Chris Gumbley Quintet, ‘Tribute to Cannonball’,  Kidderminster Jazz Club, St. Ambrose’s Parish Centre, Kidderminster, Worcs., 01/11/2024.

Chris Gumbley – alto sax, Neil Yates – trumpet, Andrzej Baranek – piano, Tom Hill – double bass, Carl Hemmingsley – drums

Kidderminster Jazz Club’s November event presented the popular Midlands based saxophonist Chris Gumbley and his all star quintet, featuring leading musicians from the Birmingham and Manchester jazz scenes.

A native of Stafford Gumbley studied at Huddersfield School of Music and also plays clarinet and piano. An acclaimed educator he has held teaching posts in Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham and has also written a number of music instruction books, these being issued under the name Gumble’s Publications. His educational work has taken him to the Dominican Republic, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and Turkey.

For more than twenty years he ran Gumble’s Jazz Club in Stafford and spent a couple of years broadcasting the Jazzbeat show on BBC Radio Stoke.

Gumbley’s playing career has embraced a number of musical genres, including touring work with The Temptations and The Four Tops. He has also performed with Saxtet,  the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, the Charleston Chasers, the BBC Big Band, Fat Chops Big Band and the Berkley Salon Ensemble. An eclectic mix. He has also been much in demand for theatre and session work.

Gumbley has also performed widely as a jazz musician and his current jazz projects include his long running Tribute to Cannonball band and more recently Much Ado about Jazz,  a tongue in cheek look at the world of jazz which he presents in a duo format with Birmingham based pianist Al Gurr. The Much Ado about Jazz show is particularly well suited to rural touring and Gumbley and Gurr have performed the show at numerous village halls across the Midlands.

With the Birmingham based saxophone quintet Saxtet, which also featured  Nigel Wood, Karen Street, Andy Tweed and Adrian Kelley, he recorded the 1993 album “Safer Sax”.

Gumbley has been presenting his popular “Tribute to Cannonball” show for a number of years and in December 2022 I enjoyed a performance by tonight’s line up at a Shrewsbury Jazz Network event at The Hive Music & Media Centre. My review of that performance by the band sometimes known as the ‘Cannonball Quintet’ can be found here. It also represents the source of much of the above biographical information.
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/chris-gumbley-quintet-tribute-to-cannonball-the-hive-music-media-centre-shrewsbury-10-12-2022

The “Tribute to Cannonball” project pays homage to the music of the late, great alto saxophonist Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley (1928-75) and the instrumental line up is modelled on that of the Adderley quintets of the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s.

Tonight’s performance followed a similar pattern to the Shrewsbury show and as at The Hive the quintet opened with a fast moving, bebop style arrangement of the standard “I’ll Remember April”. This was ushered in by Hemmingsley at the drums and with the twin horns of Gumbley and Yates combining to state the theme, urged on by Hill’s rapid bass walk and Hemmingsley, crisp, propulsive drumming. Fluent solos came from the leader on alto, Yates on trumpet and Baranek at the piano.

Next up, as at Shrewsbury, was the slow blues “One for Daddy-O”, a tune written by Cannonball’s trumpet playing brother Nat Adderley and dedicated to the popular Chicago DJ Daddy-O Daylie. Introduced by the trio of Baranek, Hill and Hemmingsley this included expansive solos from Gumbley, Yates and Baranek. Cannonball’s version appeared on his classic 1958 Blue Note album “Somethin’ Else”, which featured a rare sideman appearance from the esteemed trumpeter Miles Davis.

Gumbley now told us a little about Adderley, who was born in Tampa, Florida in 1928 and variously worked as a car salesman and as a school teacher before becoming a full time musician and moving to New York City in 1955, following in the wake of his younger brother Nat (trumpet, cornet, born 1931). Indeed Cannonball had started out on trumpet himself before switching to saxophone during his high school years. Meanwhile Nat had worked with Miles Davis, thus providing the link that brought Miles and Cannonball together, with Cannonball famously playing on Davis’ enduringly popular 1959 recording “Kind of Blue”, arguably the most popular and famous jazz album of all time.

The next piece of music was “Jeannine”, a tune written by the pianist Duke Pearson (1932-80) that has become something of a bebop standard. The tricky bop style ‘head’ provided the jumping off point for solos from Gumbley, Baranek and Hill, the bassist injecting an element of his trademark musical humour into his feature.

Nat Adderley was a prolific composer and the next piece was one of his lesser known tunes, the Latin-esque “Jive Samba”, which also reminded me of the music of pianist / composer Horace Silver. Introduced in ‘piano trio’ mode with the horns later combining to state the theme this included concise solo statements from Yates, Gumbley, Baranek and Hill.

The first set concluded with a second Duke Pearson tune, “Tribute to Brownie”, a homage to the brilliant but tragically short lived trumpeter Clifford Brown (1930-56), whose musical star burned brightly before he perished in an automobile accident aged just twenty five. Introduced by Hemmingsley at the drums this featured an arrangement notable for its sax and trumpet harmonies and included solos from Gumbley, Yates and Hill.

It had been an enjoyable first set, but with each piece following the ‘head-solos-head’ format there was a nagging sense that this was ‘hard bop by numbers’ and that for all their competence the band were rather ‘going through the motions’.

As we re-convened after the interval Gumbley thanked us for sticking around and promised us that the best was yet to come. He wasn’t kidding, the basic modus operandi didn’t change but somehow everything seemed to kick up a gear, the playing becoming more fiery and inspired than earlier on. Maybe it was just the choice of material, but the band really did seem to catch fire in the second half.

Things got off to a rousing start with “Sack O’ Woe”, one of Cannonball’s own compositions. The opening theme statement from the two horns was accompanied by pounding rhythms, these lighting the blue touch paper for fiery solos from Yates and Gumbley, plus Baranek’s most inspired solo of the set thus far. The Manchester based pianist is a highly imaginative and inventive soloist whose playing has previously been heard with saxophonist Casey Greene, drummer Gaz Hughes and with the Magic Hat Ensemble. Bassist Hill was also featured as a soloist, his tongue in cheek quotes from the “Batman” theme helping to further endear him to the audience.

The hard bop standard “Del Sasser” was written by Cannonball’s bassist Sam Jones and appears on Cannonball’s 1960 album “Them Dirty Blues”. The memorable melodic hook was stated by the two horns with subsequent solos following from Gumbley and Baranek.

“Them Dirty Blues” also includes Duke Pearson’s “Jeannine” plus an arrangement of “Dat Dere”, written by pianist Bobby Timmons, of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers fame. A rip-roaring version of Timmons’ tune was introduced in piano trio mode, with the horns later kicking in. As befits a tune written by a pianist this piece was largely a feature for Baranek, whose high energy soloing was fuelled by Hill’s propulsive bass walk and the sizzling of Hemmingsley’s ride cymbal.

Inevitably this was followed by another Timmons tune,  “Dat Dere’s” predecessor “Dis Here”. A sprightly waltz time arrangement featured a dazzling solo from Yates that combined impassioned whinnying with blazing, high register trumpeting, all fuelled by Hemmingsley’s dynamic drumming. This was followed by similarly incendiary solos from Gumbley and Baranek. Terrific stuff.

The Nat Adderley composition “Fun” represented something of a feature for the impressive Hemmingsley, a long time mainstay of the Midlands jazz scene. But first we were to hear from Yates again with another stunning trumpet solo that featured some notably agile manipulation of the instrument’s valves. Now based in Colwyn Bay Yates is a bandleader in his own right and first made his name on the Manchester jazz scene. Baranek also impressed at the piano.

The performance concluded with a high energy rendition of Cannonball’s own composition “Sticks”, which included solos from Baranek and Gumbley.

The ‘ace in the hole’ for Adderley’s 1960s quintet was the Vienna born pianist and composer Joe Zawinul,  a musician destined to achieve even greater fame for his work with Miles Davis and as the co-leader (with saxophonist Wayne Shorter) of Weather Report. Zawinul was to write many memorable tunes for Adderley, among them the gospel flavoured “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”, which was, as Gumbley informed us, “Cannonball’s Greatest Hit”. Unsurprisingly this piece represented the deserved encore here, introduced in piano trio mode and later featuring Yates deploying a Harmon mute as he doubled up with Gumbley on the theme and a subsequent series of sax and trumpet exchanges, with Hill the other featured soloist.

A particularly inspired second set ensured that the audience went home happy, with KJC organiser Annette Gregory declaring herself to be well satisfied with the evening’s events. The playing from an all star band was excellent throughout and particularly inspired during the second set. Although the performance exhibited many similarities to the Shrewsbury show there were also significant differences with a revised sequence of tunes and often different orders of solos, as befits the spontaneous nature of jazz. No real surprises here, but still an enjoyable evening of jazz that helped to keep the spirit of Cannonball Adderley alive for current jazz listeners.

 

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