Yes, we opened on Easter Good Friday, 3rd April 2015 although we were worried, having received so many phone calls, to say many of you were going away on your Easter break. However, we had that talented young bunch of musicians who make up the ‘MARTYN BROTHERS JAZZ BAND’ and were pleasantly surprised by a large appreciative audience. BEN MARTYN (d.bass &vocals) and EMILE MARTYN (drums) were joined by ALLEN BEECHEY (trumpet), JEFF WILLIAMS (trombone) and JOHN ‘flashback radio’ RUSCOE (guitar). Unfortunately, JULIAN WEBSTER GREAVES had been taken ill and was unable to make the gig. But what came out of that upset, was a wonderful bit of excitement to add to the Martyn Magic – the magic of ADRIAN COX (clarinet).
What better way could we start the Easter Holidays? They began the evening with ’St. James’ Infirmary’ and Jeff sang, plus he played a mean trombone too and wow, what a wonderful blast from all of them. Jeff followed on with singing a Ruth Etting number, ‘All of Me’, what a great jazz voice he has – strong. I must also tell you about the fabulous magic they produced with ‘St. Louis Blues’, especially Adrian, well they were all superb. Ben sang ‘Shaking That Thing’, which brought on the dancers (I don’t think there were many people left off the floor either!). It was then we were given a lovely Easter treat, with the band asking for ‘Brown Ale Pete’ (Peter Marr) to join them and sing, it was the first we knew Pete could do so and he chose to sing Bing Crosby’s ‘Easter Parade’ (Did you see the film that morning? Fabulous). Thanks for this Pete, you were great.
The next number I wish to mention is ‘South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)’ (super guitar John) What a happy song. (I learnt it got to No: 1 spot for Gene Autrey and the composer wrote over 2K songs – including ‘Cokey, Cokey’!) Now to tell you what an exciting drum solo was to follow. Keith was over the moon and couldn’t give enough praise to Emile, the number was ‘Hesitating Blues’. Keith said it is extremely difficult to perform a drum solo to a slow tempo tune, but Emile did it! Next, well I think they know ‘Cheek To Cheek’ is somewhat of a favorite of the club, so they just had to play it again for us, and so we performed our line-dance.
Their old friend, Norman Grodentz, also joined them on clarinet for their next number ‘Bourbon Street Parade’. Adrian gave us a song and they all played with such excitement, just simply brilliant (gotta mention Allen in particular).
Our last number was sung by Ben (and joined by the audience too), namely ‘Down By the Riverside’. Well, I cannot emphasize what a beautiful evening it was and as an old friend of ours used to say, ‘Did you miss an evening!’
Diane and Keith