Isomatic UK Weblog

This evening we went to the Berrylands Hotel in Surbiton, where Brian White's Magna jazz band is resident. Again the one dep. was the fine pianist and vocalist John China (keyboard, pictured from archive). He sang 'Honeysuckle Rose' and the great blues number 'Kansas City'.

John's keyboard feature, with the full band, was Night Train. This has a long and complicated history. The piece's opening riff was first recorded in 1940 by a small group led by Johnny Hodges under the title 'That's the Blues, Old Man. Ellington used the same riff as the opening and closing theme of a longer-form composition, 'Happy-Go-Lucky Local', that was itself one of four parts of his Deep South Suite. Jimmy Forrest was part of Ellington's band when it performed this composition, which has a long tenor saxophone break in the middle. After leaving Ellington, Forrest recorded 'Night Train' on United Records and had a major rhythm & blues hit. Enough of all that, John China's version was so good it had David from behind us calling for him to play it again.

Other particularly great numbers were 'Corinne Corinna' and Pete Towndrow's feature, my favourite Hoagy Carmichael number 'Skylark'. Another wonderful evening of fine jazz !

Labels: Jazz