Woodville CD Swinging in Studio One

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Personnel

Alan Barnes clarinet
Jim Hart vibraphone
Paul Clarvis drums & cymbals

Recorded at Abbey Road Studio One London 2007

Swinging in Studio One

Paul Clarvis / Alan Barnes / Jim Hart

1. Seven Come Eleven (Goodman/Christian) listen
2. Smooth One (Goodman) listen
3. Rachel's Dream (Goodman) listen
4. Musette For A Magpie (Taylor) listen
5. After You've Gone (Creaman/Layton) listen
6. Slipped Disc (Goodman) listen
7. Lazy River (Carmichael/Arodin) listen
8. Airmail Special (Goodman/Mundy/Christian) listen
9. My Inspiration (Huggart/Bauduc/Lamare) listen
10. Don't Explain (Holiday/Herzog) listen
11. Soft Winds (Henderson) listen
12. Til Tom Special (Goodman/Hampton) listen
13. Goodbye (Jenkins) listen

Details

This new trio was initiated to recreate and celebrate the excitement and inventiveness of the Benny Goodman small groups, but with influences and ideas from all over the jazz spectrum, using the music of an earlier period as a springboard to new and exciting things. The repertoire has expanded since then to include compositions of many contemporaries of Goodman, most importantly Django Reinhardt. The unique instrumentation of clarinet, vibraphone and drums allows for an unusual amount of intimacy, interplay, and dynamics. However, swinging remains the keystone of this group. Devises often neglected in modern jazz, such as shout choruses, riffs, stop time and breaks are all employed to great effect

Reviews

This UK trio set is the kind of eccentric, enthusiastic jazz oddity that gives retro-jazz a good name. Swinging in Studio One is a collection of tunes associated with 1930s swing king Benny Goodman, creatively reappraised by Alan Barnes who sticks to the clarinet all through, young vibraphone master Jim Hart, and the former classical percussionist turned jazz and contemporary drummer Paul Clarvis.

Hart furnishes the vibes sheen and insistent swing that the legendary Lionel Hampton did for Goodman, while Clarvis, on brushes, supplies a more rhythmically wayward and contemporary sounding pulse. He patters manically behind Barnes's whirling solo on the Goodman/Charlie Christian classic Seven Come Eleven. The unison lines of the clarinet and vibes on Rachel's Dream and elsewhere fizz with vivacity, and the waltz Musette for a Magpie brings out all Barnes's insinuating elegance. He slyly quotes Monk on a fast, tumbling account of Airmail Special, and helps the music towards a strange kind of free-improv-meets-Jimmy-Giuffre feel on Til Tom Special. It's all a wacky delight.

John Fordham - The Guardian