This, the opening gig of the 2024 Southend Jazz Festival set an assured, good-time tone with a superbly played evening of predominantly pre-bop blues standards and straightahead jazz blowing. Trumpeter Pete Horsfall‘s Mighty Like The Blues project is a quintet featuring the veteran Jim Mullen and rising star Sam Braysher, with a propulsive rhythm duo in Mike Gorman & Matt Skelton.
No surprises in this upbeat set drawing mainly on 20’s standards, leavened with Ellington, Gillespie & Parker. We were served a great selection of horn-led heads and generous soloing passing round the band. The pace let up in Creole Blues with Braysher’s remarkably mature alto, while the second set opened with a terrific reading of Beiderbecke’s Jazz Me Blues that seemed entirely fresh and contemporary.
Horsfall introduced his own composition Blue Peter as “An original, but don’t worry about it” and the audience needn’t have: it fitted perfectly alongside classics like Dizzy’s Blue ‘n’ Boogie & Parker’s Street Beat. He certainly deserves a badge…
Horsfall’s soaring trumpet, Braysher’s tremendously tenor-y sound, and the relaxed fluidity of Mullen schmoozed an appreciative audience that included Southend’s two MPs, both looking visibly wowed.
The festival is its 4th year and perseveres with the incredibly hard work of founder Darren Harper and his stalwart volunteers. A solid programme of dependable headliners – Derek Nash, Southend’s very own Snowboy & Digby Fairweather, newcomers like Tara Minton and Lucy-Anne Daniels – follows this great good-time set, along with community-based bands & workshops. Indeed, the next day I took in some local talent: Dave Warren (not that one, but still a fine guitarist in his own right) leads a Chelmsford-based band DWJQ, a standards-crammed set delivered with gentle panache. As this goes to press, I’ll be playing with Dave in local player & teacher John Seeley‘s Big Band – a community-based workshop, and jamming with Zak Barrett on Thursday while literally looking down the longest pier in the world.
So yes, I’ve got skin in this game, as a local enthusiast and fan, but this reminds me that Southend does have a pretty regular jazz presence in Trevor Taylor‘s weekly Jazz 825 sessions and those at Digby Fairweather’s Jazz Centre, the latter now happily secured by the Council. The cause of jazz has been long fought for in Essex, not least by musicians like Trevor and Digby and – when it was still administratively part of Essex – even through the County Council, which once supported the UK’s first (and only) jazz animateur in the much-missed persona of promoter Joan Morrell who helped to launch the Southend Jazz Co-op which has given a weekly workshop presence for 30 years and counting…
But we also have a great range of venues, from galleries, through theatres, clubs and even the ubiquitous Pier, a range that equals Cheltenham’s, but lacks its fortunate festival infrastructure. Now that Southend’s a city, it deserves a programme that reflects its status and what’s been achieved with an even more adventurous and progressive offering, as well as the benefits of an easily accessible city with great road, rail & air links.
Here’s hoping that Darren’s tireless work, with the support of the hard-pressed Southend Council & Community Investment Board will help to open a new era of Jazz in the City.
Mighty Like The Blues
Pete Horsfall – trumpet
Jim Mullen – guita
Sam Braysher – alto
Mike Gorman – keys/bass
Matt Skelton – drums
SET LIST
Wabash Blues – Isham Jones 1921
How Long Blues – Carr & Blackwell 1928
Creole Blues – (Ellington ballad 1928, alto feature)
Blue ‘n’ Boogie – Gillespie 1944
The Intimacy of the Blues – Ellington 67/70
+ + +
Jazz Me Blues – Beiderbecke 1924
Blue Peter – (Horsfall original) 2020s
I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good) – Ellington 1944
Tin Roof Blues – Rhythm Kings 1923
I Got a Right to Sing the Blues – Arlen/Koehler 1932
Street Beat – Parker 1945
