Cheshire Cats – Jazz on a Sunday

Photo: Valerie Bracken

Cheshire Cats – Jazz on a Sunday

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Traditional Jazz fans can often be difficult to please, having their own idiosyncrasies with regard to band formation, and pre-murmurings before the visit of this young outfit were blown ‘out of the window” with rapturous applause as the last strains of the gig faded away.

Teenage drummer Jack Cotterill leads five musicians of great quality. A frontline of music graduate Amy Roberts and ‘slightly’ older Matt Palmer, exponents of clarinet and saxophone, with Tom Kincaid wizard on the keys and the Formula One of the double bass, Jim Swinnerton.

“Lady Be Good” got the show on the road with duo sax, Amy concentrating on alto-sax, but this tight five piece unit depends on perfect teamwork, and the integral piano and solo slap bass skills of Swinnerton put the audience in good mood.

“Undecided” had close interaction of reeds with the rhythm boys fired by some drumming perfection.

Palmer’s vocal of “Someday You’ll Be Sorry”, backed by powerful alto, solo piano, and Palmer’s clarinet provided a neat arrangement, and it was certainly an unusual arrangement of Ellington’s “Creole Love Call”, dual clarinets leading to solo pieces, piano and double bass input and some fine brush drumming, and the interval number “Hindustan” with alto and clarinet had the band going at full speed to the bar.

Into set two with “The Preacher” and Roberts’ alto solo, well backed by the rhythm rascals. Kincaid’s driving piano led “S’Wonderful” with alto and Palmer’s clarinet travelling behind.

A soprano sax solo for Palmer with “Lonesome” plus an interlude for the backline produced a real smoothy, and it was Palmer taking the ‘mike’ to vocalise the iconic “Go to New Orleans” with alto-sax interpretation and neat clarinet arrangement.

It was now the opportunity for Kincaid’s solo piano to develop his take on “Red Sails in the Sunset “with the close attention of double bass and drums, and yet another fine arrangement - “St Louis Blues” found Roberts on alto, Palmer on soprano sax in both duet and solo mode with Kincaid, Swinnerton and Cotterill complementing a team of talent.

Jim Swinnerton is one of the best slap bass players around and is used to great effect in this unique ensemble, Tom Kincaid can coax the keys to play the unplayable, and Jack Cotterill has the ability to fuse the musical sounds whilst producing exciting solos when allowing himself the moment.

The waltz tempo of “Over the Waves” began the count down with alto and Palmer on clarinet, duo clarinets streamlined “Careless Love” with Palmer adding a vocal for good measure.

“Who’s Sorry Now” had Roberts’ alto in orbit with piano and double bass in overdrive, and a request for the flute talent of Roberts brought a beautiful rendition of “A Nightingale sang in Berkley square” accompanied gently by Kincaid’s piano.

It was time to go, and the band played out blasting at full decibels with “Tiger Rag”. The Cats sure got the cream.