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 time with the standard line-up. The audience was small but included Derek from Oban, our furthest flung (ir)regular. Brian kindly said that we were missed last week.
Every number was good but our favourites were:
'Melancholy Blues' after a false start with Pete Towndrow playing in Eb against the others in F;
'Whispering', unusually including the verse, played on the trombone;
'Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out';
'Georgia Grind', with some of the audience, including me, joining in to echo the title words;
and best of all
Alan Dandy (pictured) with bass and drums playing 'Oh Look At Me Now'. As a member of the Tommy Dorsey band, pianist Joe Bushkin wrote this number with John DeVries supplying the lyrics. The song launched the career of the young Frank Sinatra, who was then the band's vocalist.

Labels: Jazz