[Dixielandjazz] Alan Barnes

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi Jude and Allan,

Many thanks, Allan, for the mention of Observer newspaper's review of the CD by Alan Barnes with my band of Benny Carter's music, and thanks too to Jude for her kind words on my band's appearances at the recent Bude Jazz Festival.

The record, on Alan Barnes's Woodville label, was released to the distributor network on 22 August, so reviews and airplays are only just beginning to surface. So far, the comments have been marvellously supportive and I've had an advance tip-off from Jazz Journal International magazine that its forthcoming edition will carry a review that is quote very positive unquote. It seems unimaginable that Benny Carter's wonderfully crafted music should be played so rarely nowadays, which was one of the reasons for starting the project. Alan and I were looking for a way of generating gigs together and, since Benny's music seemed in danger of being forgotten, and, since nobody is better equipped to play the lead role in re-interpreting that music than Alan, it was a no-brainer. I spent a winter transcribing and reducing some of Benny's big-band charts and writing some originals on his tunes and we premiered the project at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival in 2008. It's not easy music to play, as Benny wrote for the top of the profession, but it's marvellously rewarding to play. I'll keep the list posted about future reviews, honest!

It was lovely meeting Jude at Bude (poetry at no extra charge!) and it's just a pity I didn't get the chance to hear her sing. We drove 500 miles to do 3 gigs in 2 days, then shot back up the road right after the final concert, so there was no time for hanging-out after hours. I'm not sure what the audiences knew of us or what they were expecting from our opening concert of Jelly Roll Morton's music.We cross-refer a lot to the history of individual pieces, but my charts are driven more by the character of the piece and by a desire to say something original about it. Hence a Jungle Blues that involves all of Jelly's thematic material, but also some modal jazz soloing and a passage of hard-bop ensemble. It all makes some sort of musical sense, at least to me, and there's a perverse thrill in leading a traddy audience by the ear into territory they would probably shun in the normal course of events. In any event, they appeared to like it, so we weren't threatened with charges of heresy.

The concert with Alan Barnes was a marvellous celebration of Benny Carter's music in which we played some of the music from the new CD but also a lot of other things which we haven't recorded. Again the audience was very enthusiastic, the band played its socks off and Alan was in scorching form. Our final gig, with guest and old pal Duke Heitger, was a programme of music associated with Louis Armstrong. Much of the material was drawn from our CD together on Lake Records, but there were also some brand new charts I'd written for Duke. We hadn't seen Duke or played with him for over a year and there was no time for a rehearsal, so the gig had that edge to it when everyone is sight-reading stuff for the first time, at tempo and in front of a seated concert audience. Adrenalin by the bucketful was available to the medics, but none showed up. Duke was on fire, as was the band, and fortunately there is a recording of the whole gig. Alas it's nowhere near studio quality, but good enough to enjoy once one's ears adjust to the lop-sided balance.

Incidentally the new CD appears to be on Napster, buy I've no idea whether it's available for free listeniing or just download purchase.

Regards,

Ken Mathieson