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Stratford upon Avon Herald - 26th October 2006 STANDING OVATION FOR JAZZ COLLECTIVE The Stratford Music Festival again had a wide range of genres, including a fair smattering of jazz, and Sunday's appearance by the Trio Gitano Collective at the White Swan almost encapsulated that range on it's own. As the name suggests, there are normally three of them, all acoustic guitarists, but one has had to stop playing on doctor's orders, leaving Jamie Fekete and Sam Slater to soldier on. Their response to this adversity was, it turns out, an inspired one: they roped in some of their friends from the young musical talent available on the Birmingham network, did some new arrangements, and rebranded themselves as the TG Collective. This was their live debut in this form, and it worked brilliantly. Stylistically, they cover a lot of ground, demonstrating equal skill in all styles. They started with a Paco de Lucia flamenco piece, played with real passion and rhythmic drive as well as quite astounding technique. At first they were augmented by Percy Pursglove on double bass and Holly Jones on flute, then the latter was replaced by Louis Robinson's violin for an early Django Reinhardt number, a slow blues that changed abruptly into a fast swing tempo. There was a further addition to the sound palette when trumpeter Ray Butcher took the stand for a Latin-infected version of Horace Silver's Song For My Father, then it was back to basics as Sam and Jamie closed the set with an auadorned duet. The second set was if anything more diverse, starting with dramatic flamenco flourishes and a two trumpet fanfare (Percy is one of those annoyingly gifted people who are not content with being very good at just one thing). This eventually resolved itself into a long medley based around Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, better known to jazz fans as the main track on the classic Miles Davis album Sketches of Spain. The complex arrangement and the skill of its execution made it hard to believe that this wasn't a well-established band with a fixed personnel. Another standout was a genre-shifting run through Dave Brubeck's famous Take Five. By this point they'd been joined by yet another talented young player, Chris Morgan on tenor sax, and at the end all seven were involved. A standing ovation and loud demands for an encore produced their final masterstroke - a medley of Ennio Morricone spaghetti-western themes that was by turns stirring and tongue-in-cheek. The Stratford Music Festival seems to get better every year, and it's wide-ranging policy is admirable. Over the fortnight there are numerous concerts on offer in a variety of styles, many of them featuring presitious names, but I doubt if many (or even any) of them will exceed this in terms of sheer enjoyment.
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