All smiles.

At last, the weather matched the time of year – it’s June, the month of lazy days and long cool evenings. Down at the Red Lion, Isleworth, there wasn’t much lazy but plenty of cool. Then disaster struck; ‘Time Out’ magazine has declared it ‘The best Jazz Pub in london’. It’s a disaster because nowadays I want to keep this a secret. Also, there isn’t much competition these days.

www.red-lion.info

Martin Shaw came along with his trumpet, a flugelhorn and a mute – Karen Sharp was on Saxophone and John Horler on keyboards, the back row was Trevor Tomkins on Drums and Dave Green, bass. Those two have been together off and on for quite a while and it shows. It was all smiles tonight.

One highlight was Hank Mobley’s ‘This I dig of you’, which brought out the mute but didn’t quieten anything down – in fact Trevor Tomkins decided to put on his own Mobley memorial, giving his drums a good ‘workout’.

 

 

 She’s looking pretty mean here but it’s always a breathy, throaty sax from Karen Sharp and today a dreamy flugelhorn to go with it. John Horler was solid on ‘Sonara’ and in his own composition ‘One for Clifford’ although I didn’t recognise this version and I’ve heard it before.

 

 

Best for me was ‘Bye, Bye, Blackbird’, heavy on the mute here and very delicate phrasing from Martin Shaw –Grown up Jazz for a long summers evening.

The last short number, McCoy Tyner’s ‘Blues on the corner’ gave the trumpet and Sax a showcase, Dave Green and Trevor Tomkins had already taken their chances again on the Bird’s ‘Scrapple from the Apple’.

I spilled out into the night and drove home in company with Radio 2’s David Rodigan playing old style 1960’s Reggae, a good rhythm to go with the Great West Road and a long, long June night.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

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