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| Edinburgh : A&E : Festivals : Jazz and Blues Festival 2003 |
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| Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival 2003 The Big Chris Barber Band - 50th Anniversary Concert The Band Chris Barber (trombone & vocals); Bob Hunt (trombone); Mike Henry (trumpet); Alan Bressay (trumpet); Trevor Whiting (tenor & alto saxes & clarinet); John Defferary (tenor sax & clarinet); Tony Carter (baritone & alto saxes & clarinet) John Slaughter (guitar); Paul Sealey (banjo & guitar); Vic Pitt (bass); Colin Miller (drums) Date 25 July 2003 Venue The Queen's Hall Address Clerk Street Reviewer Pat Napier
He set the scene by saying that the band had grown from eight men to eleven between 1978 and 2001, so everybody knew not to expect the usual trip down memory lane. This was all about the Barber Band today and, musically, how it got here, packed full of examples of the influences and styles which have shaped these democratic musicians (therefore the band) along the way. It was fun all the way, fast paced: varying in tempo and style, varying band combinations, extrovert Dixieland trad jazz, enticing blues, strident brass and much, much more. News of absent friends drew predictable reactions. Concerted groans of disappointment all round when Chris told us that Pat Halcox, his trumpeter from the beginning, was in Lanzarote. Pat came in for a lot of stick at regular intervals. Monty Sunshine, co-founder of the band and the fans' much loved, brilliant clarinettist, who is slowly recovering from open heart surgery three years ago, was still too frail to be with the band. Zany Lonnie Donegan, who died last year, and would have been in thick of things, was the most absent of all.
Too many superb pieces to mention in detail but here are a few: the stunning very fast tempo, brilliantly-embroidered Alice Blue Gown - a surprisingly new entrant into the band's repertoire - was so good that it merited a full-blast reprise all to itself; the humourous Devaluation Blues; then The Big Noise featured the "smallest combo" a rarity from the rarely-heard bass and drums rhythm section, in which Colin Miller and Vic Pitt had such fun that they ended up at one point with Colin playing the bass's top strings with his sticks while Vic Pitt either played further up the strings or contrasted the sound from the lower strings. The second half started with the history of the band, a superb lead in to the 6-piece sound of the original band in the evocative, atmospheric Precious Lord take my hand. A 1954 composition Black and Tan Fantasy, with its sombre drum beat underpinning, then moving on to marching beat and menacing brass now appears more menacing than it was. Stunning! A stomp through the well-loved favourites Sweet Georgia Brown, Going home, Petite Fleur (the Sidney Bechet composition that Monty Sunshine made so much his own that some fans think he wrote it), took us to that great Negro Spiritual finale When the Saints go Marching Home. The encore, much loved by the band's German audiences, was a potent reminder that jazz constantly reinvents itself, never stays still, never repeats itself, re-examines and reinterprets its roots and, ultimately, draws its never-ending energy from all that. Roll on the next 50 years Chris! For full information on the Big Chris Barber Band's 50th Anniversary tour click on www.wimwigt.com © Pat Napier. 26 July 2003
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