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The Review - MUSIC - Classical & Jazz with TONY KIELY
Published: 7 February 2008

Starry night of jazz poetry at the library

REVIEW: CROUCH END ALL STARS
Chester Road Library

This was going to be a poetry reading with music, and ended up proving that Jazz is king!
Richard Waddington, chairman of the Friends of Highgate Library, said that Graham Tayar and his friends had probably played in many unusual places, but maybe not in a children’s library before.
Wally Fawkes joked that there might be a notice saying “Silence”, but, in fact, there was only one saying “Food and drink not allowed in this area except for supervised children’s events”.
The Friends are obviously in this category and are allowed to provide liquid refreshments in return for donations. They invited Graham Tayar to read his poetry, and he brought along his keyboard and a few of his friends.
There was plenty of nostalgia as well as comic relief: old age tempered by enchantment and love, “an old man’s fancy… with breath in short supply” which did not apply to the musicians who had breath aplenty for several classic favourites.
The gymnastics of Wally Fawkes and Ian Christie on clarinet, with Ken Blakemore on trombone and Mike Knipe on drums were complemented by Peter York on bass and vocals, and were joined halfway through by David Clennell on trumpet and Dr Sebastian Freudenberg on sax.
Gershwin would no doubt have enjoyed their version of his lullaby, Zimmer-time – “Your hearing aid’s dead, and your pacemaker’s faulty, but hush, you old-timer, don’t you cry.”
The Allstars’ final numbers, Making Whoopee and The Royal Garden Blues, had such panache that the audience could close their eyes and believe in Tayar’s earlier poetical exhortation to “Force the buggers back to 1954!”.
Tayar’s adage: “Never leave a poem alone, it can’t be trusted on its own” may not have inspired him to arrange this evening. But the audience were captivated by this combination of jazz and poetry.
SARAH DAWES

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