Tuesday 6 January 2015

Everybody Loves Saturday Night – BOB WALLIS’ STORYVILLE JAZZMEN***

Le Reve Passe/Down Home Rag/Old Stack-A-Lee Blues/Everybody Loves Saturday Night/I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen/Alla Turka/Savoy Blues/Where Shall I Be/Kansa City Man Blues/Captain Morgan/Sons Of The Brave/L’Oiseau Bleu

Riding on the back of the trad jazz bandwagon, the relatively little known Bob Wallis’ Storyville Jazzmen just managed to breached the UK album chart with their Everybody Loves Saturday Night LP. (UK:20)

“Archetypal trad jazz. Of particular interest is the whacky piano and some of the best banjo playing.”

“The band's uniform of looking like Mississippi gamblers led to them being dismissed by 'serious' jazz pundits, but beneath the showbiz there was a group of talented players. Wallis himself was a hard-hitting player of considerable ability.”

“Bob Wallis blew a mean trumpet, and with great support from Keith 'Avo' Avison on trombone and Doug Richford on clarinet, they made a great front line. The rhythm section too (Hugh Rainey on banjo, Pete Gresham on piano and Brian 'Drag' Kirby on bass) keeps the whole thing moving. If you've never heard Bob vocalising then you've missed a treat. It can be an acquired taste but the gravelly voice soon grows on you, and in my view Bob's outfit was the pick of the sixties British trad bands.”

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