Salisbury Jazz Club

We hadn't played this illustrious and long-standing Club since their venue was changed from the cavernous and rather impersonal Livestock Market at Harnham, so it was a real pleasure to be invited to play our first session in the club's splendid new HQ in the Michael Herbert Hall at Wilton. With a spacious stage and an excellent acoustic, we all decided immediately how much we preferred this excellent new base, and were gratified to see the club's keen dancers setting about their athletic business after only a very few choruses of our opening number.

It was good to receive lots of positive feedback from enthusiastic club members in the interval - they clearly approved of our acoustic approach to the music, saying that some visiting bands seemed rather over-reliant on amplification, and they also commented favourably on the high proportion of less well-known numbers in our repertoire ... it seems that numbers like Ellington's Rent Party Blues, Jelly Roll Morton's The Pearls and Sam Morgan's Short Dress Gal are rarely performed here. Best of all, the enthusiastic dancers also gave us their seal of approval in the best possible way ... by dancing! Needless to say, Hamish once again earned the adulation of the ladies present - is it his vocals they admire, or his personal charisma? The rest of us would love to know his secret!

We enjoyed our session here very much - thanks so much to the club for such a warm welcome and we hope to return at some future date!