The Sundown Jazz Sessions take place in a very attractive small room at the back of the George IV pub in Lichfield and are a part of the Lichfield Festival – great that a prestigious festival like this is supporting the best young jazz in the region.

The room only holds about 30/40 people and was more or less full on Tuesday when I went along, so that plus the excellent acoustics made for a great session with wonderful uncomplicatedly swinging jazz in an informal setting where every note is heard clearly and every facial expression of the players in action is caught!  The music starts at 9.30 and there are usually two sets.

On Tuesday it was a band put together by drummer Andrew Bain featuring Jon Irabagon from the US on alto sax, Percy Pursglove on trumpet and Ross Stanley on keys with Hammond Organ sound.  This was a great band playing a good mix of standards and originals and in a style that was neither too far out nor too mainstream that suited the occasion perfectly.  Jon Irabagon is a very interesting young player now making a name for himself in New York.  He won the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Prize in 2008 and seems equally at home in a straightahead context or in an improvising format.  He is, for example, a key member of the band Mostly Other People Do The Killing, a crazy quintet that plays fast and furious bebop with a kind of rock attitude.    Percy Pursglove made an excellent frontline partner on trumpet complimenting Jon’s varied solos with long flowing lines on the trumpet.  Ross Stanley also added very interesting and inventive solos that avoided the cliches we sometimes get on the Hammond Organ.

Percy Pursglove is featured in an article in this month’s Jazzwise which you can read here.   It’s good that Birmingham players and the great Birmingham scene is beginning to get recognition.

At the Sundown session tonight (Thursday 15th) is the Rob Anstey Quartet featuring Ben Bryden; tomorrow (Friday 16th) it’s the Lluis Mather Band (the one that won the Dave Holland Ensemble Prize) and on Saturday it’s Chris Mapp and his new Gambol band.  All the bands are programmed by the Cobweb Collective.

Tony

Tags: Andrew Bain, Cobweb Collective, George IV pub, Hammond Organ, Jazzwise magazine, Jon Irabagon, Lichfield Festival, Mostly Other Peole Do The Killing, Percy Pursglove, Ross Stanley, Sundown Jazz Sessions, wacky bebop

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