Feet don't fail me now.

Monday night made it out which is always a good feeling in itself.

Don Weller on Sax, was back after a period of ill health, John Donaldson on keyboards was back after a spell in the States, I was just back as was Andrew Cleyndert on bass and Trevor Tomkins on drums. It was a quiet night, really – the music and the crowd.

Thoughtful stuff – to match a small crowd. Weller is a man of few words, mainly ‘one, two, three, four’, so I can’t tell you what I heard except it was mainly standards, with two originals at the end; ‘juice’ and ‘half twist’.

It was mainly a night of brushes rather than drumsticks, so my mind wandered a bit.

I was thinking about the drive up to town, when I noticed that the cherry trees were in flower. In Japan, that’s a very big deal indeed. The parks are full of Cherry trees and the crowds really turn out for this, with cameras and mobile phones at the ready.

What they are waiting for is a particular moment, frozen in time, when the first petals start to fall. It’s not waiting for the lot to drop off, they are hoping for a gentle breeze to pull loose just a few isolated petals, which then fall slowly and diagonally to the ground, against the backdrop of the blossoming trees.

I caught it once, in Kew gardens where they have a small Japanese garden, it was unforgettable and just like the first two numbers last night.

The faintest of tap, tap, tap on the hard edge of a cymbal.

But, as usual, I was looking for something a bit more upbeat – I have enough thinking. I want to let a tapping foot do the thinking for me, just for an evening, anyway.

I was envious – I didn’t win the raffle. The Miles Davis Quintet concert in Copenhagen, 1961. The new quintet, after the ‘Trane left. Mind you, the first number on that is ‘Autumn Leaves’. No time for that now.

The campaign too – too much lounging about. But that’s nothing that some up tempo won’t sort out.

Feet don’t fail me now.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

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