On a pleasant evening in the High Street waiting for the club to open, we had an interesting chat about Sam Butera, long time reedsman with Louis Prima but not much heard of nowadays. Club steward, Vicki, opened up and soon with candles lit, drinks bought and Roger suitably hatted, we settled down for a much anticipated evening with The Stafford Jazz Society’s Band of the Year (got the plug in early - OK John?)

After the opening number,’Stan’s Dance’ an enquiry from Roger established that ‘Stan’ was not here. Must have gone to Bude! ‘Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams’ sang John, Andy gave us his version of ‘Sentimental Blues’ and the floor was full of dancers for Roger’s vocal on ‘Someday You’ll be Sorry’ Little George, fresh from his duties as Parade Marshall at the Festival and sporting a JB tee-shirt, presented Roger with a mini alto sax cleverly fashioned from wire. It wasn’t quite up to good playing order! So Roger took up his tenor sax for Earl Bostic’s ‘Flamingo’. There followed a wonderful variety of music - the dynamic jump jive renderings of ‘All of Me’`and ‘Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens’, the evocative, Jewish inspired ‘Katusha’ with kletzmer style clarinet from Roger.

More clarinet on ‘A Smooth One’ this time after Benny Goodman with John’s keyboard in vibes mode.

The dance floor was now looking like a rehearsal for Come Dancing. Real ballroom stuff. ‘Every Day I Have the Blues’ had a feeling of south side Chicago and Andy did vocal honours on a fast striding ‘Lady be Good’ with a nice bass solo from Mark. Back to a more swinging beat for ‘I Can’t Give You Anything (but love)’ with a diversion into the Sailor’s Hornpipe during the piano solo. ‘Things Ain’t What They Used to Be’ was followed by ‘Just a Gigolo’ - was there a hidden longing for days gone by in this choice? Great music anyway. John and Roger supplied a Neapolitan style vocal backing to Andy’s ‘Buena Sera’ before upping the tempo with boogie like piano and a blistering sax solo before returning to the slower beat to let us gently down for the interval.

We barely had time to draw he raffle before the band were heading back to the stage. ‘We’ve got a lot more to play yet ‘ said John. So we had a fifteen minute bonus, ‘Cherry’ came complete with real Mills Brothers harmony, then more vibes keyboard on ‘Flat Foot Floosie’ and a little more Jewish input via ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schon’ featuring Roger‘s clarinet.