I don’t know what to write about this great gig. Superb and tuneful writing, great musicianship, fine solos, super accompaniment all the way through, and a very happy audience. That kind of does it.
Details, details.
The personnel were Chris Bowden on tenor and alto saxes, Bryan Corbett on trumpet, flugel and stompbox, Jim Watson on piano and keyboard, Chris Dodd on electric bass and Neil Bullock on drums.
Chris Bowden writes fine tunes. His orchestration is delightful and varied. He uses the two horns brilliantly. Bryan can vary his timbre either naturally, with a mute or with his stompbox kit. Chris uses that as one parameter, the other being whether the horns are in unison, a harmony or as in “Way Back Down”, a jazz battle, each soloing but listening. That plus his own lovely solos on both tenor and alto.
Bryan Corbett can do no wrong, says he admitting to bias. The range of timbres he gets is amazing. If I had to pick a favourite solo it would be the start of the second set, “Ridiculous Itinerary”.
Jim Watson played with Nigel Price a few weeks ago, on organ. For last Friday’s gig he played mostly piano, some keyboard, and sometimes both. I was looking forward to his piano playing and was not disappointed. Ideas just flow, and he has a great left hand. He had many fine solos, but his accompaniment was superb.
Chris Dodd wrote a lovely ballad, “Autumn Noon”. Jim had a beautiful solo on that one, as did Chris B. His solo on “We are a liar (sic?)” was special. Again, he provided excellent accompaniment.
Neil Bullock gave us a great duet with Jim on piano in “The Old God”. His accompaniment was very good indeed. I particularly loved his work on the last song of the evening, “Pollock Painting”, which was my favourite tune of the show. It was evocative of riding bicycles over wet paint slowly and some frenetic paint heaving in others. Everybody excelled on this one.
Next week, the beautiful voice and phrasing of the lovely Deelee Dubé will grace our stage, with Renato D’Aliello’ mellow saxophone beside her. Bruno Montrose will be on piano, Darren McCarthy on bass and Alfonso Vitale on drums. Deelee is a superb singer, don’t miss her.
Take care
Dave