Jazz Preview: Martyn brings over a flavour of New Orleans

Barry Martyn, who appears with his Young Bloods at Leeds Jazz Club on February 19, is a Londoner who has become a respected figure in New Orleans where he has lived for many years.
By The Newsroom
Published 28th Jan 2011, 10:53 BST
Updated 28th Jan 2011, 10:53 BST

Certainly few have worked so loyally to champion the music of the old masters than Martyn, as a musician, bandleader, writer and archivist.

Once a year the cigar-chomping drummer – 70 next month – returns to his birthplace to tour with a young British band whose style, he says, "reflects the carefree, toe tapping, let-the-good-times-roll spirit of the Crescent City".

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This is what brings him to Leeds and, intriguingly, the provisional line-up includes three former students at Leeds College of Music – saxophonist Jonny Boston, saxophonist and clarinettist James Evans and trombonist and Kid Ory devotee Mike Owen.

The original venue for the concert was the award-winning Jazz in the Spa at Boston Spa, but when a clash with a real ale festival made that impossible, Leeds Jazz Club stepped in to present a show which will celebrate the New Orleans virtues which Martyn holds so dear.

Boston Spa, meanwhile, has a special occasion of its own tomorrow when two gifted saxophonists, Alan Barnes and John Hallam, join forces with the Tom Kincaid Trio in an evening guaranteed to please Saturday night regulars at the Village Hall.

Leeds Jazz Club at Armley Conservative Club, Ridge Road, Leeds. 0113 252 3844; Alan Barnes, Boston Spa Village Hall 01937 842636.