Review: Trumpeter Steve King leads a storming night of big band music
Big bands offer one of the most exciting forms of jazz, and in past decades some of the legendary stars of the music brought their orchestras to the West Midlands, writes John Watson.
Among them were Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Stan Kenton and Buddy Rich.
Those legends are no longer with us, but the subsequent growth of youth jazz orchestras and rehearsal bands has kept the swinging big band tradition alive, and last Wednesday night trumpeter Steve King led his vibrant band at the Cathedral Hotel in a concert presented by the jazz branch of the Lichfield Arts organisation.
In fact, Steve founded the band as an offshoot of a school orchestra, and it features professionals and semi-professionals from around the Midlands. It has appeared at venues including Ronnie Scott’s Club in London and has won prizes in the Musicians’ Union Big Band Contest an extraordinary nine times.
They kicked off the Lichfield concert in blazing style, with Dizzy Gillespie’s classic tune Groovin’ High, before exploring some fascinating and often technically challenging arrangements by composers including the great Sammy Nestico.
With pieces including Bob Florence’s Wide Open Spaces, and Jobim’s lovely bossa nova How Insensitive, they showed the wide range of the band’s repertoire.
Vocalist Lynn Dawes combined exciting swing with sensitive interpretations of classic jazz songs, and coped brilliantly with sight-reading the slightly nutty song Abracadabra - great fun.
The show wrapped up on a high note with a storming arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue.
