Reporter: Tony Sheldon
Date online: 12/06/2008

New Orleans Wiggle are a five piece band playing slow style New Orleans jazz which appeals to many aficionados but without some variety for the more rumbustious listeners, an evening can drag unless the band has tight team work and is virtually note perfect, and I regret that they failed on both counts.

Saving grace was certainly their superb vocalist Carolyn Topsy Hilton (Top C – get it) who had a wonderful range, looks younger than she admits, and with a bit of luck, in the right places, could develop a thriving sector she chooses songs rarely given air which adds to the mystique bringing interaction – “The George Brown” with Pete Beaumont’s boogie piano, “Honey”, “Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night”, “He Touched Me” with the spiritual clarinet of Gerry Owen and muted trumpet of John Hummerston, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” with trumpet and tenor sax, the bluesy “Blossom Blues”. Blossom Berries classic, and “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave To Me” backed by the musical tones of the middle east – you can grasp the range of her talent.

The band is led by drummer Richard Lord, with the soft drumming style expected, but his intros lacked any kind of personality and if a smile crossed his face, then I must have ventured to the bar at that moment, and the musical intros of Hummerston made me reflect “Me Thinks He Talks To Much”.

It is imperative with this musical style to have sharp and expectant introductions.

A very flat scratchy start with “Four Leaf Clover” perhaps gave the wrong first impression, as there were various high points Beaumont’s solo/vocal “Sugar Blues” introduced the antipodean aristocrat of the double bass Angle Hawkins, “Float Me Down The River” with the gentle vocal tones of Hummerston and sweet clarinet of Owen, the tenor sax strutting of Owen in “Algiers Stuff”, a nice blend of piano and bow bass accompanying Owens vocal in “Breeze”, a very different arrangement of “Chimes Blues” with Beaumont’s piano leading the chimes, and piano variations and slap bass solo with the evergreen “Hindustan”.

The evening ended with piano and bass intro for Topsy Hilton’s dreamy vocal of “Love Songs Of The Nile” the melodic clarinet of Owen and muted trumpet interpretations from Hummerston.

The wiggle needs a little more fine tuning.