Notes on Past Gigs

  As well as doing the setlist below, Steve Jordan has made the following comment about the gig: “Jo Harrop was a great hit with the audience, myself included, with her seductive phrasing and warm delivery – one of the very best jazz vocalists that I have ever heard.  Of course, this was all complimented superbly  by the other musicians especially Paul Edis’s extraordinary pianism and Nigel Price’s mellifluous guitar-playing.  A special mention also to Simon Thorpe who never disappoints.” I agree. One of the trials of doing publicity is hunting for information about people. it helps if you have…

  Thoughts on Loz Speyer’s “Time Zone”, 13 September 2023 The earlier writeup for this gig made me expect something different and original, and I was not disappointed (you can see that writeup here). Loz Speyer gave us a programme which varied from fun to profound. He writes with freedom in the chording and time signatures, and uses a wide variety of rhythms. The rhythms came mostly from the Cuban tradition, where Loz spent some of his life. “Lost at Sea” was a memorial for the dead from boat crossings around the world. It was very affecting. There were shocks…

The pandemic was extremely hard on artists of all kinds: theatre, on and off the stage, for example. It was very difficult for musicians, but many of them found good ways to use the time. One of the best of these was the genesis and work that produced Five-Way Split. Quentin Collins (trumpet and flugel), Vasilis Xenopoulos (tenor sax), Rob Barron (piano), Máyás Hofecker (double bass) and Matt Home (drums) created the band. They wrote music for it, recorded it, and over time produced an excellent CD of  their own tunes, and some standards.  They  played for us last Wednesday….

Dave Lyons was absent from this gig and is already aware that he missed a corker.  We will see you soon, Dave, and wish you well. This was a standout gig of the season for which I have written a review built around the setlist. Last night, we had a fine quintet of musicians under the co-leadership of Simon Spillett and Pete Long, each one an uncompromising powerhouse on tenor sax, paying tribute to The Jazz Couriers, the UK band that emerged in the late 1950s. Spillett is well-known as the biographer and keeper of the flame of the great…

What a wonderful gig, loved by our listening audience. They really do listen. You learn something new every gig. A bigsby is a lever on a guitar that can raise or lower its pitch by a bit. Rob Luft make beautiful use of his. He added timbre to individual notes as well as using it for tremolo  or other effects. Rob was one of the leaders of the band. What a stunning guitarist he is. He writes well too, see Steve’s setlist entry below, “Gayetski”. I loved watching him use the bigsby and magically switching from plectrum to fingering. It…