Review: Bobby Wellins Quartet

Bobby Wellins Quartet, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Sunday June 30th  ****

If the Glasgow Jazz Festival organisers thought that they were cruising on the home stretch by the last 24 hours of the event, they clearly had another thing coming when, on Sunday morning, word came through that British piano great Stan Tracey was cancelling his appearance at the closing Fruitmarket concert that night. Ill health forced the octogenarian to reluctantly pull out, but the rest of the band – bassist Andrew Cleyndert, drummer Clark Tracey and prodigal Glasgow son, tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins – came north.

What was clear from the outset was that these musicians have played together so long and know each other so well that they are completely tuned in to the workings of each others’ minds. On the stand-out number, a cheeky My Funny Valentine, the ever-inventive Cleyndert seemed to finish Wellins’s phrases – such is their rapport.

You might think that a replacement pianist would struggle to fit immediately in, but Glasgow-based Paul Harrison – said to have been personally selected by Tracey as his dep for the night – did just that. And with considerable style. His Funny Valentine solo turned into a elegant duet with Cleyndert: it was as if they were operating as a unit. On Lover Man, taken at a brisk tempo and imbued with a Latin feel, Harrison stole the show with a dynamic, colourful solo which was nothing short of dazzling.

Earlier, Paul Towndrow (soprano saxophone) and Steve Hamilton (piano) had revealed that theirs is another class double-act. Their short set featured a string of original numbers, though the undoubted highlight was a gorgeous interpretation of a classic ballad, The Very Thought of You.

First published in The Herald, Tuesday July 2

Review: Georgie Fame & the Three Line Whip

Georgie Fame & the Three Line Whip, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Saturday June 29th ****

Oooh, he’s a right charmer is Georgie Fame. He fairly oozes charisma and humour in his very conversational and funny stage patter. So much so that, at Saturday night’s sell-out concert at the Glasgow Jazz Festival, nobody gave a damn that the floor of the Fruitmarket was positively littered with names that Fame had dropped there.

Before he’d even got to half time, everyone from Eddie Cochran (with whom he appeared at the Glasgow Empire in 1960) to Humphrey Lyttelton, whose colourful collection of trousers (on the evidence of the raspberry pink pair being sported on Saturday) he appears to have inherited, had been name-checked; often – in the case of the rock ‘n’ rollers – to cheers from the adoring crowd.

This really was a Fame-hungry audience; one which spanned the generations from Fame’s age group (he’s 70) right down to twentysomethings. And the savvy star made sure he made reference to great musician acquaintances that would appeal to both ends of the age spectrum, from the 1950s teens who would remember him dodging the cast-iron ashtrays hurled at Billy Fury at the Empire to the young people impressed by being in the presence of someone who knew Hendrix and the Animals.

And the music? Well, it was party time most of the evening with Fame – whose voice sounded ageless and whose energy was infectious – swinging out his greatest hits on the Hammond organ, accompanied by his sons on guitar and drums.

First published in The Scotsman, Monday July 1

Review: Carol Kidd & Friends

Carol Kidd & Friends, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Wednesday June 26th ***

The peerless singer Carol Kidd, whose concert on Wednesday night kicked off the Fruitmarket strand of the Glasgow Jazz Festival, is a woman on a mission; possibly a kamikaze mission – if this week’s concert is anything to go by.

Having completely mesmerised the packed Fruitmarket audience with a gorgeous Skylark and a heartfelt Time After Time – and despite saying “I won’t talk; I’ve got so many songs to get through” – she abruptly broke the spell by announcing “I don’t give a monkey’s if you like these songs or not” . Well, that’s one way to alienate your audience; drawing attention to individual members for taking a toilet break is another – which she also deployed early on in the proceedings.

Still, once she’d got that out of her system, she (at least) seemed to relax. Despite having a top-notch, though slightly uncomfortable-looking, band onstage with her, only her longtime guitarist Nigel Clark was given much solo space. Indeed, his duets with Kidd were highlights of the evening. On Moon River, a song they have made their own, he dished up a solo of exquisite tenderness, while Songbird and their own original number Tell Me Once Again underlined what a wonderful musical couple they make.

Kidd, whose first major gig this was after being treated for breast cancer, may have sounded a bit bruised and the voice may not have soared with the trademark Kidd purity, but she put over those ballads as movingly as ever.

Other highlights included an appearance by a Spanish saxophonist friend, introduced simply as Santiago, who stole the show with his gorgeous take on the waltz Emily and singing the Antonio Carlos Jobim part on Corcovado.

First published in The Herald on Friday June 28th

I

Skylark

Time After Time

I’m Beginning to See the Light

Moon River

Young at Heart

I Got Plenty of Nothin’

Cheek to Cheek

How Do We Keep the Music Playing?

II

I Thought About You

By Myself

Tell Me Once Again

Embraceable You

Songbird

Emily (no CK)

Corcovado/Quiet Nights

Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man

T’Ain’t Necessarily So

Under Milk Wood – Again

It’s 20 years since I covered my first jazz festival – the 1993 Glasgow Jazz Festival, and 20 years since the  Old Fruitmarket was opened as the main venue for that same festival. This year’s event opens and closes with musicians who played in the Fruitmarket in its first festival. Here’s the article I wrote in 1993 about a couple of them….

To begin at the beginning. In 1965 the English jazz pianist Stan Tracey wrote and recorded with his quartet his Jazz Suite: Under Milk Wood, inspired by Dylan Thomas’s eponymous radio play. Now, 28 years later, what various critics have described as the best British jazz record ever made has just been reissued on CD on the jazz label, Blue Note. [2013 note: it’s now available on the Trio label.]

According to the original sleeve notes, Tracey played over to himself the dramatised recording of Under Milk Wood before he began to compose his themes. So how much of a resemblance does the Jazz Suite bear to the Thomas play, and does it really matter?

Being completely unfamiliar with both the Under Milk Wood works seemed to make me uniquely qualified to listen to it for its own merits before trying to make sense of its connection with the play.

As performed by Stan Tracey (piano), Glasgow’s own Bobby Wellins (tenor saxophone), Jeff Clyne (bass) and Jack Dougan (drums), the suite is a collection of eight tracks – each distinctive in character but linked by a bluesy feel and some of the best playing I’ve ever heard.

The opening two tracks are wonderful: the first is the instantly hummable Cockle Row, a groovy number that introduces the splendid Tracey/Wellins partnership. Starless and Bible Black is a complete contrast, laidback and beautiful.Wellins’s breathy sax breezes over a repeated series of haunting minor chords on the piano, bearing echoes of Eric Satie.

Another personal favourite is Penpals, with its catchy theme, funky beat, and changing moods – happy to sad, then back again, like an exchange of letters. But for me the loveliest example of this ensemble’s work is the track based on the play’s title, Under Milk Wood.

The melody – far more optimistic this time, but tinged with yearning – is carried by Wellins, clearly under the influence of that other great Stan, the late Mr Getz. Tracey’s piano is flawless, a perfect complement to the evocative lyricism of his sax man.

The play itself was a revelation. Having absorbed the Tracey suite, I was all set for a sad romantic melodrama. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood covers a day in the life of a lively Welsh village peopled by characters with such inspired names as Organ Morgan (the organist), Willy Nilly (the postman), and the fisherman, No Good Boyo. Despite the apparently everyday nature of the town in question, all – including its name, Llareggub – is not what it seems.

We know this because we are privy to the thoughts  and fantasies of the superficially normal villagers – like Mrs Ogden-Pritchard, who sleeps between the ghosts of her two nagged-to-death husbands and makes them chant in unison household rules such as “I must blow my nose in tissue and burn it after.”

I listened to the 1963 BBC radio dramatisation of Under Milk Wood, narrated by Richard Burton – probably the same version that inspired Stan Tracey, and it would be easy to see why. With its oddball characters and rich range of voices, its vivid tableaux of village life and poignant black humour, there is enough in this superb play to inspire a few more recordings.

And so to the connection between the Dylan Thomas and Stan Tracey masterpieces. No doubt Tracey was moved by the play to write some music for a jazz quartet, but there was little in the dramatisation that reminded me of the music. The only specific evidence of the link is the titles of the individual compositions: Tracey’s LP is really a collection of highly personal impressions of phrases (“starless and bible black”), characters (No Good Boyo) and places (Llareggub).

It could equally have been called Eight Eccentric Aunties from Edinburgh. But who cares, when the results are so outstanding?

(First published in The Herald, Friday July 2 1993)

* Under Milk Wood is the subject of a Classic Album Sundays listening session at the City Halls Club Room on Sunday June 30 at 6pm, and the Stan Tracey Quartet, featuring Bobby Wellins, plays the Old Fruitmarket at 8pm that same night. Visit www.jazzfest.co.uk for full details.