Jazz musician Chris Ingham and folk musician Chris Wilbraham cast their expert eyes over the local music scene
JAZZ with Chris Ingham: cjr.ingham@outlook.com/chrisingham.co.uk
Until Sunday, November 24
CAMBRIDGE JAZZ FESTIVAL (Various venues in Cambridge, cambridgejazzfestival.info) Concerts, workshops, hangs, jams and more, last few events. Tickets going fast.
Friday, November 22
ALAN BARNES (Hunter Club Arts Centre, Bury, 7.30pm, £18, headhunterslive.org, 07799 650009) Multi award-winning multi-reedsman Barnes joins Chris Ingham (piano), Malcolm Creese (bass) and George Double (drums) for high-end modern swing and droll anecdote.
Sunday, November 24
KLEZMER WITHOUT BORDERS (Yalm Food Court, Norwich, 7.30pm, £15.50, yalm.co.uk) Klezmer fusing with jazz, Latin and middle eastern sounds, creating a unique world music ensemble featuring Stewart Curtis (clarinet, saxes & flute), Ant Romero (drums/darbuka), Pete Billington (keyboard) and Alex Keen (bass).
Wednesday, November 27
ART THEMEN ORGAN TRIO (Stoke By Nayland Golf Club, 8pm, £20, fleecejazz.org.uk, 01787 211865) Part of the Art Themen at 85: Live in Soho tour, the indestructible Themen leads this groovy trio with mischief and aplomb, strikingly supported by Pete Whittaker (organ) and George Double (drums).
Thursday, November 28
XHOSA COLE QUARTET (Hidden Rooms, Cambridge, 2pm, £22 & £16.50, cambridgejazz.org, 01223 514777) Winner of the 2018 BBC Young Jazz Musician of the year, tenor saxophonist Xhosa emerged from Birmingham community arts programmes and is now finishing his degree at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. With Pat Thomas (piano), Josh Vadiveloo (bass) and Peter Newman (drums).
FOR THE DIARY
Sunday, December 1
CLARK TRACEY’S CHAMPION’S OF JAZZ (Venue 16, Ipswich, 2.30pm, £15, ipswichjazzandblues.com) An all-star quintet of Art Themen (tenor sax), Simon Allen (alto sax), Bruce Boardman (piano), Andrew Cleyndert (bass) and Clark Tracey (drums) play tunes by Stan Tracey, Thelonious Monk and Clark Tracey.
Friday, December 6
A SWINGING CHRISTMAS (Diss Corn Hall, 7.30pm, £21, thecornhall.co.uk, 01379 652241) Festive fun with the Chris Ingham Quintet, featuring singer Joanna Eden (aka Jazz at the Movies), plus Mark Crooks (clarinet/saxophone), Geoff Gascoyne (bass) and George Double (drums).
Tuesday, December 10
DUNNETT & MADDOCK PLAY J J JOHNSON (Maddermarket Theatre Bar, Norwich, 8.30pm, £16/£8, maddermarket.co.uk) Norwich’s own Tom Dunnett (trombone) and top UK tenorist Chris Maddock salute the bebop trombone legend J J Johnson. With versions of the Johnson’s 1960 album JJ Inc, the group is completed by Simon Brown (piano), Simon Wood (bass) and Tom Jiggins (drums).
Wednesday, December 11
JOHN LAW’S RE-CREATIONS (Stoke By Nayland Golf Club, 8pm, £20, fleecejazz.org.uk, 01787 211865) Jazz classics by Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and George Gershwin, plus rock-era tunes from Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Radiohead. With John Law (piano), Sam Crockatt (saxophone), Henrik Jensen (bass) and Alex Goodyear (drums).
Friday, December 20
REBOP PLAYS HORACE SILVER (Hunter Club Arts Centre, Bury, 7.30pm, £20, headhunterslive.org, 07799 650009) The life-affirming grooves and melodies of the late, great jazz composer-pianist Horace Silver played by Paul Higgs (trumpet), Harry Greene (tenor sax), Chris Ingham (piano), Owen Morgan (bass) and George Double (drums).
FOLK with Chris Wilbraham: chris.wilbraham@tinyonline.co.uk
Last week I was put in sole charge of my two-year-old grandson Freddie. He has generated an obsession with a video of four Australians, known as The Wiggles, singing Skinnarmarink. First impression of these fully grown people, singing a nonsensical song with actions and massive fixed grins is a little unsettling. Freddie, however, loves watching and joining in. After he succeeds in getting his request for “Skidinck”, as he calls it, he won’t settle for less than three playings. Their repertoire includes songs like Fruit Salad, intended to encourage toddlers to eat their five a day, and more familiar tunes such as Ringa Ringa Roses. As they performed I began to contemplate nursery rhymes as the first folk songs we learn.
I looked up Skinnermarink to discover it was written for the 1910 show The Echo and the simplified version The Wiggles use has been widely sung for decades in North American nurseries.
I thought I should look up a few more, to see where their roots lie. My mother told me that, rather gruesomely, Ringa Ringa Roses has its roots in the bubonic plague epidemics of the 17th century. The roses referring to a rash and the posies counteracting the smell of death, though my recent researches suggest that Mum might not have been right.
The Royal family feature in many, sometimes in similarly gruesome fashion. Apparently Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary refers to the Catholic monarch, Mary I, Bloody Mary. The “garden” in the verse is England and the contrariness mentioned in the song her bloody persecution of Protestants. The “silver bells” and “cockle shells” were torture devices used by Mary’s executioners on her Protestant subjects.
She is also thought to have connections with Three Blind Mice which might refer to her order to have three Protestant bishops viciously tortured (possibly including blinding) and burned to death at the stake. This theory is supported by the original words, which include the phrase, “She scraped off the entrails and licked the knife”. Grim stuff!
Then we have Georgie Porgie about Prince Regent George IV of Britain, ridiculed for his weight, a 50-inch waist and a reputation for lusting after food and women, hence the references to pudding, pie and making the girls cry.
It would have been very dangerous to poke fun at Henry VIII, but Old Mother Hubbard is apparently about Cardinal Wolsey and his failure to obtain an annulment of Henry’s first marriage from the Pope. The cupboard represents the Catholic Church, the dog represents King Henry VIII, and the bone, the annulment.
While The Grand Old Duke of York, who marched his ten thousand men to the top of the hill and then back down again could have been Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany at the turn of the 18th century.
I think I’ll let Freddie enjoy “Skidink” for a while longer before explaining where these rhymes might have come from.
Here are next week’s gigs:
Friday, November 22
The Golden Hind, Cambridge, 8pm, Cambridge Folk Club: Hunter Muskett, support from Hugh Boyde. £10.
Saturday, November 23
John Peel Centre, Stowmarket, 7.30pm, Merry Hell, support from The Wilswood Buoys. £14.
Canopy Theatre, Beccles, 8pm, Alden and Patterson. £12.90.
Monday, November 25
Colchester Arts Centre, 8pm, Eliza Carthy and The Restitution. £26.50.
Wednesday, November 27
Risbygate Sports Club, Bury St Edmunds, 8pm, Bury Folk Collective: From The Tradition Night.
The Wine Cellar, Bury St Edmunds, 8pm, John O’Kane, Ed & Jane, Mike & Kay.
Banham Barrel, 8pm, Later with James Viera.
Friday, November 29
John Peel Centre, Stowmarket, 7.30pm, Lady Nade, support from Dove and Boweevil. £18.
The Golden Hind, Cambridge, 8pm, Cambridge Folk Club, Reg Meuross, support from Guy Tortora. £12.
