This was ‘Jazz at the Junction’s’ first foray into the vibrant, pioneering Modern Jazz and Classic Bebop era of the 1950s and 60s, the music pouring relentlessly out of the American recording studios of iconic record labels Blue Note, Riverside, Atlantic, Prestige, etc. at the time.
And our featured band for the night, the excellent Rat and the Jazz Cats, treated us to a feast of intense and adventurous improvisation, inspired by those years that spawned so many ‘giants of jazz.’ Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Charlie Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, and so many more. They gave us the ‘flavour’ of that golden era of jazz, a ‘live’ incarnation in our intimate cafe space, as close a re-creation of New York’s ‘Birdland’ Club as we can achieve seventy years on. Well, at least that’s what we’re aiming for, minus the mobsters and the molls !
And when we host Will Robinson’s ‘Last Minute Five’ in November, we’ll become Harlem’s ‘Cotton Club’ in the 1930s !
In two sets of a dozen tunes, we were treated to some ‘classic’ tracks from that era; ‘Work Song,’ ‘Cantaloupe Island,’ ‘A Night in Tunisia,’ Moanin,’ ‘Footprints,’ ‘Mr. P.C.’ and ‘Pent-Up House’; erstwhile standards ‘Summertime,’ ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is;’ Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘Triste,’ and their exuberant contemporary interpretation of Duke Ellington’s 1937 masterpiece, ‘Caravan.’
In summary, they stamped their own musical personality onto the entire evening’s repertoire, and in so doing earned the bonus of a rousing encore from the enthusiastic audience.
ANT GREGORY (aka ‘Rat’), on both trumpet and flugelhorn, displays both the fiery qualities of a Dizzy Gillespie or a Clifford Brown, and the more serene and measured approach of Miles Davis and Chet Baker, with equal dexterity and adroitness, and the ensemble sound achieved with just the two front line horns is impressive indeed.
KENT ROACH possesses a big fat, muscular tone on tenor sax, his impressive technical virtuosity employed in the enhancement and execution of his fluent improvisational explorations (echoes at times of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins) and disciplined ensemble work in harmony with Ant Gregory.
COL HICKS on guitar plays an integral part in both the rhythm section, with some subtle supportive chord structures, and also solos impressively with fast, intricate phrasing, whilst displaying echoes of a firmly rooted blues influence.
ROB OXLEY on bass guitar constitutes, with drummer Ben Griffiths, a solid, supportive rhythm section, firmly underpinning and ‘driving’ the front line horn section, but also impresses with his inventive and adventurous solo excursions.
BEN GRIFFITHS on drums provides a propulsive rhythmic foundation for the front line, whilst subtly complementing and accenting both their ensemble and solo contributions. He employs an explosive, constructive and imaginative narrative approach to his solos, utilising his kit to its full potential.
I’m frequently quite bored with both bass and drum solos, in both jazz and rock bands, but was very impressed with the solo contributions of both Rob and Ben.
And a mention for the audience, displaying both enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, the various and contrasting forms of jazz and blues that we’ve featured thus far: the Mainstream strand of Jazz as purveyed by the internationally respected Alan Barnes and David Newton, the fiery Gypsy Jazz of Ben Holder and Stuart Carter-Smith, the Boogie, Blues and Folk of Bob Hall and Hilary Blythe, and the exciting Modern Jazz of Rat and the Jazz Cats.
David McPhie
Some of the audience enjoying an imaginative feast of intense and adventurous improvisation.