Doug Sides Legacy Band, Corn Exchange Jazz Club, The Corn Exchange, Ross-on Wye, Herefordshire, 17/04/2025.

Reuben-James (R.J.) Gilbert  – alto & tenor saxophones, Ollie Canham – guitar, Nick Manz – double bass, Dominic Johnson – drums

The curiously named Doug Sides Legacy Band is a quartet featuring current students and recent graduates from the Jazz Course at Birmingham Conservatoire.

They take their name from the American born drummer Doug Sides (1942 – 2024), an inspirational figure who made a big impression on the members of the young quartet during the brief period that they knew him.

Born in California Sides was a prolific sideman who worked with many leading jazz musicians, most notably saxophonists Johnny Griffin, Curtis Amy and John Handy, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and pianists Walter Bishop Jr. and Abdullah Ibrahim, with whom he all recorded.

Others with whom he performed include saxophonists Illinois Jacquet,  Harold Land, Sonny Stitt, Teddy Edwards and Buddy Collette, vibraphonist / drummer Lionel Hampton, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Phineas Newborn, organists Charles Kynard and Merle Saunders, trumpeter Blue Mitchell, trombonist Kai Winding bassist Harold Rumsey and vocalist O.C. Smith.

During the 1980s he worked as a touring drummer with pioneering jazz vocalists Abbey Lincoln and John Hendricks.

Sides led something of a peripatetic existence and variously worked in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as serving in the American armed forces.

He subsequently moved to the Netherlands and performed frequently with visiting US touring musicians including trumpeters Benny Bailey and Tom Harrell, saxophonists Steve Grossman, Ricky Ford and Benny Golson, pianists Ralph Sutton, Hank Jones and Monty Alexander and vocalist Ranee Lee.

He also worked with the Spanish musicians pianist Tete Montoliu and trumpeter Daniel Cano.

Later Sides relocated to the UK, settling in East Kent where he appeared regularly at the weekly jam at the Lifeboat pub in Margate and at the annual Broadstairs Jazz Festival. It was here that he made the acquaintance of Gilbert and Canham, both of whom come from Margate, although remarkably they didn’t meet until after both had enrolled at Birmingham. Gilbert is still a student and Canham a recent graduate.

Gilbert and Canham return to their native Kent on a regular basis and played with Sides at the Broadstairs Jazz Festival. Sides’ playing, and the general demeanour of a musician who had lived the ‘jazz life’, had a profound influence on the two young musicians and the affection that they still hold for him was apparent throughout tonight’s performance.

Sides only met Manz and Johnson in the last few days of his life when they also came down to Kent to play with Gilbert and Canham on October 8th at the 2024 Broadstairs Jazz Festival. Sides also played with the young musicians in what was to be his last ever public performance. He passed away from a long illness just two days later on October 10th 2024 aged 81, a true professional right until the end.

The few days that Sides spent with Manz and Johnson were enough to endear him to these young musicians too, and of course vice versa, to the point that Sides gifted Johnson, whom he’d only just met, his drum kit. This represented a final act of generosity from from a man who is still held in great esteem by his young bandmates. This was a true cross-generational friendship.

Dave Logan, the co-ordinator of the Corn Exchange Jazz Club, has brought many talented young ensembles down from Birmingham Conservatoire to play in Ross-on Wye. Previous visitors to The Corn Exchange include bands variously led by bassist Thomas Marsh, saxophonists Ben Carter and Ben Partridge and trumpeter James Borland. All of these shows have been reviewed elsewhere on The Jazzmann.

R.J. Gilbert had visited with Ben Partridge’s Sixways group in October 2024, playing alto sax alongside the leader’s tenor.

Meanwhile the multi-talented Nick Manz had played piano with James Borland’s quintet. The piano is Manz’s preferred instrument and in 2022 he was a finalist, playing piano, in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, the top prize going to Scottish double bassist Ewan Hastie. Manz also featured as a pianist at the 2023 Birmingham /Siena Jazz Exchange at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Subsequently Gilbert, Canham and Johnson all appeared as part of the same group at the equivalent event in 2024.

I had therefore seen all of these young musicians play at least once before, but not as part of the same line up. It was also a first for me to see Manz playing bass, at which he is highly adept and which is an instrument that offers him a greater opportunity for professional musical employment. However he still considers himself to be first and foremost a pianist.

There’s not a great deal to be found about Doug Sides on line and most of the biographical details above have been sourced from Wikipedia and from a twenty three year old copy of “The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD”, co-authored by Richard Williams and Brian Morton.

However prior to Tonight’s gig a film about Sides was running on a laptop set up by one of the band members. In the hubbub of a busy venue it wasn’t really possible to hear the interview with him properly but the archive film of him playing with Griffin and Stitt, among others, plus more recent colour footage of Sides playing at Broadstairs Jazz Festival was enough to reveal that he was a highly talented drummer.

Sides was also an accomplished composer and each of tonight’s sets commenced with a Sides original. Both of these tunes were vibrant and highly rhythmic and each stood up well alongside the more familiar pieces sourced from the standards repertoire. All of the outside material featured tunes that were particular favourites of Sides, including some that had been arranged by him.

The evening kicked off with Sides’ own “Samba D’Esprit”, a tune written back in the 1970s and appropriately ushered in by Johnson at the drums. This was the only piece to feature Gilbert on tenor sax, who wailed effusively as he shared the solos with Canham. This represented an impressive start and it was good be able to appreciate Sides’ abilities as a composer.

Next we heard a tune selected by Canham, the McCoy Tyner composition “Inner Glimpse”, a tune recorded by Freddie Hubbard, with whom Sides once played. This saw Gilbert switching to his more usual alto to state the theme and take the first solo, followed by Canham, whose excellent guitar solo was followed by a feature from Johnson at the drum kit as he channelled the spirit of Sides.

I missed the title of the next piece, a ballad that began with a dialogue between Gilbert and Canham, the saxophonist eventually picking out the melody, shadowed first by Canham’s guitar and then Johnson’s mallet rumbles and cymbal shimmers. The addition of Manz’s bass led to a still gentle guitar led passage with Canham making subtle and judicious use of his range of effects pedals. Gilbert then returned to restate the theme and stretch out more expansively on alto, underscored by guitar, double bass and brushed drums.

Gilbert selected the Thelonious Monk tune “Nica’s Dream”, which served as a feature for his fluent, technically adept alto soloing, accompanied by the clatter of Johnson’s sticks on rims. Canham followed on guitar, prior to a drum feature for the consistently impressive Johnson. The performance concluded with an unaccompanied alto sax cadenza from Gilbert.

The quartet rounded off an excellent first half with a high energy rendition of “Katanga!”, the title track from the 1963 Curtis Amy album upon which Sides played. Written in the hard bop style this piece featured tight unison riffing on the intro with Canham taking the first solo on guitar, combining lightning bebop inspired single note runs with complex and sophisticated chording. Gilbert also cut loose on alto, really tearing it up, powered along by Johnson’s dynamic drumming. Appropriately the set concluded with a full on drum feature from Johnson.

The second half commenced with the Sides original “Hot Samba!”, a tune he apparently wrote for an Indonesian jazz sextet! Like its counter part in the first set this was another piece that revealed Sides’ talent for composing catchy melodic hooks, the lively and infectious theme providing the jumping off point for solos from Gilbert on alto, Canham on guitar and Johnson at the drums, the latter’s feature punctuated by guitar and sax interjections.

The Miles Davis composition “Nardis” was one of the tunes that the band had played at the 2024 Broadstairs Jazz Festival. An unusual arrangement saw the piece introduced by guitar, bass and drums, this opening passage exhibiting something of a flamenco / Middle Eastern feel. Gilbert’s theme statement led into a subtly probing alto solo, followed by a slow burning guitar solo from Canham as the music gradually built in intensity. Bassist Manz then became more prominent during the tune’s closing stages.

This set’s ballad feature was “My One And Only Love”, ushered in by a short passage of unaccompanied guitar from Canham. Like its predecessor in the first set this evolved into a guitar / alto sax duet, but this time with Manz and Johnson sitting out for the whole tune. Gilbert’s theme statement and subsequent solo was subtly underscored by Canham’s guitar chording. There were further unaccompanied episodes from both guitar and alto during the course of a near eight minute performance that retained the audience’s attention. This was an astonishingly matured interpretation of this much loved standard and in its own quiet way this intimate performance represented one of the highlights of the entire evening.

The quartet raised the energy levels with their next piece, a version of the John Coltrane composition “Equinox” that was introduced by a passage of unaccompanied double bass from Manz, subsequently joined by brushed drums and then by guitar and alto. The theme statement was followed by a further solo from Manz, accompanied by Johnson’s brushed drums and Canham’s guitar chording. Canham then took over on guitar, the momentum of the music continuing to build, becoming even more intense as Gilbert began to wail on alto, digging in deeply before the performance concluded with an unaccompanied alto sax cadenza.

The final item was the enduringly popular and endlessly adaptable Duke Ellington / Juan Tizol composition “Caravan”, introduced by guitar, bass and drums and later incorporating solos from alto sax and guitar, plus, fittingly a final drum feature.

Doug Sides might not be as bankable a name for a themed show as some of the other musicians whose legacies were honoured during the course of this performance (Davis, Coltrane, Monk, Tyner, Hubbard, etc.), but this young band paying to a tribute to a somewhat marginal figure still attracted a supportive crowd of around forty or so to the Corn Exchange. A pretty decent turn out I’d say and those listeners were awarded with an excellent performance from four very talented and impressively mature musicians.

I hope we will get to hear a lot more from all four of them but with the jazz courses of the UK’s music colleges producing a host of highly accomplished young musicians every single year it’s a very crowded market place out there. Dave Logan is doing a great job in giving these talented young players an opportunity to showcase their skills in an authentic jazz club environment and every one of the young Birmingham Conservatoire bands that he has presented has delivered the goods. Tonight was no exception.

My thanks to R.J., Nick and Ollie for speaking with me after the show and I wish all four members of the Doug Sides Legacy Band well for the future and will continues to keep an eye on their progress. One suspects that Sides himself would have been very proud of their performance this evening.

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