For one night only, the International Pavilion stage was
transformed into an intimate New Orleans jazz club – minus the smoke – when the
Guy Barker Big Band came to call.
The formidable assembly of top-drawer talent headlined the
Eisteddfod’s Friday evening concert ably assisted by a star line-up of guest performers
who really are modern day jazz royalty.
Initially formed as a septet in 2001 for the Mercury Award-nominated
album of legendary trumpeter Barker, the band went on to become residents for
Cheltenham Jazz Festival, opening the London Jazz Festival, performing at the
BBC Proms, hosting the annual Royal Albert Hall’s Big Band Christmas, and much
more besides.
Deploying punchy brass and New Orleans soul, they led us on a
journey through the history of jazz song, featuring both classics and surprise
new arrangements.
Setting the tone of lots of hot music for a hot night the band
opened with old standard I Can’t Stop Loving You with Baker setting the
direction on trumpet.
Guest singers Vanessa Haynes and Clare Teal soon jumped aboard
to show how things were going to get even better, with former Van Morrison
vocalist Haynes’s contribution including a honeyed I’m Going Lock My Heart and
Throw Away the Key.
Teal laid on some similar masterpieces in the same vein and also
slotted into her role as the evening’s entertaining MC.
Next to stop by was the rare talent of Giacomo Smith, a native
New Yorker now based in the UK who has rapidly become recognised as one of the
most distinct and versatile performers on the London jazz scene.
If you’ve ever watched Strictly Come Dancing on the TV and
marvelled at the versatility of sheer musical ability of the man who provides
it you’ll know all about Tommy Blaize but to see him in the flesh in Llangollen
was a real thrill.
An early sample of his smooth style came with a laid-back
Careless Love.
After Teal came back with a scat-laden version of Let’s Fall in
Love the band stepped things up even higher with Barker’s own crazy yet
masterful arrangement of Tom Waits’s
Temptation, a marvellous concoction of brassy blaring and guitar twanging fun.
We were back in New Orleans in the sixties as Haynes gave us a
soul-fuelled Mean Man, first made popular by Betsy Harris in the day.
We went even further back in the New Orleans jazz annals as
Smith led a number called High Society – not the Frank Sinatra one – on his
fantastic clarinet to close the first half of the show.
After the break Smith returned to lead the band, assisted by a
blaring solo trumpet, as it headed on through a superb version of Rocking in
Rhythm.
Teal did an intricately jazzed-up version of Singing in the Rain
followed by a highlight of the whole night – Smith providing the haunting
clarinet-based pace for the old Midnight in Paris which was totally evocative
of the hot jazz club days of the City of Lights.
There was much more from the assembled singing talent, including
Blaize with Can’t Stay Away from the Door and Woman from Haynes, by which point
came the first signs of dancing from somewhere in front of the audience.
Things came almost to a head with a driving, sizzling Tiger Rag,
with Smith and his clarinet in the driving seat, and finally rounding off with
all three singers lending a skilful hand on Jump Jive.
The only thing to do after all that was to head out in search of
a glass of bourbon or two.
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