Commemorating Louis & The Duke's Anniversary With A Little Narcissism...

So here at Pitey Towers we’re rather chuffed and rather miffed simultaneously – chuffed that our November 14^th Cadogan Hall show Goodman and Miller at Carnegie Hall has sold out (hurrah – trebles all round!) and rather miffed that our fabulous November 18^th concert  “The Newport Jazz Festival – The 50’s” has sold around nine tickets and so at this rate we’ll be barricading the door to keep the bailiffs out.  Now, this won’t do at all so we have sprung into action and Mrs P  is currently parading up and down the Kings Road with her sandwich board on whilst I am offloading a lorry full of fake Swiss watches down the local and giving away free tickets with each purchase.

Now, just to give you an idea of what you may be missing – Arkwright, our wrinkled old retainer, has been down into the Jazz Rep archives, blown the dust off the file and served up on a silver tray with a hock and seltzer a review of Louis and Duke 1933 at last year’s London Jazz Festival.  By crikey that was a cracking night.

(Tickets available here for the 18th November)

Review By Peter Vacher - Louis and the Duke

Richard Pite’s Jazz Repertory Company has cornered the market for large-scale celebratory excursions into past jazz history. Remember their successful replication of Benny Goodman’s famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert? This time round, it was two fanfares in one, the first half reprising Louis Armstrong’s ground-breaking appearance [with his ‘New Rhythm Band’] at the London Palladium in July 1932, this followed eleven months later by Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra, also making their European début at the same venue. Oddly perhaps, a certain Max Miller, by 1933 known as the ‘Cheeky Chappie’, was on both bills.

And yes, it was true that both these visiting jazz luminaries were cast as variety artists, appearing with a mixed bag of comics, jugglers and the like, this the result of musician union and Ministry of Labour stipulations then current. All of which was explained in Russell Davies’s sure-footed introductory narrative before the music got underway. That this was in the hands of Keith Nichols ensured authenticity but history also generated the idea that the concert proceedings should recall some of these long-gone variety artists. Thus we had a juggler, a Max Miller clone, a shake dancer, a drum routine, a ukulele act and most amusing of all, the sight of Richard Pite’s burly figure encoiled in a sousaphone, playing the Hungarian Dance no 5 alternately on this mammoth brass instrument and on a tiny piccolo fished out from a pocket.

The music accomplished much, most notably via Enrico Tomasso’s brilliant recreations of the Louis repertoire and Nichols’ avuncular and witty handling of the second-half as his Blue Devils dealt lovingly with the 1933 Ellington material highlighting Tomasso again and fellow-trumpeters George Hogg and Peter Horsfall, all impressively spirited. Just to hear them play ‘The New Black and Tan Fantasy’ was a joy.

"I didn't believe in reincarnation - not until yesterday when (JATP) was brought back to life and playing better than ever!"

The Jazz Repertory Company presents A Tribute to Jazz At The Philharmonic. Cadogan Hall, London. Sept. 14

Charlie Shavers, Howard McGhee, (or) Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie (tpts); Charlie Ventura, Flip Phillips, Illinois Jacquet (ten); Tommy Turk (tmb); Oscar Peterson, Nat Cole (pno); Les Paul, Barney Kessel (gtr); Ray Brown (bs); Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich (dms); Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday (vcls).

(Review by Lance)

I didn't believe in reincarnation - not until yesterday afternoon that is when Cadogan Hall was transformed into the Shrine Auditorium, LA and the above star-studded line-up was brought back to life and playing better than ever!

Buddy and Gene having a drum battle, three tenors honking and squealing selling excitement by the second. The trumpet battle - was it Shavers and McGhee or Roy and Dizzy? They played fast and loose with Georgia Brown she was never sweeter until these guys "kissed" her and sent her, and us, home with a smile on her/our face.

Of course  it wasn't all wham, bang, thank you mam! we had a seductive ballad medley, vocals by Nicola Emmanuelle as Ella and Georgina Jackson as Billie. 

The Peterson trio, as seen through the eyes of Nick Dawson (pno), Nigel Price (gtr) and Joe Pettitt (bs), opened the show with introductions from Richard Pite as Norman Granz and later as Gene Krupa.

Pete Long, Ray Gelato and Dean Masser blew a rousing, was it, Billie's Bounce? that turned into a Pier Six brawl with the tenor players slugging it out for chorus after chorus then 8's and 4's and 2's.

Interval time and I thought it can't get any better than this but it did!

Richard Pite and Elliott Henshaw recreated the drum battle, Dean Masser blew Body and Soul which segued into Callum Au playing I'm Getting Sentimental Over You and Tom Walsh blowing I Can't Get Started.

Pete Long was now on clarinet - not an instrument I associate with JATP - and he sounded good maybe Buddy De Franco did a stint with the Granz circus?

Perdido, maybe it included Mordido and Endido, had everyone going for broke and the only causalities were the audience whose blood pressure and adrenalin flow must have hit the ceiling! Long reminded the worshippers of how the old JATP audiences were unrestricted in their  applause and, if they didn't quite reach the heights of those wild hipsters, some of whom would eventually desert jazz for Rock and Roll, the mature misters and missus' present did their best. My larynx was most certainly in overdrive!The Blues kept the tradition going although I had hoped that Dawson and Price would do a take on the legendary Cole/Paul choruses.

The final trumpet battle 'twixt Tom Walsh and George Hogg meant the concert ended on a high and I use the word intentionally. Top C was merely the starting point for these guys and I've been on a high ever since!

Lance.

"Bristling, hard-swinging, surging, big-toned, competitive, the dictionary can hardly do it justice...What a joy."*

* Quote from Peter Vacher

REVIEW: A Tribute to ‘Jazz at the Philharmonic’ at Cadogan Hall

Callum Au (trombone) at Cadogan Hall, September 2014
Photo credit: Wayne McIntyre

A Tribute to ‘Jazz at the Philharmonic’ by Jazz Repertory Company.
(Cadogan Hall, 14th September 2014. Review by Peter Vacher)

How’s this for a plan? The Jazz Repertory Company’s Richard Pite’s aim was to recreate Jazz At The Philharmonic in facsimile form, using the best local talent, and thereby to pay due homage to these ground-breaking shows and incidentally, their instigator, Norman Granz. Those of us old enough to remember a time when such all-star US troupes came into town, sweeping all before them, Oscar and Ella at the forefront, might have given Pite’s dream short shrift but he has form when it comes to this kind of adventure. More to the point he has a retinue of able players and vocalists who can, momentarily, take you back to a time when a package show like JATP could offer you all that was best yet sometimes vainglorious about this music.

The avuncular Pite, split in two as part-time front-man and drummer, had badged the show as a 70thanniversary celebration and programmed it to follow JATP’s time-honoured routine. Thus pianist Nick Dawson, with bassist Joe Pettit and guitaristNigel Price, opened as representing the Oscar Peterson Trio and my, what a fist they made of it. Dawson played like a man possessed, his keyboard dash and flow of ideas on Honeysuckle Rose like OP on fast-forward. The trio stayed on [with drummer Elliot Henshaw added] for Nicola Emmanuelle’s all-too short Ella-inspired set, this singer’s vibrato wider than Ella’s, her tonal warmth a delight and swing savvy uppermost on It’s Alright With Me. And with me, too.

Tenorist Pete Long, with Pite on drums, and Dawson rallying round, then offered their version of the Gene Krupa Trio, all spirited fun although Long’s emulation of Charlie Ventura was too near parody for my taste. Georgina Jackson was then given the perhaps unenviable task of evoking Billie Holiday in a three-song mini-set, with an augmented band. Nicely done, even if her US-accent distracted me for a minute, but again her innate jazz feeling and sheer vocal élan won the day. As Red Allen used to say, ‘Nice’. And then came the first half closer – The Three Tenors, that’s Long, playing himself this time, Ray Gelato and Dean Masser, all three ‘Brylcreamed and smartly-suited’, as Pite put it, again with the masterly Dawson, Price, whose every solo was a startler, Petit and drumming dynamo Henshaw. Bristling, hard-swinging, surging, big-toned, competitive, the dictionary can hardly do it justice, what with Henshaw’s tireless drive and the rhythm section’s vital swing. Each man on song, trading choruses, eights, fours, riffs, you name it. What a joy.

The second half was made over to the ‘Jam Session’, with the Drum Battle between Pite and Henshaw for starters, the two men as one, the latter just edging it for me, trombonist Callum Au, trumpeters George Hogg and Tommy Walsh added to the ensemble. There followed the Ballad Medley, each player heard in turn, major-domo Long on clarinet, all of this delirium culminating in the Trumpet Battle on Sweet Georgia Brown. Here Hogg’s classy structures emerged a tad ahead of Walsh’s high-altitude forays, both young men compellingly good, as were, well, every one of them. Pite’s beatific smile throughout said it all as did this audience’s cheery approval. Quite a celebration and quite a show. 

70th Anniversary Celebrations for Jazz At The Phil at Cadogan Hall

On Sunday 14^th September at 3.30 pm The JazzRepertory Company is presenting another afternoon concert in its series at London’s Cadogan Hall, situated in Sloane Terrace, just a minute’s walk from Sloane Square tube.  This year is the 70th anniversary of the firstever Jazz At The Philharmonic.  

In 1944 jazz impresario Norman Granz hired the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles and booked a dozen or so jazz luminaries  such as Nat “King” Cole, Les Paul, Illinois Jacquet and Buddy Rich.  The debut was a great success and for the next 40 years Granz took his entourage around the world whilst also selling millions of live and studio recordings featuring many of his star performers including LesterYoung, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson, Gene Krupa, Ben Webster, Benny Carter, Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie. 

The Famous Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich Drum Battle

Around 18 months ago Pete Long and I, unbeknownst to each other, started up our own gigs based on the Jazz At The Philharmonic concept (his in an upstairs room of a Croydon boozer and mine at Boisdale Canary Wharf).   The concept’s quite simple – get a bunch of young turks, pitch the trumpet players against each other, likewise with the saxes, limit the number of choruses they can all take to two or three maximum and get them to generate as much excitement as they can.  We were both surprised by the fact that we’d been doing the same thing at opposite ends of London and amazed at the great reaction it got from the audiences.  So we teamed up to bring it to Cadogan Hall.

Jazz At The Philharmonic 1953

Granz booked tremendous virtuosos and showmen – JATP was no place for shrinking violets.  We’ve brought along some marvellous talents (young and not so young) to our Sunday afternoon tribute – including saxophonists Ray Gelato and Dean Masser, young trumpet demons Tommy Walsh and George Hogg, the great guitarist Nigel Price, piano maestro Nick Dawson and Buddy Rich disciple Elliot Henshaw on drums.

We’re following the JATP format of small bands in the first half and featuring singers Georgina Jackson and Nicola Emmanuelle in the respective roles of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.  

Nicola Emmanuelle with the Nick Dawson Trio

In the second half it’s the JATP inspired jam session and cutting contest.  Should be great fun – hope you can make it.  Click here for more details and here for tickets

The Cynic's ABC

Spending Sunday in the office not catching up with the backload of work.  Came across The Cynic’s ABC penned by Ron Rubin and the late, lamented Campbell Burnap.  Here’s a selection.

Banjo  - The mother in law of the jazz family.

Busy – Having a much better technique than oneself.

Commercial – making more money than we are.

Diatonic – What Fat’s Waller should have put in his gin.

Fats Waller - Ain't Misbehavin' - Stormy Weather (1943)

Jazz  - Originally a four letter word.  Still a four letter word.

Lively – Something you get asked to play just after you’ve played “Tiger Rag”.

Repercussions – What happens when you tell the drummer he’s racing.

Drummer de jour - Richard Pite

Residency – a bed-sitter where a musician waits for the phone to ring.

Zweiunddreissigstel – German for Demisemiquaver.  The shortest note with the longest name.

Louis Armstrong - 'Tiger Rag' (1932)

Bungling in front of Elvis

Most musicians like to forget their cock ups as soon as possible.  Oddly, about 10 years ago I asked Nils Solberg to capture a classic Pitey cock up in the style of H.M. Bateman.  

The gig was with Suspiciously Elvis and all went fantastically well until the last number when I got two bars out and stopped before the rest of the band.  A memorable finale and the picture lives at the top of the stairs at Pite Towers to remind me to bloody concentrate in future.

Nils Solberg after H.M. Bateman

The Mouthpiece Made of Carrot

It’s the moment all brass players dread.  You’re on the gig, you open your instrument case and there’s no mouthpiece.  When I was 13 I was playing tuba in a brass band which was playing at the Royal Albert Hall and my mouthpiece was no where to be seen.  My parents never let me live this down and whenever I do something for my old school music teacher she always introduces me to her pupils and audience as the kid who forgot his mouthpiece (the last gig I did for her was at Christmas and 43 years later out popped the story again!).

How to make a mouthpiece from a carrot...

Years later when I was a pro tubist I had a gig for British Rail to play for a launch of a new, exciting train (that never got built).  The band was hidden behind a screen and was supposed to burst forth and play “When The Saints Go Marching In” at the end of the speeches and a short film.  Once again – arghhh….. no mouthpiece.  I called home but had to whisper as the speeches were going on.  My wife thought it was an obscene telephone call and slammed the phone down.  By the third call I convinced her I had no time to be obscene – this was an emergency.  She despatched a taxi and the mouthpiece finally arrived seconds before the big fat finale.  So traumatised was I by this that I keep a mouthpiece on me all the time even though I only play the tuba ten times a year.

Louis Armstrong - When The Saints Go Marching In

So last week Enrico Tomasso opens his trombone case and bloody hell, there it isn’t……   Now this is the type of challenge Pete Long relishes – he’s the chap who’ll sort it out.  He asks me to go to the kitchen and fetch a carrot and a knife and moments later he’s whittling and presents Rico with an orange trombone mouthpiece.  It works!  And, furthermore, good though the band meal was, it was rather small so Rico was able to eat his mouthpiece after the show!  A win win situation.

How To Fashion A Mouthpiece From A Carrot

If you watch the video and hear Pete going on about B&F productions I should explain that “Bodge and F*** It” is the unofficial name self-bestowed on all Pite/ Long musical ventures.