truly proved to be. Three Guys at the top of their game Dave/Simon/Winston (D.S.W trio) From the very first note to the last, Superb !! Clean,clear and swing.”. No argument there, then. I love the piano trio form, and this one was world class. Our world class trio was David Newton using the whole piano, star bassist Simon Thorpe and the amazing Winston Clifford on drums and vocals. Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet…