Wynton in Buxton 2023

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Spring 2022 my phone rings and it’s Neil Hughes. Neil and I go back a long way to the days when he was putting on jazz gigs at the Cinnamon Club, Bowden, right opposite my old school Altrincham Grammar. Later on, when he took over the Southport Jazz Festival from Geoff Mathews he’d also carried on the tradition of presenting my octet as a Sunday night finale. For the last couple of years Neil had been programming jazz at the Buxton International Festival so when I saw his name come up I did rather hope that he might want  to book that band again. However, what he actually wanted this time was a little bit different:

“Do you fancy putting together a band to play Buxton this year?”

“Sure”

“It’ll be a five piece with a special guest.”

“Ok- whose the guest?”.

“Wynton Marsallis”.

Several thoughts went through my head straight away. First was “really?, Wynton Marsalis? Why me?” and second was “I wonder which area of Wynton’s music we would be expected to cover?.” I was familiar with lots of his records going right back to the early 80’s  (When I first saw his quintet with his brother Branford at the Festival Hall) and there was some really heavy stuff in there with some of the greatest players around. It covered everything from hard bop, through metric modulation and also reached back to the earliest traditional styles.

I also thought “I’m going to keep this to myself until I’m sure it’s happening.” Although I’ve been lucky enough to tour and record with some stella U.S. brass men, Warren Vache, Conte Candoli and Freddie Hubbard amongst them, the idea of playing with someone that good and that dedicated was still daunting for me. I felt something could go wrong, he might not like my playing or something wouldn’t work out. I decided to take the gig and see what transpired but to be a little cautious about mentioning it around.

Next surprise was: “He wants a classic New Orleans line-up: piano, bass, drums, clarinet doubling saxophone and trombone”. Ok, so we were looking at music as he had performed on the soundtrack of “Bolden”. Very authentic early jazz.

It’s a specialised area and I immediately thought of a young pianist Joe Webb who had knocked me out on the couple occasions I’d heard him. He really had those early stride styles down, had an engaging personality and seemed open and easy to work with.

Having got him on board I asked him to recommend bass and drums and he suggested his regular trio members Will Sachs on bass and Will Cleasby on drums. Both young guys- in fact the latter Will turned out to know my daughter and her drumming boyfriend Charlie Hutchinson-so definitely much of an earlier generation than mine. Keeping things young, I then got hold of Daniel Higham on trombone. I’d heard him in many modern contexts such as the Ronnie Scott’s Big Band but I’d noticed he’d been doing gigs with the young band Kansas Smitty’s so I knew he’d be right for this concert.

With the band in place I tried to find out what music we were to play. We still hadn’t heard a couple of days before the scheduled rehearsal and then some parts, a couple of arrangements and lead sheets popped into my inbox. I printed them off and hoped for the best.

Arriving early for the central London rehearsal I found all the musicians I’d booked already playing which was a nice surprise, especially as they sounded great in this style.

Wynton arrived, we stopped playing and he shook hands with everyone in turn and made a short speech about how he wasn’t going to be difficult in any way so we could relax. Then he said ‘Right, what can we play without music?” Here’s the tunes we sorted out that afternoon:

Oh When the Saints Go Marchin' In

Making Figures

St James Infirmary

Don’t Go Away Nobody

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Lil Liza James

219 Blues

Joe Avery Blues

Cherokee

The amount of detail we went into was amazing to me and completely unexpected. I’ve played most of these tunes before and not given much thought to them other than “these are easy changes to hear and play on”. I expected a quick top and tail on each piece and an early bath. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Wynton talked us through each tune making suggestions about ensemble playing, rhythmic feels and, above all, keeping the interest throughout.

Here’s one example of the precise formatting, taken from the final set list. The form of each tune was set in stone:

Oh when the Saints

Rubato church intro— piano w bass and drums

Trumpet pick up into Head 2x’s in a New Orleans March feel.

Trumpet solo- 4/4 swing

Clarinet solo- 4/4 swing

Trombone solo—rhythm section play breaks and then on cue play in 2

Bass solo—Church rumble with rubato harmonic progression of the form

Trumpet—pick up to head into 2 choruses of 4/4 swing out

Rather than finding this restricting, it gave us the freedom to create within boundaries. The ensembles really benefitted from this approach.

Things that I remember Wynton highlighting include:

Styles of piano comping including chimes high up the keyboard; staying away from the bottom of the piano and drum kit in a bass solo; using different parts of the drum kit to accompany different instruments and a whole set of variants on the New Orleans street feel rhythm with several claves (not sure that’s the right word) played on the high-hat and it’s stand. He talked about directing rhythmic energy into the music rather than into any kind of body movement. Dan fitted in beautifully with some exquisite mute work that complimented Wynton perfectly.

My playing clarinet a third above the trumpet lead on a couple of tunes was approved of but  other approaches were suggested including riffing around the fifth on other pieces.

I asked if he minded me playing alto sax on 219 Blues  (Wanting to get some of my Johnny Hodges stuff in there) and he expressed the opinion that he didn’t care what instruments were played in any situation as long as they were played well.

He also encouraged us to use more modern harmonic knowledge on these ancient tunes, both in the comping and the soloing which worked remarkably well.

We played 4 hours that afternoon with full solos on all run throughs. Wynton was in the middle of a gruelling European schedule that month with the Lincoln Centre Band and I felt that he was just enjoying the blow with a small band. Another nice surprise was Wynton taking charming vocals on a couple of the tunes.

In the break he said “It’s really great playing this music with such young guys.” Then, looking at me “And you too pops!”

He was also telling lots of stories about people he knew including Tony Williams (being able to impersonate any jazz drummer) and Elvin Jones. I was particularly taken with his account of being in Danny Barker’s kids band. After every run through, however noisy and inaccurate, Danny would always declare, “And that’s jazz!”

On the day of the concert in Buxton we rehearsed another couple of hours, really nailing things home until we had memorised exactly what would happen on each tune.

The concert had an absolutely electric atmosphere- we could feel the audience willing us to do well. It was the second concert of the day: Nicola Benedetti had played in the afternoon and there was a real sense of occasion. The band was on top form and everything went off just as it should.

At the end we played a scorching version of Cherokee with Wynton channeling his inner Dizzy to perfection. This was the only tune that was unscripted and we all stretched out on this familiar territory with a little bit of relief. A huge ovation and segue to the pub. One of the truly unforgettable nights of my life.