Jazz breaking news: Charlie Watts And The ABC and D of Boogie Woogie Play Rare Pizza Express Jazz Club Dates
Monday, June 27, 2011
A rainy night in Soho maybe (hey whaddya expect, it’s Glastonbury Festival’s opening day) but there’s no damp squibs at Pizza Express Jazz Club as Boogie Wonderland hits town courtesy of piano giants Axel Zwingenberger and Ben Waters, drummer Charlie Watts and his former next door neighbour, bassist Dave Green: collectively the ABC and D of Boogie Woogie.
The connections in this occasional quartet are as deep as their love of the music’s original 1930s and 40s masters, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Watts first played with Hamburg-born Zwingenberger in 1986 while Waters was inspired and taught by original Stones’ pianist and boogie woogie connoisseur, the late Ian Stewart, for whom he’s just recorded a tribute album, Boogie 4 Stu. For their first UK club date since a Bull’s Head appearance in 2009 Waters opened up with Jimmy Yancey’s mid-paced ‘Make Me A Pallet on the Floor’ before slipping behind the wheel of ‘Cadillac Boogie’ and easing down for a slow burn treatment of Ammons’ mournful blues, ‘I’ve Got An Uncle in Harlem’: a euphemism for pawnbrokers in the Great Depression.
Sounding like a young Diz Watson with a canny feel for a wry lyric, Waters’ fleet fingers and a beautifully rolling left hand show just why he’s one of the UK’s finest boogie tinklers, while Watts and Green keep it tight but loose with an easy flowing but determinedly steadfast swing. The intensity ratchets up as Zwingenberger, a piano legend in his home country, unveils his ‘left Hand of God’, rolling out gigantic ostinato bass runs and flying top notes that challenges any audience to keep its hands and feet still.
Charlie Watts has been here before of course with the barrelhouse boogie woogie of Stu’s Rocket 88 in the early-1980s, but tonight he’s playing like a man half his 70 years, knocking out the time with a fierce articulation on his vintage K ride, dropping surprise Blakey bombs and accenting with his inimitable ringing rim-shots. His and Green’s emphatic accompaniment for the soulful blues-soaked vocals of Lila Ammons – granddaughter of Albert – was an exercise in restraint and release as the smiles broadened and the spirit deepened. The closer, ‘Route 66’, had the two pianists spinning off each other and bouncing their Steinways in a storming finale that reminded how utterly electrifying the boogie woogie beast can be when it’s firmly in the right hands.
– Jon Newey