JEREMY SASSOON’S RAY CHARLES PROJECT, WALL2WALL JAZZ FESTIVAL, BLACK MOUNTAIN JAZZ, MELVILLE CENTRE THEATRE, ABERGAVENNY, 29/09/2024

Jeremy Sassoon – piano, vocals, Billy Buckley – guitar, Jim Corry – tenor sax, Jake Newman – bass, Phil Johnson – drums

Headlining Wall2Wall 2024 meant a first visit to Abergavenny for singer-pianist Jeremy Sassoon, whose quintet brought the event to a rousing close on Sunday, but a further outing for his Ray Charles Project, which comes in a few guises. There are a couple of big band versions, one of them exceedingly brassy, but they are all led by Sassoon’s authentic Charles vocals and vamping keyboard style.

The Melville Theatre’s setting, which hovers between voluminous space and intimacy, was just right for the characteristic up-and-at-’em charts. With bassist Jake Newman and drummer Phil Johnson keeping steady time, ace blues guitarist Billy Buckley and rip- roaring tenor saxophonist Jim Corry were given their heads but with solos judiciously placed and measured by Sassoon in clipped, sharply-defined arrangements.

That intimate feel prompted some witty anecdotes from the leader, not least his (mock) interpretation of the club’s invitation for him to ‘close’ the festival as an offer to end it for good. Quite the opposite: there were suggestions from some members of the audience afterwards that Sassoon, who also offers a trio version of his MOJO project, might soon be invited to return to Black Mountain Jazz. (MOJO is his a survey of the Jewish composers – from Gershwin to Amy Winehouse – who have contributed, or are contributing, to the jazz standards tradition.) Oh, and he complained with tongue in cheek that he couldn’t see the Black Mountains for mist – by evening on the Festival’s last day, the rain had arrived for good, though its effect on the earlier street music was minimal.

We learned a fair amount about Ray Charles, too, if we didn’t already know: that he never composed “What I’d Say” in the strict notated sense but created it as an impromptu chart made up at a gig that finished early; and that “Shake A Tail Feather” (penned by Otha Hayes, Verlie Rice and Andre Williams, and covered by Charles in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers) marked a lesser-known appearance by him on a film soundtrack. That the chart alludes to various dance styles was not lost on the Melville’s audience. The most famous appearance, of course, was in the music for Norman Jewison’s 1967 film “In The Heat Of The Night”, written by Quincy Jones. The quintet’s performance of the eponymous chart – a tune that seems capable of unravelling endlessly – was the obvious choice for an extended Buckley solo, and he delivered the goods with interest.

Sassoon made the point that Charles wrote much or was associated with many tunes written by others. Anyone’s choice of favourites, therefore, would always be different. But there were a few that would be common to all. One of these was “Hit The Road Jack”, here notable for its guitar feature and a late acceleration in tempo and increase in volume. (It’s tempting in all these soulful R&B-style charts to do something similar towards the end, to vary if only slightly their powerful but sometimes uniform rocking motion.) Another, perhaps pre-eminently, was “Georgia”, recorded by Charles under that name for a 1960 album and known as such thereafter, but actually written thirty years earlier by Hoagy Carmichael as “Georgia On My Mind”. Sassoon gave it ballad treatment with a delicious piano intro and accompaniment before the others joined in. Ballad guise, too, with another sympathetic piano part and a jazzy Corry solo, for “You Don’t Know Me”.

All that said, it would be a mistake to think that every Charles number, written by him or someone else, rose off the same template; there’s a fair amount of variety, as here on “You Are My Sunshine”, played in the form of a 12-bar blues and founded on just two chords, with Sassoon scatting in unison with Buckley. Scatting was also featured on an unfamiliar Charles tune,” Jealous Kind”, with Corry and Buckley, who despatched another terrific solo.

Good to hear included a track, “Feel So Bad”, from the novel ‘posthumous’ album “Ray Sings, Basie Swings”, combining Charles’s voice (in an unreleased recording) and accompaniments by the Count Basie Orchestra.

As an example of how well-drilled the quintet was, the stop-time of “This Little Girl Of Mine” couldn’t be bettered. But there was a lot more that was just as good. And as a fitting finale for Wall2Wall 2024 the gig impressed everyone.

NIGEL JARRETT