Tag: swing from paris

A Little Bit Of French Polish

Andy Fawthrop

As the Devizes Arts Festival rolls majestically towards its final weekend, there’s no chance that the bus is anywhere near running out of fuel.  There was plenty of gas left in the tank last night to bring us into the streets of Paris to hear…. but what’s that? – it’s some lively street music!  Yet another beltingly-good music act had come to town to keep the DAF party going.  Not only that, but there were signs of a bit of a runaway success – not only had Swing From Paris sold out the Merchants’ Suite venue downstairs, but they’d sold a lot more tickets too, so the gig had to be moved upstairs into the main Ceres Hall…..

To be honest the place didn’t look much like a Paris bistro – the high-ceilinged, air-conditioned, space of the hall would never allow that – but at least we were greeted with a more café-style layout, featuring a casual smattering of tables and chairs.  It meant that we had some space to spread out for a change, whilst still feeling crowded together enough to create some atmosphere.

Swing From Paris breezed on to the stage and, after a little tuning, confided (to plenty of laughter and applause) that they weren’t actually from Paris at all!  The shock! – we’d never have guessed! Still, Gloucester and Worcester’s Finest came to give us a good evening’s entertainment, and they sure succeeded in doing that.

Consisting of Tomasz Williams on upright bass, Sam Hughes on acoustic guitar, Andy Bowen on electric guitar, and Fenner Curtis on violin, who acted as the band’s spokesman throughout, we got two highly entertaining sets of jazz, swing, waltz and gypsy rhythms mostly from the 1930s through to the 1950s, but also featuring tunes from as far back in the 1890s and forward into the 1980s.  There was plenty of humour and self-deprecation throughout as Fenner talked us through the provenance of each number.

The instrumental tunes were bright, lively, and often short, occasionally well-known and recognisable, delivered through some really tight arrangements, but giving just enough room for the occasional solo. Many tunes derived from Broadway shows, the movies, musical theatre, and the Great American Songbook, but there were a couple whose roots were more from classical music or folk traditions.  Fenner humorously compared classical works to jazz works, in that nobody knew for sure exactly when to applaud, and then gave Tomasz a bass solo in the middle of the next number, just to prove the point. 

And there were plenty of famous names being bandied around during the evening – Claude Debussey, Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, George Shearing, George & Ira Gershwin to name but a few.

I particularly loved Fenner’s minor tirade against streaming sources when he exhorted folks to purchase an actual physical CD or vinyl copy of their albums. The difference, apart from the revenue stream to the artist, was so much better for the punter too – higher quality sound reproduction, the feeling of ownership of an artefact and its associated artwork, the programme and background notes, and the knowledge that it was much more financially supportive of the artist.  I have to say I agree with him.  Seems like other folks did too, as there was plenty of business going on at the merch desk during the interval and after the show.

Two fine forty-five minute sets breezed by in absolutely no time, capped off by the well-signalled and, ahem, totally unexpected encore.  Job done!  Artists very happy with their first visit to D-Town, DAF very happy with a larger than expected number of bums on seats, and an audience very happy with what they’d just heard.

So another “hats off” moment for DAF – well done for bringing these guys to town.

Anyway, there’s just a few more sessions to go from this Friday through to Sunday, and it’ll be all over for another year.  So, if you haven’t done so yet, get yourself along to something before it’s too late!

The Devizes Arts Festival continues until the night of Sunday 14th June at various venues around the town.  Tickets can be booked at Devizes Books or online at www.devizesartsfestival.org.uk

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