Jazz On A Sunday: Washington Whirligig

Barnsley-based Washington Whirligig were welcome guests at Jazz On A Sunday on Sunday 25 January.

Led by David Hepworth on clarinet and tenor saxophone with Wil Robinson on trumpet and flugelhorn, Andy Bramall on guitar and banjo, David’s wife Liz Hepworth on bass and Rob Cotterell on drums they gave a sizeable audience an evening to remember revisiting the Chicago, Dixieland and Mainstream music of The Alex Welsh Band. Curiously like that other unashamedly Yorkist band of our acquaintance, Frank Brooker’s Happy Chappies, they elected to operate without the services of a trombonist - doubly curious perhaps, in view of the central importance to the Welsh bands’ line-ups of original trombonist Roy Crimmins and his successor Roy Williams.

That said David and Wil more than compensated for any supposed shortfall, bringing out every bit of the power and verve of the Welsh bands, notably so when it came to big band numbers but also when with the support of Andy on banjo they contrived to reproduce all the calls and responses entailed in the Ellington/King Oliver blues composition Creole Love Call.

An extended first set kicked off in lively fashion with ‘Fidgety Feet’ then Liz came to the microphone with ‘Exactly Like You’. The jaunty, though seldom heard nowadays, ‘Monmartre’ followed after which it was all hands to the pump for trumpeter Buck Clayton’s composition ‘Stan’s Dance’ written for the author of a seminal work on Duke Ellington, English pianist Stanley Dance.

David and Will were to the fore with the latter taking the vocal on ‘Up A Lazy River’ and ‘Come Back Sweet Papa’ a tune popularised in the 1920s by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five went down especially well. Andy assumed vocal responsibilities on ‘It Had To Be You’, they brought us Alex Welsh to perfection with ‘Love Is Just Around The Corner’ and the set ended with drummer Rob “going all Lennie Hastings” on us during the course of another Armstrong inspired number ‘Oh Baby’.

The remaining sets were inevitably shorter, although no less enjoyable, as the band continued to reflect the Welsh/Semple/Crimmins and Welsh/Barnes/Williams front lines that had entertained jazz fans for the better part of twenty years.

Featured here were back catalogue numbers including ‘I Got Rhythm’, ‘Serenade In Blue’, ‘Louisiana’, ‘Sweet Side Samba’ (with leader David on cabasa – a kind of up-market cheese grater-cum-maraca), novelty number ‘Dapper Dan’ with Wil and Andy, in tandem, ‘Creole Love Call’ then more “Satchmo” and ‘Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya’.

Decidedly up tempo was ‘Beale Street Blues’, Wil’s solo ‘I Wished On The Moon’ on his (handcrafted) flugelhorn was close to perfection and Liz’s vocal ‘On The Sunny Side Of The Street’ called up memories of the Welsh band at the height of its powers.

One last sortie into big band territory aboard Basie’s ‘9.20 Special’ then, not to be outdone by Liz, it was Wil at the mike again with ‘Home’ before Washington Whirligig sent the rest of us home too with that most iconic of Alex Welsh numbers ‘Hindustan’.