Spats Langham gtr, bjo, uke, vcls
Danny Blyth gtr, mdln, clt, bs clt
Malcolm Sked bs, ssp
Down from the hills around Snowshill, the trio descended into Pershore to give us a lesson in jazz history. Twenties, Thirties and a bit of Forties is their domain with a choice of repertoire mainly unheard these days. It’s difficult to see why these tunes should have lapsed into obscurity but such is the fickleness of fashion in entertainment as in most things and Spats is quoted as “never knowingly being in fashion". So there issued from combinations of ten instruments and voices a diverse collection of numbers, each with a potted history and perfectly preserved by this inimitable group of 'jazz archaeologists'.
As expected with this line up, there was quite a deference to Django Reinhart with renderings of Brazil, J’Attendrai and La Gitane but Melancholia gave us an example of the music of Oscar Aleman, a great friend of Django but far less well known and whom, some connoisseurs maintain,was an influence on him, not the other way round.It wasn’t long before the name of Cliff 'Ukulele Ike' Edwards, came up. A great favourite of Spats, this long dead artist entertained club and music hall audiences with jazz inspired renderings of popular songs of the day and, as we were informed, is unwittingly remembered as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s Pinocchio. The ballad Night Owl was a charming example of Ike’s music.
‘A great name from the 1930s dance band era, Al Bowlly, was rememberedwith Spats producing a perfect English singing accent for Got a date with an Angel complete with celestial chimesand then a change of tone and accent for Irving Berlin’s My Walking Stick; no chimes on this one but a poker faced Danny with castanets perhaps playing out a secret fantasy to be aflamenco dancer.
Danny’s mandolin produced a hint of the east on Persian Rug and Sing Song Girl with Spats supplying the vocals and the two guitar version of the theme from the Third Man evoked memories of 1950s cinema. Patience was rewarded for Danny and Malcolm when their singing 
spot came round at last, backing Spats on Besame Mucho, with enthusiastic responsefrom a delighted audience- so boy bands be warned! The music, humour and edificationprogressed with more numbers from the bands chosen era to an upbeat, bluesy finale with Buona Sera.
Perhaps not an evening of pure jazz but a very enjoyable journey back to the time when not just music but almost everything was infused with the spirit of the Jazz Age.
Peter Farrall
