Sunday brings top jazz
AFTER an absence of around seven or eight years, veteran keyboard player Martin Bennett was back at Jazz on a Sunday, leading an Old Green River Band line-up comprising Stan Williams on trumpet and flugelhorn, Howard Murray and Alex Clarke on an array of saxophones (and where Alex was concerned, clarinet in the singular), together with Howard Worthington on double bass and Bill Buck on drums.
Over the course of three well-balanced and thoroughly entertaining sets at Newtown National Club in Castleton, we heard a selection of established jazz standards - Avalon, China Boy, Wabash Blues, Deed I Do, Perdido and All of Me the latter with vocal refrain from Stan.
Then came a range of swing era favourites, including Undecided, I Got Rhythm and Exactly Like You and, with their leader at his gravellysinging-voiced best, a selection encompassing folk, blue grass, country music and country rock.
These were Louise (with Bennett as Howlin Wolf ), Tennessee Waltz, Take My Time and the compelling, rhythmic Meet Me Somewhere in Your Dreams, plus a passing nod to rhythm ‘n’ blues purists, courtesy of Kansas City, together with the nowadays semiobligatory Ellingtonian Element. This saw Viz Duke’s Mood Indigo and Stan again on vocals with Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.
Martin is well-known on the European scene, having spent the last 20 years touring, playing in all the major clubs and festivals from Norway to the Canaries.
More recently he went on two tours to Australia, several to Canada and a memorable one to California. Martin has put together a band of musicians he is proud to present as the Old Green River Band.
The group consists of a mix of old heads and young blood, all of whom have the shared intention of playing top-class music with integrity and passion.
It was great to have Martin back at Jazz on a Sunday again - and of course that also went without saying for Howard Murray, Stan, Bill and the other Howard.
Backslapping aside, however, a special mention has be made of 17-year-old Alex, who those in the business professing to know about this sort of thing insist could be well on the way to becoming the next Amy Roberts. This is high praise indeed.
As Andre Previn might well have put it (balancing on that bus platform): “I appeared at Jazz on a Sunday and look what happened to me.”.