Peter King Quartet - Live at Bulls Head Barnes 2008

Peter King Quartet
The Bulls Head
Barnes
LondonUK

29 March 2008

Set One
1. E’s Blues (Melling)
2. My Ideal (Chase, Robin, Whiting)
3. Yes and No (Shorter)

Set Two
1. Untitled (Gascoine)
2. Deluge (Shorter)
3. Spain (Corea)
4. Lush Life (Strayhorn, sax solo)
5. Joshua (Feldman)

Peter King – alto sax
Steve Melling – piano
Geoff Gascoigne – double bass
Martin Drew – drums

I don't know how well this one will go down here, as there is a preponderance of free jazz. This is much more mainstream. Pete King is one of Britain's great altoists, who's been around since bebop days. He played at the opening night of Ronne Scott's club in London in 1959 (no I wasn't there - before my time). Since then he's led his own band and played along with the likes of Ronnie Scott, Stan Tracey and Alan Skidmore. He is said to be very "Parkerish" (and indeed he's done many tribute gigs to Bird), but I think he has a style more similar to Phil Woods.

The other guys in the band have played with Pete on and off for years. Martin Drew was Oscar Peterson's drummer for many years. Melling has worked with such notables as Elvin Jones and Benny Golson, but more fequently with Skidmore and other British artists.

As regards the venue, the pub is located right by Barnes Bridge on the Thames, and is one of the best regular jazz venues in the country. Unfortunately I don't live near, so I've only been there on a very few occasions when I've been in the area. It's a great place - all that jazz and Youngs Bitter as well - can't be bad !

This is an audience recording, excellently taped and seeded by "youngsbest" (see he even named his moniker after the beer). My thanks to him.

So forget your Braxtons and Baileys for a while and listen to some real music.

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