NICK WARD’S JELLY ROLL QUARTET
Nick Ward – drums
John Maddocks – clarinet
Thomas ‘Spats’ Langham – banjo
Jon Penn – keyboard

Despite it being an uncomfortably warm night, this popular band of musicians had attracted a near capacity audience, which is not surprising since we had on stage, along with Nick himself (drums), Tom “Spats” Langham (banjo, guitar), John Maddocks (clarinet) and Jon Penn (keyboard), a quartet of top British musicians admirably qualified to present the music of Mr Morton. There were no microphones present at the front of the stage, so we had an entirely acoustic performance from John and Spats, accentuating the authentic sound of early jazz.

And what a performance!

If ever a band could be said to play their hearts out, it was this one. A high-octane procession of Jelly Roll compositions, some of which were little known, plus a few other numbers thrown in and it was so obvious that the musicians were really enjoying playing together and could sense the good vibes from the audience. A couple of hours transporting us to a world away from the mundane things of life.

Peter Farrall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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