Acts wow crowds at Lichfield Blues and Jazz Festival - review
Soft Machine shook up the rock scene more than 50 years ago with psychedelic back-projections, light shows and adventurous sounds - becoming one of the most influential groups of their time.
Over the years, though, the band was reborn as a progressive jazz-rock outfit, and they delighted the crowd at the Lichfield Blues and Jazz Festival - promoted by Lichfield Arts - with a concert at the city’s Guildhall.
Soft Machine currently features exciting guitarist John Etheridge, accomplished saxophonist/keyboard player Theo Travis, and two brilliant veteran musicians: drummer John Marshall and bassist Roy Babbington.
The hard-edged improvising and deep beats of Soft Machine still have broad appeal, with tracks including Hidden Details, The Man Who Waved At Trains and Life On Bridges showing the individual skill of the players and their feel for the character of the music.
For me, though, the highlight among the festival concerts I heard featured the thrilling saxophonist Derek Nash - of the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra - with rising star Lichfield trumpeter, guitarist and valve-trombonist Nick Dewhurst and his band.
Nash, variously on alto, soprano and baritone saxes, blazed into some excellent original pieces - by him and by Dewhurst - along with a couple of jazz standards, Bernie’s Tune and Freddie Freeloader. The band is a very fine unit anyway, but Nash fired them up to another level of accomplishment.
This concert was at the Cathedral Hotel, where earlier bassist Tom Hill’s Jazz Funk Machine had roared into action with an exciting set, followed by guitarists Nicolas Meier and Pete Oxley leading a group evoking many musical cultures, with shimmering textures and exotic rhythms.
The festival featured some fine blues stars, including The Climax Blues Band and Steve ‘Big Man' Clayton, plus traditional jazz from the Eagle Jazz Band, swing from quintet Fret And Fiddle and from guitarist Remi Harris with bassist Tom Moore, and a look at potential stars of the future with the South Staffordshire Youth Jazz Orchestra.
By John Watson
