Michael Garrrick - piano
Norma Winstone - voice
Henry Lowther - trumpet & flugelhorn
Art Themen - tenor sax, soprano sax and clarinet
Dave Green - bass
Trevor Tomkins - drums

Two moments during the final piece of the night, the sublime and technically challenging 
'Home Stretch Blues', tell you everything you need to know about what is so special about 
these musicians and the music they are playing. The first one is Norma Winstone's mistaken
 vocal re-entry towards the end of the piece, and then just after that, the dance 
choreography from the front line of Winstone, Lowther and Themen as they take their 
instruments (and mic) and play up, down, left, right and then pirouette - quite obviously 
pre-arranged but so unexpected that it is genuinely humorous.

Michael Garrick's various groups and albums prior to the release of the Sextet's first 
album ('The Heart Is A Lotus' in 1970) all displayed the ambition of the leader and 
composer's vision, but quite often that ambition was tempered and coloured by that 
deliciously dry and self-deprecating humour, which pricks any bubble of pomposity no 
matter how lofty the ambition of the music they were playing.

The Garrick group for this tour, reunited after nearly 35 years - is either under rehearsed,
or deliberately not rehearsed at all to keep the spark of freshness and spontaneity alive 
onstage. There are moments during several pieces on the night where you can see the players 
arranging the shape of the performance as it happens - Garrick writes often quite detailed 
composed elements, but it seems to me that the overall arc of certain pieces is left to 
chance and to the skill of the group.

The night kicks off with 'Good Times', from the 1968 LP 'Black Marigolds', and is a statement
 of intent of sorts - the three albums recorded by the Sextet, the aforementioned 'The Hearts 
Is A Lotus', 1973's 'Home Stretch Blues' and 1974's 'Troppo', are all represented during the 
night, but this group was never going to go through the motions and play only their recorded 
repertoire - Garrick slots in material taken from all over the place. After a stately 'Lime 
Blossom' the band tackle two pieces from Garrick's (still unrecorded) 'Hobbit' Suite (played 
by request of the programme director for Darlington Jazz, who in the end was ill and couldn't 
attend). The first has a hilariously long vocal intro, which Norma Winstone can't reach the 
end of before cracking-up laughing, but then settles into a great groove for the players.

Garrick's big-band repertoire is represented by a piece from his 'Children of Time' album 
- again, the lyrical content is important  to Garrick - words used in many different ways. 
'Temple Dancer' is a highlight of this bands repertoire and is delivered with a freely 
improvised middle section, and for one of the few times during the course of the evening 
the rhythm section steps to the fore, ceding as they do (along with the leader himself) 
most of the musical action to the front line.

Set Two starts with a sombre 'Blues On Blues', a piece first recorded by Joe Harriott in 
1963. Garrick acknowledges the need to follow it up with something more upbeat and they 
proceed to deliver a swinging 'Torrent' which yields some of the most straight-ahead 
playing of the night.

'Overtones of a Forgotten Music' (Shakespeare's words this time) no longer features Henry 
Lowther's violin but is no less beautiful for it. 'Rest' is a piece that this group had 
never played until now, and was itself only played once before by a Garrick group on a 
1967 BBC Jazz Club date. You very definitely got the impression that there was no overall 
group arrangement at all for this piece and the group feels its way through tentatively 
in places.

It is a measure of how good these musicians are that they can take and shape this music 
and present it cohesively as one performance. 'Home Stretch Blues' always had a very 
definite arrangement, albeit one that is very long and very complicated. This is probably 
the only piece that this group could end their performance with, and is followed by 
rapturous applause. Michael Garrick used the encore to display his love of Duke Ellington,
with a simple and affecting reading of 'Prelude To A Kiss' that brought the night to a 
close.

The odds are that this group probably won't be getting together again too often (if at all)
and so this was a rare and superb performance of top-drawer jazz by a group that, even 
30-odd years after they disbanded, still represents most of what is great about modern 
jazz.

Vince Carr
15 May 2008