REVIEW – Devizes Arts Festival – Hawes & Catlow @ St Andrews, Chris Ingham Trio @ Town Hall 15th June 2023

Andy Fawthrop

The Hot & The Cool

Devizes Arts Festival headed towards the end of its second week with a double-dip into the chocolate–box of goodies. At lunchtime we had some hot folk, and in the evening we had cool jazz……

St Andrews was the venue at lunchtime as Kit Hawes (guitar, vocals) and Aaron Catlow (violin, vocals) played an absolutely wonderful set of folk tunes and songs. This was no ordinary duo though – what we heard was absolutely spell-binding stuff. It was largely fiddle-led instrumentals, supported by a wonderful picked guitar, as the two musicians really leaned into their set. Between songs, the pair were chatty and engaging, charming the audience with their laid-back style. The only thing wrong with their set was that it was too short! However, we could forgive them as the guys had to get away because, following this performance, the duo were due to visit two care homes to meet and perform for the residents, courtesy of the performing music charity, Live Music Now. Absolutely sparkling stuff.

For the evening we moved just across the road to the Assembly Room of The Town Hall for The Chris Ingham Trio and an altogether cooler, more laid-back experience. The trio featured Chris himself on piano, vocals and commentary, with Joe Pettitt on upright bass, and George Double on percussion and (soprano) vocals.

Their programme was based around the jazz compositions of the beloved comic actor Dudley Moore (1935-2002). Whilst being more famous for his comic sketch acting on TV and in films, often with his co-comic Peter Cook, Dudley was also one of the UK’s most dazzling, swinging jazz pianists and a composer of wit and depth. The decision to revisit Moore’s music in The Jazz Of Dudley Moore, with sounds from the fabulous 1960s Decca trio albums, the TV show “Not Only But Also” (1965-70) and the brilliant movie soundtracks for “Bedazzled” (1967) and “30 Is A Dangerous Age, Cynthia” (1968) was a good one, and it made for an excellent evening of jazz, that was both instructive and thoroughly entertaining.

During the evening we (well definitely me!) learned a lot about Dudley Moore and his life. Moore was a vastly under-rated and prodigious jazz talent. He was a working-class Dagenham boy, which always left him feeling somewhat second-best next to the highly intelligent and Cambridge educated co-conspirators Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett. He felt he could not always communicate as well as his peers, and music was his outlet for his feelings, his desire to love, and his need to be loved (see “Love Me!”). There is much melancholy there, and his psychological profile was of a man who was lonely, and whose emotions were fragile. He spent much of his life in therapy of one sort or another. His inner demons drove his manic comedy, his drinking and his womanising. Yet he was possessed of immense personal charm and playfulness.

All of this Chris and the boys attempted to convey in words, and illustrate through the music. Chris could never (in his own words) play piano in exact imitation of Dudley, so the idea was to give “another run-out to the spirit of the man’s musical style” – playful, and committed to swing, often with a bossa nova groove.

Chris’s commentary between songs was erudite, yet chatty and witty. His playing was spirited, yet sympathetic, as he led the trio through “Bedazzled”, “Cornfield”, “Song For Suzie”, “Waterloo”, “Sad One For George” and many others. A well-deserved encore of “Good-byeee” simply put the cherry on the cake of a really wonderful evening.

The Devizes Arts Festival continues for only two more days until Saturday 17th June.

Tickets can be booked at Devizes Books or online at www.devizesartsfestival.org.uk