The Jam Session - A Return to Form Review of 25th Feb 2024

I was going to start this review by quoting Matthew Arnold, who as all three of the readers of this august journal would know, was a famous poet and the son of Thomas Arnold, equally famous British educator and headmaster of the school to which I went, only he died in 1842. some three years before the rules of Rugby Football were first codified.

Following a careful search of Wikipedia, I can confidently say that Matthew had almost nothing to say about last week's jam session at Serafina. Most of us were left similarly speechless at various times throughout the session.

It was, in the sense that the jammers have always thrived upon the thunderous debacle, a return to true form. Amongst the guilty parties (all 21 of them) there were occasional gems, on which we shall exclusively concentrate:

Gem No 1: Mike Powell swinging a solo to Jane's song: a delight to accompany.

Gem No 2: Jeff Harris: played baritone superlatively well. Looked knackered afterwards - the bari takes a fair bit of puff!

Gem No 3: Nelson Vingta (piano) and Matt Cameron put up a bluesy funk set. Aced it.

Gem No 4: Adam Fforde getting the bass sound right and keeping it there; he drove the arvo along.

A din, a racket, a noise, discord, dissonance, discordance, caterwauling, raucousness, screeching jarring stridency, in short, a splendid effort all round.

Next week we might try balancing the sound before starting. Probably won't make a blind bit of difference, and even if it does, who is to notice?