Derek Nash and John Etheridge at The Red Lion.

We had a good night on Monday at The Red Lion, Isleworth - we braved the cold for an evening in the warm with Derek Nash on Saxophones and John Etheridge on Guitar.

Classic Modern Jazz;

Played on the full range of saxophones from little soprano to big old baritone.

With some fine Jazz Guitar as well.

Trevor Tomkins was excellent as ever on the drums with Val Mannix on bass and Ted Beament on keyboards.

There's nothing to compare to listening to 'Comin' Home, Baby' played at full pace.

Or watching Derek Nash working his way through an odd variety of percussion instruments including a pineapple, an orange and cowbells. Photos of those next time round, I'm afraid.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
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Derek Nash and John Etheridge at The Red LIon.

On Monday, I was pretty much exhausted - we did have a night out to see the Jazz at The Red Lion, Isleworth, because one of my favourite saxophonists was playing.

Derek Nash;

As you can see, he had his baritone sax with him as well as the usual Tenor and Alto.

And the little soprano;

Which, as I often say, he must have left in the washing machine just a bit too long.

He is a very expressive, lively and bright player - which is why he's on the TV and at the best venues so often.

I missed 'Comin' home', which he always used to play but there was blues, there was style (Jimmy Smith) and a whole lot more.

His friend John Etheridge was there too, playing some very fine guitar;

Along with Val Mannix on bass, Ted Beament on Keys and Trevor Tomkins on drums.


A very fine evening, even if I wasn't at my best.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Derek Nash and John Etheridge at The Red Lion, Isleworth.

After a good weekend, I suddenly lost three days!

On Monday I had no intention of missing out on Derek Nash on the left and John Etheridge on the right;

Derek (plays with Jools Holland as well as a host of famous names) is one of my favourite saxophonists while John (Soft Machine and another host of famous names) is a very accomplished guitarist.

Most months you'll find one or other of them at Ronnie Scotts.

I really enjoyed 'Summer Samba' but if I'm honest, I was out of it for most of the night.
Trevor Tomkins was on drums as usual while Val Manix was on bass and Ted Beament on keyboards.

As for the next two days; I spent a fair part of it asleep and most of it in pain.

I'll get through it!

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Comin' home, baby.

Now that was a night to remember. We were lucky enough to have John Etheridge playing for us - this month he is headlining at Ronnie Scotts and at The Pizza express.

Ted Beament on keyboards was on blistering form;

Somewhere behind the Saxophone is Derek Nash, he's up there with Art Themen as my favourite sax player;

He ended the first set with Mel Tormé's 'Comin' home, baby', which is just so cool.

While I was listening to him playing his giant, baritone sax I was kicking myself. At the beginning of this month he had an outing with 'The Derek Nash Funk Experience' down at The Hideaway. Now that's somewhere we should have been.

In the second set they played 'Summer Samba', which I've heard him play before. It was a hot and sticky night - just right for a little latin rhythm and an array of percussion instruments including a dried up orange filled with seeds.

Nice!

He had a total of four different saxes with him. It's such a shame he put this one in the washing machine and shrunk it;

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

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Derek Nash; Comin' home baby!

Choices, choices - sometimes you don't know where to turn;

This is the great Derek Nash but something's gone wrong with his saxophone. Perhaps if he blew a bit harder;

Still not quite right - try again harder this time?

That's a bit more like it, nearly up to full size;

Perhaps he overdid it a bit that time;

That's it, finally got it sorted out.

Derek Nash is a very fine Jazz Saxophonist and on Monday he was playing at his very best. Soprano, Tenor, Alto and Baritone Saxophones all lined up and all like fire in his hands.

There were blues, there was a hot and sultry samba to go with the weather. Best of all was Mel Tormé's 'Comin home. baby' which ended the first set; lots of improvisation this evening.

This is John Etheridge, starting the second side with a virtuoso guitar solo;

 

 

Trevor Tomkins was on Drums, Val Mannix on Bass and Ted Beament on keyboards.

 

'Back at the Chicken Shack' finished off what was a great night; breathy saxophone standards then some screamin' and screachin' too.

 

Always quite a night when Derek Nash comes to town.

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

 

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 



Why not?

ZFive Alive

On tour: 17-3-14 to 21-4-14

The High-s                                                                                  Scott Freeman

Throat Cut City                                                                          Bright Light City

Girl in the Garden                                                                     BRD

20 Yards behind                                                                        Devil Neck                           

T and the Mugs                                                                         Pete Davies Quartet

Trevor Tomkins Quintet                                                          The SkaSouls                                    

The Reggulaters                                                                        The Reflections

The Jeff Mack Quartet.                                                            Drum ‘n Bass.

Crossfire Hurricane                                                                  44 Fires                                                                                           

The Carnabys                                                                             UKID

Confessions of a Traitor                                                           Treehouse                                                                                            

The Wonder Beers

Official sponsor;

The

Cancer Drug Fund

L

Of course it was all very silly but there was a reason for it. Back in March I was given an unexpected 5 weeks I didn’t think I’d have.

5 weeks of walking, of moving, of being.

What a shame it would have been to have wasted it.

What fun it all was – MOD music, Ska, Jazz, Drum ‘n Bass and a whole lot more – alternative rock and even The Mighty Rockgoblin.

An amazing time and won’t I just miss it now it’s gone.

Monday night, knowing that I had a rather sombre appointment looming with the long suffering Dr Feelgood at Charing Cross hospital early on Tuesday morning I decided that the only way of dealing with all that was a late night of Modern Jazz at my club (don't the words 'Jazz Club' sound really great?) with the incomparable Derek Nash playing his many Saxophones.

 

There were 4 saxes to match every mood and key – I came to the conclusion that he actually had only one sax but it was inflatable, like those ones you can take to football, just blow it up or down to suit any occasion.

The Baritone came out for Gerry Mulligan but there was also Thelonious Monk’s ‘Straight, No Chaser’ and the ultra cool ‘Comin Home’ written by Mel Tormé.

Nothing could follow that. Here’s the sax, deflated.

 

Click on any picture fopr a slideshow and better quality pictures.

Anyway, Tuesday morning and I was up really early, ready for almost anything.

I can’t believe it – it went well. I’ve got another 4 weeks.

Walking back down the Fulham Palace Road (Sid’s European Cup has been decorated with ribbons in Chelsea’s colours – bit premature there, mate.) you cannot imagine how good that felt.

Poor old Dr Feelgood is stuck with me a bit longer and so are you.

4 weeks? That’s a whole lifetime for me and I’ve got such plans.

May is looking particularly good and then on Friday I catch the;

A

Magic Bus!

Where am I going at midnight on Friday night?

Here’s where –

 %%%%%

Can you guess where I’m going? What’s behind the balloons?

I’m not doing a competition because none of you ever bothers to enter anyway. But it’s somewhere very special and very exciting for me.

There will be a lot of amateurish photos, probably some arguments with waiters and there’s always going to be something completely unexpected happening.

There may be alcohol and I’ll be doing an injection somewhere totally outrageous. That’s outrageous in geographical terms rather than outrageous in…..well never mind about that.

You’ve never been on a coach with me before have you? You really have no idea what’s coming or where I’m going. Stick around for the ride.

My only rule is ‘Why Not?

A

Magic Bus!

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

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Comin Home baby.

I nearly didn’t go out on Monday night. Who goes out on a Monday night anyway? Who goes out on a rainy, windy, cold, miserable Monday in October?  Every traffic light turned red on me when I got near. Traffic jammed up everywhere I went. I was late, wet, aching and cold. I’ve been ill for three days. Grrrrrh.

Sometimes I get home with pages of notes and nothing to say. Sometimes I’ve got loads to say but there’s no point in saying it. Tonight I just came home after the best of nights. Just a couple of lines of notes and an evening that only seemed to last for three minutes.

Where did that go? Whoa, that was a buzz. Wow, that was a night.

Here’s Derek Nash on Sax and John Etheridge on guitar:

 

 And here he is again after he put the sax through the washing machine without checking the label (Dry clean only):

 

 They started as they meant to go on with Nat Adderly’s ‘Worksong’, a bluesy, rocking number given a real working over.

‘Widow weep for me’ came in slower with a blues guitar and a bluesy piano from Ted Beament.

There were two highlights for me – the first was a Jobim samba ‘The Gentle Rain’, John Etheridge playing an exquisite acoustic guitar, while Derek Nash was hunched low on his sax doing his Bossa thing while Trevor Tomkins was tapping out that Latin rhythm I’m getting addicted to (it happened to me last week too). When the guitar and sax shut up, the back row turned into a trio who showed just how riveting 'quiet' can be.

Then we had Jimmy Smith’s ‘Back at the Chicken Shack’ – the guitar thwacking out the Hammond sound, a wild sax and a stomping beat. The stage area is too small for a dance floor but on the other side of the room some moves were being made and that’s where I wanted to be, but then again…….this was where it was at.

I love this shot, Derek Nash is giving it all he had on            

                 Comin’ Home Baby

made famous by Mel Tormé’s vocal version – you know it – really you do. Tonight all the feet were tapping to the instrumental:

 

                               Mmmmmh that's cool.

We had a bluesy trio of TT, Val Mannix on Bass and Ted Beament’s excellent piano. We had John Etheridge doing a fine guitar solo (with delay pedals working overtime) on Dollar Brand’s ‘Um Sandizi’ (that spelling is such a guess I’m embarrassed by it). We had a lot of whooping and cheering. It was a fine night – the best in London and probably beyond.

On the way home all the traffic lights turned green as I got near and that's really 'Comin' home baby'.

bLdeBrunner

    helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:       helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

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Turrentine licks.

 

 

 

                                      'Turrentine licks'.

I’d been hoping I’d be having another laugh or two but having been fairly ill recently it was looking a lot less likely. Also, for the first time I hadn’t been able to write for a fair while – I don’t mean Blogging because as you know that isn’t going to stop until I drop (Tee Hee). No, I write other articles, more complex stuff. This time it wasn’t working out for me - problems, problems.

But I was due to go out tonight and that always helps. I’ve had a number of disappointments recently – things I’d hoped to do one last time, but for a number of reasons nothing worked out. So I had a lot resting on this night at the Red Lion.

www.red-lion.info 

They were introduced as one ex member of Jools Holland’s band, one ex Stephane Grapelli band and one ex Humphrey Littleton Band, so there was never going to be a shortage of musicianship, but that isn’t always enough. In fact the only shortage was room to swing a cat – shrewdly the pubs two cats kept well out of the way and it was with a real struggle I managed to steal a stool to sit on.

In fact, it buzzed, starting with ‘I want to be happy’ at high speed, then ‘Beautiful love’, with big Alto or Bass Sax notes (I’ve never been able to tell the difference – it was big and deep and growling) from Derek Nash. ‘Summer kind of mood’ saw a move to a screaming Tenor Sax which happened again on a Cannonball Adderly number straight out of ‘Workout’.

Then it went into slow motion with a latin number by Jobim, ‘How insensitive’, it was sublime – at least the tiny suprano Sax and John Etheridge’s acoustic guitar were. Otherwise, you could hear people holding their breath it was so good.

And then we had a really stompin’ blues from Jimmy Smith’s ‘Chicken Shack’.

At the interval, I was having a friendly argument with B####, who couldn’t handle John Etheridge’s electric guitar (‘Too rocky for me’) and then “I don’t own any Jimmy Smith – too much Hammond” ending with real horror; ‘All it needs are Turrentine licks’.

I argued it out because this is stuff I love and as a joke I said I’d put in a request for something by Turrentine –of course I didn’t but someone from the band must have overheard me – the first number of the second set was ‘Sugar’ by Stanley Turrentine, as a result I was off - laughing uncontrollably for most of the number.

We had soul - ‘Since I fell for you’, we had an acoustic ballad which just purred and some bop - ‘Sister Sadie’ by Horace Silver, but played just a leedle bit faster and that brought out Trevor Tomkins towel. Tim Wells stood in at the last minute on double bass and Ted Beamont was on the Yamaha.

The last number was ‘Comin’ home baby’, made famous by Mel Torme, although sadly for contractual reasons, Mel couldn’t make it last night.

By this time glasses were crashing behind the bar, the floor was bouncing, the joint was jumping.

Since I got ill, I’ve really gone with the flow. At the weekend I bought an Ella Fitzgerald compilation – quite out of character for me but I was in a charity shop and just saw it for £1-99p. The basic ‘Great American Songbook’ and as I drove home, late into the night I was playing the crystal clear voice of Ella and getting lost in some of the greatest songs of the 20^th century.

                  “I’ll take Manhattan,

                  the isle of Statton, too

                  Just to be with you”

Who writes like that?

A good night, a really good laugh and some great sounds, played out for the love of good music on a Monday night.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:       helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
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