Swing is a term that has considerably broadened in meaning over the past 15 years. Once, it was generally taken to be post-1930 jazz and most things that weren't bebop all the way through the 1950s. It was urbane, smoothly-oiled, explicitly based on songs.
Latterly, swing has come to mean to younger listeners almost anything played in some kind of orthodox jazz time, whether New Orleans, mainstream or bop - everything in a jazz context that isn't fusion, world music or improv. The American All-star Swing festival running at London's Pizza Express Jazz Club is really intended to embody the earlier meaning. But to judge by the wide age-range and enthusiasm of the listeners to Tuesday's show, the terminology couldn't matter less.
The festival features an illustrious assortment of defenders of easygoing jazz lyricism. Dominant among them is the fine tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton, but there's plenty of exposure for other guests including guitarist/singer Marty Grosz, trumpeters Randy Sandke and Warren Vache, drummer Jake Hanna and guitarist Howard Alden. This, the second night of the event, brought Scott Hamilton to gether with the velvet-toned trombonist George Masso and a deft, limousine-like local rhythm section of John Pearce (piano), Dave Green (bass) and Allan Ganley (drums).
Hamilton's tenor playing, with its light tone and whimsical phrasing, meshed perfectly with Masso's plummy trombone sound. Their contrapuntal playing of ensemble sections was delightful. Masso's solo of Ellington's I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good was a definitive performance in this style, its tone like a slowly spreading smile. Ganley and Green's effortless underpinning was clearly both a pleasure and an inspiration to the horns, and the music ran like a lovingly maintained vintage car.
