I entered Upton Parish and found myself a good pew (a literal pew) to sit on which would provide me a good view of the bandstand and take in some of the interesting architecture on display, and try not to have flashbacks to forcibly made to attend Mass at St. Patrick's Church back in my school days and the various "subversive and disrespectful" antics the teaching staff accused me of... shockingly anarchic behaviour like sitting down and quietly reading a book, sneezing due to a reaction to the incense being carried up and down the aisle etc... Quite why they just couldn't give students the option go to the library and do the work for the class which was cancelled I don't know... would have benefited the students who wanted to attend Mass as well. I figured I should be facing any sudden evictions from the church as I didn't have a copy of Gary Russell's Invasion of the Cat-People with me.
The band, Dixie Mix, assembled on the stage and their attire was in semi-formal suits which instantly made me think of the very straight laced attire worn by the Dance and Swing bands of 1930s and 1940s, so I did wonder if we were in for a little bit more of an orchestrated affair music wise with a risk of some very stilted vocal refrains. I have never seen- or even heard of this band, so regardless I was interested to find out how this would turn out. A little bit about the band; Dixie Mix is a six piece ensemble who play a mix of new and old jazz classics with a Dixieland mix, evidently they put a lot more effort into their repertoire and arrangements then they did when coming up with the band name, but I guess it is punchy and does exactly what it says on the tin (for those of you who are reading this and are no of a certain age from the UK, there was used to be an advert for Ronseal's Quick Drying Wood Varnish and the slogan was "does exactly what it says on the tin). Aside from numerous TV and theatre appearances, the band has also gone on tour with Rod Stewart, upon learning this I was very intrigued about what would unfold, particularly as my immediate though was of the album The Jazz Age which was an album of 1920s Jazz style covers of 1980s hits... it was then I remember that The Jazz Age wasn't by Rod Stewart but by Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music fame, though I am fairly certain Rod did do a album of songs from the Great American Songbook, so I probably briefly mixed the two up in my head. The line up of the band consisted of band leader Simon Nelson on trumpet, Chris Wigley on trombone, Karl Wirrman on clarinet and saxes (though only clarinet was listed in the programme), with a rhythm section Tony Wilkins in the engine room, Kev West (no relation to Fred, I hope) doubling up on banjo and guitar, and in a change to what was listed in the programme, we had the ubiquitous Jim Swinnerton standing in on the double bass. Swinnerton must be the busiest bass player on the UK trad scene as he turns up practically everywhere in many a different ensemble, in fact he would be returning to play another gig in the Church with a different band later in the day (and I assume also would be returning to Dixiemix for their booking ending gig of the day). The gig opened with a rousing rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown" more reminiscent of the arrangement played by Acker Bilk & his Paramount Jazz meaning no whistling and thankfully nobody in the audience attempting to 'enhance' the entertainment by indulging in Globetrotter style clowning around down isles, an event which would totally justify turning missals into missiles (no, I haven't been waiting for ages to try and use that pun somewhere, honest). This was followed by a number not written, but certainly performed by Fats Waller, and not one of the more well known of his covers. This is a lovely little song called "You Meet the Nicest People in Dreams" which on surface level could be interpreted as a bit twee and overly saccharine, but the Waller touch gives it certain lilt which takes away some of the OTT sentiment of the lyrics (see also "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie"). I recall talking to friends about this song many, many years ago and would appeared that the people in the circles I used to move in clearly had very different dreams about people to those that the composer of the song had. The following number was a fairly familiar standard which has been recorded by many artists including the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Fats Waller, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and perhaps surprisingly, Branford Marsalis. This number has always been a favourite of mine, to the extent that it was one of the first pieces of Jazz I tried to learn by ear when I resurrected my childhood keyboard back when I was about 19, how successful was I? I can't remember, probably not very. So after a run of rip-roaring, upbeat and swinging numbers, it was time for a more introspective piece and the band headed over to the Duke Ellington Songbook and that evergreen standard Mood Indigo. Mood Indigo is a good example of a timeless piece, it has been reinvented so many times, including by Ellington himself, and while every reinvention may not always add something new, they never diminish the source material. It is a good example of a piece where lyrics were added much latter and they work perfectly with the music, something that often isn't always the case, for example Opus One, where I get the feeling that they just wrote some lyrics to fit the tune rather than try and work them with the music as a whole. Of course, DixieMix didn't prove themselves to be the exception to the rule, and delivered a suitably subdued rendition for performance in a church. It was at this point that the band took a short moment to talk to the audience and they address one of the features of the church, which was a rather interesting metal structure held together with wire, which kind of resembled some kind of cage, and the band remarked "is how they get rid of players they don't like?" The more I looked at it, the more it stirred some childhood memories: those of playing Treasure Island Dizzy on my Commodore 64 and getting very frustrated at encounters with the various cages set about in various in parts of the game. Readers who have played the game will know exactly what I mean.
After this brief interlude the band went back into Fats Waller territory, though again not one of his compositions, and gave a fun rendition of "I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" and we were spared the 'hilarious' comedy pretend mooning of the audience upon reaching the lyric "a lot of kisses on the bottom" which often populates performances of this number. This was followed by "Jazz Me Blues", a number which aside from Art Pepper has been largely ignored outside of Trad/Dixie bands which is a shame as it a good toe-tapping number and it's faster tempo would make it a fun piece for bebop soloing. There was another change of pace for the next number and a slight chance of direction as part of the frontline stepped down to allow Karl Wirrman to feature on the clarinet and I pondered what piece he might decided to go for, would it be something fairly obvious for the British Trad scene like Acker Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore" or "Aria", or maybe he'd pay homage to Monty Sunshine's rendition of "Petite Fleur." Maybe something from Artie Shaw or Benny Goodman, would we bet getting a rendition of "Nightmare" or "Goodbye"? The number which was played hadn't occurred to be, but probably should have, was Django Reinhardt's "Nuages" which is a good showcase for clarinet and a perfectly chilled out number for a hot sunny afternoon and always gives me the mental image of just chilling out by a riverbank listening to the world go by.
The band reassembled for the closing numbers of the first set, the first of which was the Ellington/Mills composition "Stevedore Stomp" which was a popular piece for bands who played at Jazz Club 90 when it was hosted by The Harp in Albrighton- I can't really say how frequent it was when the club moved to the Albrighton Sports and Social Club as I didn't really attend due to them only hosting one gig a week, and that being a Sunday lunchtime, a time slot not simpatico with someone who works in the Pub trade. The second number was "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" a song I first (consciously) heard as part of a George Melly compilation and then later on a Bing Crosby box set and it has infrequently popped up in my listening a few times, usually multiple versions at a time then nothing- a bit like waiting for a bus. It was a good medium swing number to close the first set and appeared that everyone was leaving in good stead. Good as the band was, I had already decided not to stay for the second set as there were other bands I wanted to see, and since they were book ending the day, I could also come back for the second gig. I consulted the programme to see where to go next, something a little bit more complicated than anticipated due to the staggered nature of start and finish times, and the set had finished slightly earlier than expected. I noted that there was still time to pop across to the Upton Rugby Club and see the tail end of the gig there.
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