Monday 9 January 2024 Happy new year everyone! There was a good turnout at Brentford FC Community Sports Trust Hub to welcome back Sarah Spencer and friends from her Transatlantic Jazz Band at Griffin Park Jazz Club. The band played a great selection of favourites mixed with some lesser known but excellent and diverse classics that were thoroughly enjoyed by all. The set included Louisiana Fairy Tale, a 1935 composition on a rare 1938 recording by Fats Waller, and the lighthearted but seldom heard Jelly Roll Morton track Big Lip Blues; also a reprise from last July’s visit by Sarah with the Gene Autry song Take Me Back To My Old Boots And Saddle that became a memorable Red Allen jazz record in 1935, and Ikey Robinson and The Windy City Five’s 1935 jaunty and rhythmic hit Sunshine.
There was a latin flavour with an example of the slow rhumba “beguine” Caribbean dance with Panamanian jazzman Robert Mavouncy’s Begonia and Andrew Clancy delighted with his piano solo feature plating a great arrangement of the ever popular Pennies From Heaven. The earliest New Orleans jazz classic was Papa Celestin’s Tuxedo Jazz Band’s storming and joyous signature tune Papa’s Got The Jimjams! from 1927 and to our delight Sarah and the band played a red-hot version of the Satchmo Louis Armstrong favourite I wish I could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.
Saxophone, clarinet, vocals – Sarah Spencer
Cornet – Magic Mike Henry
Piano – Andrew Clancy
Double Bass – Lord Jim Swinnerton
Join us again on Monday 12 February when we host Moodswing Quartet, a new band to Griffin Park Jazz Club who come highly recommended. They play hum-able jazz numbers from the swing, Latin and Parisienne style Hot Club repertoire and have a special love of the Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelly Hot Club Of France era in the 1940s. Tell your friends, and bring your own alcoholic drinks and snacks if you wish. Zero Alcohol drinks and snacks will be on sale at low prices, and fruit drinks, tea and coffee are free. Tickets £10, doors open 8pm and music starts from 8.30 til 10.30pm. Find us here.
Griffin Park Jazz Club 