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alone together CD liner notes The Sheer versatility of THE ANDY DICKENS BAND means that they can and will play from any part of the jazz spectrum. If this makes it hard to pin them down the band are unrepentant. If it's good they'll play it! Alone Together, written in 1932 by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz for the musical Flying Colors, is a good marker for the band's middle road. It swings and has taken note of the bop revolution without becoming a founder member. This arrangement, with additional bridge section between each chorus, is an opening showcase for the solo talents of Andy Dickens (trumpet), Adrian Fry (trombone), Andy Daniels (piano), Andy Trim (drums) and Pete Effamy (alto). Duke Ellington wrote The Mooche (possibly with a contribution from Irving Mills: sources differ on this) in 1928. It saw service at The Cotton Club in 1931, when it was added to the revue Rhythmania. This arrangement by John Coverdale features Pete Effamy on clarinet and trombonist Adrian Fry in a gloriously earthy plunger mute solo. At the end comes an extraordinary collapse into darkness and chaos as free improvisation hovers, with a final ascending triumphant cry from the horns in a resurrection of order and tonality. Gene Austin's Take Your Shoes Off, Baby was first noticed by a wider audience when the Texan trumpeter Hot Lips Page played and sang it with the Artie Shaw Orchestra in 1941. Here Andy Dickens makes his own bow to Page, whose career ended unreasonably early with his death at 46. The incomparable clarinet and saxophonist Edward 'Teddy' Layton was a mainstay of the Andy Dickens Band for eighteen years. He died late in 2002 leaving behind many grieving friends. Adrian Fry, with whom Ted had a long musical association in The Andy Dickens Band, has written and arranged EDWD (Teddy's e-mail signature) as a tribute to this truly great musician. This thoughtful and reflective piece began life early in 2002 as a feature for a nine-piece group but remained unfinished. On Teddy’s death Adrian completed it, in a modified arrangement for the septet who play it here. The lean sound of Pete Effamy's alto nods in the direction of David Sanborn and Michael Brecker, but Teddy, for all his mainstream roots, habitually encouraged the explorations of the younger musical generation, including Andy Daniels and Adrian Fry. The old Harry Warren/Al Dubin song, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, turned up in the 1934 United Artists movie Moulin Rouge. Lyrically it belongs strictly to the never-never land of gigolos and dollies that populated the American musical stage of the 20s and early 30s but it has attracted singers of all kinds, from Nat Cole to Marianne Faithfull and Diana Krall. The horn arrangement by Adrian Fry echoes earlier versions and wistfully encapsulates the overtly sentimental American vision of French tango café culture. Perdido is a river in Pensacola, Florida, and a street in New Orleans, not 250 miles away. The name stands for one of the most hardy perennials in Duke Ellington's garden, although it was actually written by Ellington's masterly Puerto Rican trombonist, Juan Tizol. Here, the lyrical trombone of Adrian Fry is preceded by Andy Dickens, evoking the spirit of Roy Eldridge, and followed by guitarist John Coverdale. The veteran team of Harry Ruby, Bert Kalmar and Oscar Hammerstein II produced A Kiss To Build A Dream On in 1935. This was a rewrite, with new lyrics, of a lost Ruby/Kalmar song Moonlight On The Meadow. It was intended for the MGM movie A Night At The Opera but, as is the Hollywood way, was never used. Andy Dickens sings and Adrian, Pete, John and bassist Brett Nevill weave solos into an essentially traditional fabric, lifting the piece to new heights. Andy Daniels' arrangement of the Gershwin/Heyward
My Man's Gone Now
(Porgy And Bess, 1935) looks back at, and rethinks, other exemplars;
notably Dave Grusin's score for the GRP All-Star Big Band of 1992-94
and Bob Berg's famous 1997 recording for Stretch Records. The
bricks that build Andy's structures are characteristically angular
blocks of sound, conflicting rhythms and high dynamic contrasts,
through and over which his piano rides and stamps. The rhythm
section moves between 4/4 and 6/4, propelled by the precise and
tasteful drumming of Andy Trim. Guitarist John Coverdale is also
heard exploring the dark landscape with the horns providing an
underlying emphasis of the mournful sense of loss inherent in
this tune. In his solo feature She's Funny That Way Andy Dickens looks back again to his beloved Roy Eldridge (1911-89). Eldridge was influenced in his style not by trumpet players but by two great saxophonists—Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, and the rippling arpeggios of the reed instrument can be heard too in Andy Dickens’ presentation of the old Neil Moret / Richard A. Whiting song, which has stood alone (no showbiz pedigree here!) for 75 years. John Coverdale gives elegant solo support. Straighten Up And Fly Right was written by Nat 'King' Cole in 1943 for the Republic Pictures movie Here Comes Elmer. It quickly became a national hit, Cole's first. From then on the King Cole Trio, featured in the film, were riding high. Pete Effamy and John Coverdale complement Andy Dickens' vocal. One of Britain's finest musical exports was the pianist George Shearing, who left for New York in 1947 and never returned. His very personal "locked hands" style of block chording was created from the playing of the St. Louis-born pianist Milt Buckner and the sax voicings of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and with his first recordings for the Discovery label in 1949 the Shearing legend began. Bop, Look And Listen dates from 1949 and the close voicings of this arrangement, using the guitar as a fourth horn, invoke the Shearing style, with Adrian Fry and John Coverdale blowing this wonderfully satisfying and eclectic CD to its conclusion. John Cox 2003 |
