Peaked too soon.

Come Monday and we made it to our Jazz Club at The Red Lion, Isleworth but I had definitely peaked too soon!

I'd still been feeling good and did a fair amount of stuff during the day including going for a walk in the afternoon but by the time I got to the pub I was out of it; I spent the first half squirming in pain and part of the second asleep.

All of which was very unfair to the musicians who were Trevor Tomkins on drums, Alec Dankworth on bass and Alex Hutton on keyboards.

New to me were Robbie Robson on trumpet and Frank Griffith on Sax;

I was some way under the weather and didn't respond too well to Frank's cheerful jokes but his playing was good.

And Robbie Robson had me warming to the trumpet, never my favourite instrument.

I enjoyed the Dexter Gordon piece they played and 'The Duke' written by Dave Brubeck but owing a lot more to the Miles Davis cover version this time.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
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The view from the front row.

D

 

That’s what I saw (no really) when I staggered off to my Jazz Club. Now I can see who I really am listening to.

It’s been quiet for some weeks and I can live with that. We get all the best musicians on a Monday night when it’s quiet and they play all the swish places at the weekend to earn a living. Us alley cats got a special deal, the rich kids pay extra. After an evening of Northern Soul (Keep The Faith) a seat up the back for some quiet jazz was about all I could cope with.

But when I turned up it was packed out, no seat, no standing room even. So I had to go right up to the front to find somewhere to sit. I was about a foot away from the musicians - there were so many things I’d never seen before – they have hands, faces, expressions even. Now I know who I'm watching.

Mind you, last week up at the back I thought my camera needed a longer lens, now I think it needs a shorter one.

This is Trevor Tomkins from up close:

 

  and this is Mick Hutton on the bass:

 

My old camera couldn't cope with the front row players without flash and I wasn't about to blast them from a foot away.

It was an evening with a smattering of original compositions. Alex Hutton on piano contributed ‘Clouds’, quiet and dreamy while Kelvin Christian on Sax gave us ‘frequency’.

Roger Beaujolais’s ‘Jobim’ was exquisite, combining Kelvin Christian’s flute with Beaujolais’s vibes and the samba beat brought out TT’s signature sound of a stick in one hand and a brush in the other. It hit the spot and was a real homage to Jobim’s music.

‘Laura’ always presses some sad buttons for me while Clifford Brown’s blues ‘Sandu’ had the room moving in time with the piano.

I could get used to the view from the front row ...and the sound.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

One Note Samba.

          

 

 

 

                                 One Note Samba.

Monday was a long, hot difficult day, full of problems. I washed my jacket in the afternoon and hung it up in the garden to dry. It only took about an hour it was so hot and by the end of the night it needed another.

At my Jazz Club it was hot, hot, hot, the air conditioning didn’t work till the second half. The music? That kicked in from the start with a fast blues.

Third number in and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘One note Samba’, was a masterpiece. Trevor Tomkins was onto his signature sound – one brush, one drumstick, Nigel Price’s electric guitar caught the mood of the piece and the heat of the night while the rhythm of Vasilis Xenopolous’s sax hammered out.

Charlie Parker was a theme for the night – in the first half ‘Ornithology’ allowed Vasilis’s tenor sax a chance to duel with the guitar and Alex Hutton’s keyboards.

By the second set the air-con was on, at last. There was also a remarkable duet – guitar and Alec Dankworth's fine bass on a Stanley Turrentine number. The last piece was another by Jobim.

It may have been hot but it was just about the coolest place in town. Fast but ice cool.

After I wrote yesterday’s Blog (‘geezers’), I realised that when I wrote about how things usually ended up in a riot but; “no one got hurt and I made some new friends”  - that was pretty much my recipe for a good night out.

And for once, there wasn’t even a riot.

 

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

 

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