The Millennium Eagle Jazz Band - Jazz on a Sunday

A sweltering night for hot jazz and an enthusiastic crowd welcomed the boys from the midlands, The Millennium Eagle Jazz Band on their way home from the Peebles Jazz Festival.

Reedsman Matt Palmer leads the band and a number of new faces to Jazz on a Sunday were soon in the spirit of the music.

A first set full of variety had the hands clapping and the toes tapping with vocals shared. “That’s A Plenty” featured Andy Holdorf’s strong trombone with an interlude for the drumming talent of teenager Jack Cotterill. The clarinet and vocal of Palmer brought the tears with “You Made ME Love You When I Saw You Cry” whilst “Memphis Blues” was driven by Pete Brown’s trumpet backed by the double bass of Brian Lawrence.

The banjo of Chris Etherington accompanied his own vocal of “If I Had a Paper Doll” and then blended with Brown’s trumpet in the neatly structured “Buddy’s Habit”.

Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” is not the easiest of needs numbers which came to the fore by Chris Barber “Many Moons Ago”, but Palmer’s rendition on soprano sax received rapturous applause with Holdorf’s vocal of “Always Bringing the First Break”.

Off again with “High Society” a rousing start and Palmer’s tenor sax gliding along Etherington’s vocal of the old ‘pop’ number “Happy Days and Lonely Nights”. The clarinet and muted trombone led the dry “Yellow Dog Blues” and a neat arrangement of “Moose March” featured Cotterill’s drum solo plus interplay between muted trumpet and trombone.

The melodic “Got New Orleans” sung by Palmer gave way to front line gentility with “Melancholy” before Brown and the gang finished the set running riot with “All the Girls Go Crazy”.

There was a real buzz in the room as “South Rampart Street Parade” got the show back on the road with Cotterill’s drum solo ‘extraordinaire”.

“Rainbow Round My Shoulder” led by the trumpet and vocal of Brown backed by rhythmic interplay of banjo and double bass paved the way for “Trog’s Blues” – clarinet solo with muted trumpet and trombone and a duo of banjo and bow bass. Trog, being the cartoonist name of leading reedsman Wally Fawkes.

Some more drumtastic from Cotterill in “Digger Digger Do” and dual trombones; slide trombone – Holdorf and valve trombone – Brown guiding “Puttin’ on the Ritz” the Irving Berlin favourite.

Always requested, “St James Infirmary Blues” was given an individual treatment on muted trombone and vocal by Holdorf, leading to a front line attack on “Wolverine Blues”. It was time to go as the band played out with “Show Me the Way to Go Home”.