Stu Buchanan Band

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 8

Stu Buchanan Band

Recital at the Centre Gallery, Arts Centre, yesterday at 1.10 p.m. Reviewed by Allan Francis. Almost a surfeit of jazz riches occurs this week — but not quite — with the small groups enjoying a season that promises a high standard for the time that the lunch-hour concerts are scheduled. Small group jazz is held to be the highest form of the art, and Stu Buchanan continued the tradition with his contribution yesterday.

The enthusiasm which prevailed earlier in the week extended to Stu Buchanan’s lively batch of tunes, but only one of Monday’s musicians turned up here for an encore: Kere Buchanan on drums.

The mood was one of constantly looking back, such was the deep impression of the earlier session, but yesterday’s group soon established its own individual seal of quality. Opening with Miles Davis’ show-stopper "Milestones,” the powerful style was evident, but moving into yet another version of "Funny Valentine” they displayed the opposite end of their repertoire, plus the apologetic vocal from the leader.

Known locally for his

ebullient tenor saxophone, Stu Buchanan showed his versatility by producing some fine lines with one of his secondary instruments, the flute, in the Latin numbers of Grover Washington, the clarinet and soprano saxophone in others.

The music, however, was more predictable, most of the front-line statements coming from the combined voices of trombone and tenor saxophone, backed in extrovert style by Kere Buchanan’s drums, Vince Clarke’s sturdy bass, and the piano of Ralph Woodham.

The programme mainly recalled the great era of bop, reflecting the music of the jazz giants of the 50s and 60s, Horace Silver, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

While the musicians were obviously at home with the numbers they could drive hard, solos recalled the best ideas of the age they represented, at times swinging, at others, gently lyrical, warmly romantic. Buchanan himself paid homage to the moderns such as Grover Washington, but his true love harked back to an earlier age, his style unmistakably arising from John

Coltrane and Charlie Parker.

This is where he got his greatest inspiration, but he never made the cardinal sin of confining his programme to these limits. George Gershwin’s "Summertime” was treated to a waltz tempo, a reedy vocal from the leader, a Kai Windingstyle solo from Tony Lewis, finishing with a neat piano coda.

It was inevitable that the genial saxophonist would arrive at George Shearing’s “Lullaby of Birdland,” where one was carried back to the very heart of the bop idiom, again with trombone and tenor saxophone leading some unique lines, without either having to copy Shearing’s ideas.

The final bracket continued the twin concept of bop and romantic with Dizzy Gillespie’s "Anthropology” and “Over the Rainbow,” this time with the expected bustling ensemble playing on one hand, and the highly articulate trombone on the other.

Most of this might have been cool jazz the first time round, but there was plenty of heat generated in Stu Buchanan’s versions yesterday, and no lack of style albeit homespun, in between.