Heritage Hall Stompers - Jazz on a Sunday

The Heritage Hall Stompers at Jazz on a Sunday.

A rare visit from the North East’s Brian Carrick is always an occasion to savour for the devotees of the original slow beat drumming music of New Orleans. Carrick is a maestro with the clarinet and saxes and he spends a lot of time flying back to the crescent city where his expertise is always in demand.

It is also fair to say, that not all Trad. Jazz fans like this slow style of the pioneers, and prefer the more rousing Dixieland arrangements, but Jazz on a Sunday tries to provide a balance for all tastes.

The Heritage Hall Stompers have both style and musicianship to take both the listener and the viewer back to the dams on the early Mississippi delta.

The music of Kid Thomas Valentine forms an important part of their repertoire and Carrick delights in being able to play the clarinet given to him by the late, great George Lewis.

The first set included Lawrence McBride’s trombone solo “Sentimental Journey” backed by the beat drumming of Dion Cochrane who also vocalised with “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate”.

“Smile, Darn You Smile” provided a banjo solo for Bob Rowbotham with Carrick’s tenor sax in full flow, whilst the muted trumpet solo of Peter Wright blended with the melancholy vocal of Carrick in “Send Me Your Letter”.

Some pure slow New Orleans for clarinet and banjo with Cochrane’s integral drumming closed the set with “Stompin’ at the El Morocco”.

“Georgia Cakewalk” resumed the action leading to Carrick’s vocal and Wright’s driving trumpet powering “Bourbon Street Parade”.

Slow trumpet variations and a muted trombone nuances gave a different feel to Ory’s “Savoy Blues”.

Alan Nobel’s double bass complemented the clarinet and vocal of Carrick’s “Cry Baby Cry” with gentle clarinet tunes and muted trumpet providing the Sunday mood with “Old Rugged Cross” before Carrick’s full clarinet solo in “High Society” led to the break.

Wright’s muted trumpet got the last set in motion with the popular “Chiri Biri Bin” contrasting with the reflective mood of “Last Mile of the Way”.

Trombone and sax inter-solos got the fan’s voices lubricated with “Marie” whilst the integral rhythm of the dreamy “June Night, Moonlight and You” brought memories of younger days.

But if you want a piece de resistance, a breathtaking “St Philip Street Breakdown” is sure to silence any audience and Carrick’s clarinet had the whole room mesmerised – quiet exhausting.

It needed the gentle trombone tones of McBride with “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano” to bring back the equilibrium for the band to play out with “Bye Bye Blues”.

Carrick’s many fans had a ball.