The Wine Centre Turns on a Treat

Of the 650 or so Jam Session reviews written so far, we have tended to focus on the egregious * , the eccentric and the exceptional. A run of the mill bog standard thoroughly average session is to be savoured, but every so often we accidentally step across the bright yellow diagonal OHS warning strips and frolic away in the outer reaches of music making. If you aren't living on the edge, you are taking up too much space...

A precondition has to be that nothing much is expected of a jam at the outset.

Of course, last Sunday's rather terrific jam was nothing like that. It started on time, the sound was good all after noon, 19 musos turned up and played, sang, slapped, tweaked, fingered and blew their instrument of choice. Mercifully, Hortense * was nowhere to be seen , as I am sure she would have had a field day with that last sentence...

So what stood out? First of all, Deborah Salkov looked like she had a lot of fun with a lively So Danco Samba. Rick came back from SinCity and sang up a storm, Kevin produced a chart with A#m7b5 in amongst a bunch of flats, which helped us butcher the piece somewhat - sorry Kev!

Trumpet Jonathon pulled a string of bebop tunes on pianist Ken Cowan, who was, as ever, up to the task and then some, guitarists Mike, Neville, saxes Laurie and Mr Holt joined the Good Captain to good, I thought, effect; and later in the day Huich (violin) added her own brand of class and UK guitarist Mike had a good first shot.

Rhythm section: Martin Clifton as solid as ever, John Perri masterful, and later on, Sala had a fine hit. And Simon on bass got plenty of playing time. He is playing his first trio session at the VWC this Friday.

The afternoon ended with the enigmatic guitarist whose name I did not get, but who is, by all accounts, a local legend in the rock world, singing a sweet version of Stormy Monday. This went so well, I looked up the chords on Monday and discovered that we had guessed right. Apologies, it probably won't happen again.

Footnotes:

• Egregious: it has got something to do with sheep, but in a good way..

• Hortense: it's best not to ask...

• Louche: go on, google it, you disreputable lot