Isomatic UK Weblog

On Thursday evening we went to the Berrylands Hotel in Surbiton, where Brian White's Magna jazz band performs every week. This 'Magna' band featured the normal line-up so I have pictured Richard Lyons as he rarely gets a mention for his good work on bass. Once again, there were so many good numbers that picking favourites is difficult. We will opt for:

'Little Girl'; restarted in G after 3 musicians had opted for different keys. There was then one deliberate key change from everybody in unison. Alan Dandy was urged by Brian White to double the length of his keyboard interlude and improvised something completely different yet still within the spirit of the piece. Now that is our idea of jazz.

'Yellow Dog Blues' with a fine 'wa-wa' section from Pete Towndrow on cornet and a lovely bluesey keyboard solo from Alan.

'Alaskan Rag'; Alan's solo feature for which silence was demanded and achieved, probably due to the small audience on this particular night.

This band is consistently the best we hear, week after week. There is no weak link and two or three of the musicians would be part of our 'dream team'.

Labels: Jazz