First Meeting - Ronnie Scott's - London

We're off to Ronnie Scott's to see Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chris Potter, Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland - a genuine all-star modern jazz quartet.

The group formed around their first live four-night collaboration at Dizzy's Club in New York in 2022.  Dizzy's is one of a number of performance spaces in the Deutsche Bank Center run by Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the quartet was assembled specifically for that booking.  The idea had come from Jason Olaine, Vice President of Programming at JLC, who wanted to bring together these specific four musicians for a new collaboration. The story goes that they had only one brief rehearsal before the run. 

Fortunately, the final set of the run was captured for an album - "First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club" ; in fact, it was doubly fortunate, in that the group thereafter named themselves "First Meeting", after the album - which is clearly a whole lot easier to say and write than "Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chris Potter, Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland"…

Of the four, Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba was the only one we hadn't seen before - though I've had a couple of his CDs for years.  He's been described as "one of the most technically formidable jazz pianists of his generation", so I was excited to see him in action.

We'd seen saxophonist Chris Potter just once - at the Royal Festival Hall on 18th November 2002.  Potter and his band were supposed to be opening the London Jazz Festival, supporting the pianist Brad Mehldau's trio, but travel delays caused by bad weather in Europe meant that Potter's band arrived late (about which, more later…) and Mehldau - although headlining - had to play first.  

As a result of the delay, Potter's set was cut to around 45 minutes, but he still made an impression.  Interestingly, when I look back at the other members of Potter's band that night, I see three names with whom I was largely unfamiliar at the time, but who have since become, if not "household names", certainly worthy of attention in their own right - but that's for another time.

Bassist Larry Grenadier is probably best known for his long association with Mehldau, and we've seen him playing in Mehldau's band many times over the years.  They parted ways (by all accounts, quite amicably) a few years ago, but I still miss his playing with Mehldau, so tonight would be a welcome opportunity to see him play again.

We'd seen drummer Eric Harland just once before, in July 2014 - also at Ronnie Scott's, in bassist Dave Holland's band Prism; Harland played an absolute storm that night and I spent quite some time afterwards watch YouTube videos of him playing live in that band in different venues. I was looking forward to seeing him again.

And so, back to tonight - or rather, initially - this afternoon.

We were due to travel down on the 15.13.  Luckily for us, this service was running - trains before and after ours were cancelled at short notice.  It has to be said that the introduction of the new "Aurora" Class 810 fleet operated by EMR has been utterly shambolic, and today was no exception (about which, more later...).

We got in to London at 16.27 and went straight out to the rank to grab a cab - there was no way we were prepared to endure the underground on a day when the peak daytime temperature was predicted to be around 32°C.  

When visiting Ronnies I usually ask the cabbie to drop us on Denmark Street, near the junction with Charing Cross Road.  This avoids the time (and expense) of the cab having to negotiate the crowded one-way streets of Soho and, depending on the time available, we can then either spend a few minutes in Foyles, or simply carry straight on to Ronnies on Frith Street.  This cabbie was on the ball - "Are you going to buy a guitar?".

In the early years of the 20th century, Denmark Street became London's equivalent of Tin Pan Alley as the centre of Britain's music publishing industry; over time it evolved into a mecca for guitarists, with shops supplying everyone from beginners to major rock stars including Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.  Although redevelopment has changed the area, it remains the UK's best-known concentration of specialist guitar shops.

I explained that if I had had both the talent and the money I might have been, but in fact we were just visiting the area, and we set off.  Almost immediately we could sense that the city traffic was crawling, and by the time we reached Bloomsbury Street we ground to a halt and watched the meter tick away our savings…  Eventually the cabbie became so embarrassed by the delays that he switched the meter off; there followed a brief discussion of options, a quick U-turn and he dropped us at the end of Bedford Avenue as close to Tottenham Court Road as he could and we set off on the rest of our journey (TCR - Oxford Street - Soho Street - Soho Square - Frith Street) on foot.

In spite of the heat we made it to Ronnies just after 17.15 and joined the queue - with less than 15 minutes until the doors opened (or so we thought).  

A few minutes later, one of the security guys walked slowly along the queues (there's a second queue on the other side of the door for members), announcing quietly "there'll be a 15 minute delay before the doors open".

Fifteen minutes came and went.  Suddenly a people carrier came tearing down Frith Street from Soho Square, pulled up opposite the main door of Ronnies and a troop of people and bags disappeared inside - the band, arriving very late.

As we expected, we were then further delayed in gaining admittance while the band set up and performed what must have been only the most rudimentary of sound-checks.  Later, during the set, Rubalcaba noted that their plane had arrived from Italy in plenty of time, but a 20-minute delay in being assigned a gate and then further delays in picking up Harland's cymbals at the baggage reclaim area had resulted in their late arrival - so this would be the second time we had seen Chris Potter, and the second time he was delayed getting in from the continent...

Once again, the security guys walked along the queues, keeping us up to date.  When he got to us he paused.  "Are you here to see Jamie Cullum?". Now, I have nothing against that particular tiny troubadour, but the look on my face and the tone of my voice when replying with a strangled and indignant "No!" made both him and Amanda smile - how VERY dare he! I assumed that Jamie was playing "Upstairs at Ronnies" (though it did seem unlikely to me that such a major star would be playing there without me being aware of it), and that the security guy was simply trying to assess the number of people going to each of the two gigs.

However, as we approached the door I could see the cause of confusion - my questioner had confused Jamie Cullum and Jamie Safir:

Finally, the doors were opened and we slowly made our way inside.

Our favourite table - which I had requested at the time of booking - was already allocated - no doubt to a member - but the alternative we were assigned was actually closer to the action, and perfectly acceptable.

The stage:

The view to our left:

Drinks:

Drinks and food ordered, we settled back and waited for the action.  

Two happy bunnies (for now):

It’s always a pretty hectic operation to get everyone fed and watered in the time between the doors opening and the band hitting the stage.  For that reason, I was hoping that the house would use some common sense and adjust the evening's schedule, to allow time for people at the first sitting to at least stand some chance of eating their meal before the band came on.  Somewhat disappointingly, they decided to stick rigidly to their original timetable, so the guys walked on stage at precisely 18.40. 

 

From the point on, it was definitely an evening of two halves. The band were superb; with a setlist that was effectively the same as that captured on the live CD recorded at Dizzy's they played up a storm and made me wish that we had booked to see both sets.  

Sadly, for perhaps the only time in our many visits, Ronnies let us down miserably.  When our food had failed to appear by 30 minutes into the set we enquired as to its whereabouts; our waiter scurried off and quickly reappeared looking somewhat flustered, claiming that "there is a problem with the ticket machine" and saying that he "would take our order now"...  We responded as one: "Forget it" – neither of us wanted the distraction of having to shovel our meal down while the band ended their set and the house staff tried to hurry us out to accommodate the second sitting.  Since we appeared to be the only table sans food I was not really convinced by his explanation, and suspected that the cause was better described by the phrase often used in computer support - "Fault lies between the keyboard and the chair".

So – "nul points" for Ronnies and a further demerit for not even offering to comp our (very modest) drinks bill for the evening.  An appropriate review was later posted on TripAdvisor – live by the sword, die by the sword.

Buzzed by the music, we sauntered out into the still very warm evening, confident that nothing else would go wrong...

A brisk walk down to Shaftesbury Avenue where we easily caught a cab which got us to St Pancras in plenty of time for our train at 21.32 - one of the advantages of the early set at Ronnies is that we get home at a reasonable time.  We picked up a variety of refreshments (having not eaten for around 10 hours) and headed up to the platform concourse - and bedlam.

• We were in the middle of a heatwave.  

• Extreme heat can and does cause travel problems due to the expansion and warping of continuous welded rail.  

• East Midlands Railways are in the middle of swapping from their ageing Class 222 Meridian fleet to a fleet of 33 Hitachi Rail five-car bi-mode trains (able to run on both electricity and diesel).  

• The transition is not going well.  

It was a perfect storm.

The marketing and brand name chosen by EMR for the new fleet is Aurora, and is intended to evoke ideas of a new dawn for rail travel in the East Midlands, cleaner operation (using electric power wherever the line is electrified) and a brighter, more modern passenger experience.  Based on our experiences thus far, I rather suspect that Ordure would have been a more appropriate name.

As we got to the top of the escalator up to the platform concourse we were met by chaos.  Trains into London (and therefore destined to form the next trains out of London) had been delayed or cancelled.  The delays appear to have been caused by "operating difficulties"; the cancellations had been caused by there being "insufficient trains available for operation due to ongoing technical issues with the new fleet".  Hundreds of people were variously milling, queueing, wandering around aimlessly or frozen to the spot.

With the best part of an hour to wait for our scheduled departure we managed to find somewhere to sit and watch the hordes, most of whom were looking expectantly at the departures board, the gates and anything or anyone who looked as if they might conceivably be able to make sense of it all.  Our late supper concluded, Amanda got up to take our rubbish to the nearest bin, while I stayed behind to guard our precious seats.  She returned a few minutes later and said "our train is boarding".  I looked across and for the first time in memory, saw every barrier open, no staff checking tickets, no indication of which train on which platform was serving which destination – and hundreds of people surging forward towards two trains on adjacent platforms (the others all being empty).

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  We jumped up, put our heads down and joined the melee.  Our one advantage was that the board had indicated that the first-class carriages on our service were "at the front" – that is, furthest from the barriers, so we skipped and dodged our way around people gathering around the nearer doors of the trains on both sides and headed up the platform.  Pointing to the train on the left, Amanda announced, "This is ours", with a confidence that I know from experience is – just occasionally – misplaced.  

I looked across and, as I suspected, saw that "the train" on our left was in fact "two trains on our left".  St Pancras does, on occasion, double-stack trains on platforms, and it's important to know the actual time of departure for each one, so as not to board one train only to see the other one departing at your scheduled time. Since there are no departure boards along the length of the platforms, and the on-board systems to identify the trains were not yet powered up, further confusion reigned.  As we waited by the small gap between the two trains I glanced across to the sole train on our right and saw the magic time of "21.32" suddenly flash up on the information board next to the dearest door.  "This one", I shouted and shoved Amanda ahead of me as we formed our own attacking cuneus.  

One of the great annoyances of the current EMR transition between fleets is the (supposedly temporary) suspension of reserved seating, so we knew that it was a case of "find a seat, grab it and defend it at all costs" – which, it must be said, is a strategy that plays to Amanda's strengths – she's small, agile and a lot stronger than she looks – and as I followed her, elbowing my way into the nearest first-class carriage, it was with some relief that I saw that she had nabbed the two seats nearest the door – designed for use by those accompanying a wheelchair user, and therefore with a large space in front of them.  Now just pray for no wheelchairs...

The already crowded carriage continued to fill up, with people occupying the aisle, the large space in front of our seats, the doorway and the vestibule.  Amanda - very conscious that we both look younger than we are - made sure her Senior Railcard was clearly visible on the table, thereby hoping to stave off any suggestions that we youngsters might give up our seats for some of the more obviously elderly wrinklies around us.

A number of on-board announcements apologised for the chaos and assured us that the on-board staff were doing everything they could to find out exactly what was going on.  Eventually, some time after 21.32 we departed. The train staff knew better than to try to ask to see tickets and passes under those conditions, and opted instead to pass through the carriage handing out bottles of water and bags of crisps for all who wanted them.  

A slow journey home, the only upside being that with a delay of 15 minutes or more we could claim compensation for a late arrival.  Given how the day had gone thus far I decided to take no chances and grabbed this shot to prove that, 15 minutes after our scheduled arrival time we were still only approaching Leicester.  (I need not have concerned myself - EMR duly paid us each the princely sum of £6.65 for our inconvenience).

So - taken all together, a pearl of a gig in something of a sow's ear of a day.  No matter - the band were THAT good.

Set List

• 500 Miles High (Chick Corea)
• State of the Union (Larry Grenadier)
• Con Alma (Dizzy Gillespie)
• Eminence (Eric Harland)
• Santo Canto (unconfirmed) (Gonzalo Rubalcaba)
• Oba (unconfirmed) (Chris Potter)

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui - Swan Theatre - Stratford-upon-Avon

To Stratford, to see The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht - about which, more later.

A busier drive than we had anticipated, but we still arrived at the Swans Nest Lane Car Park in plenty of time to go for stroll. 

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre as seen from 'the other' side of the Avon.  A sign of the times - if you zoom in hard enough you can see that the doors from the Riverside Cafe that open onto the terrace are all closed and have notices affixed to them. These doors are usually open, and entry to the Cafe (and therefore the building) is policed by volunteers who perform a perfunctory 'bag check'.  Now, all access to the building is steered through the "main" entrances and somewhat more rigorous checking.  It would appear that the change occurred after the UK national terrorism threat level was raised to "Severe (highly likely)" on 30th April.

A composite shot of the view from south of the river:

To The Boathouse, and our requested balcony table - about which the Boss appeared to be quite happy:

and if the Boss is happy, I'm happy:

The view back to the 1823 Grade II listed pedestrian Tramway Bridge crossing the Avon:

Our usuals:

Hmm... ...have I got room for a sweet?

Don't ask stupid questions - and give me your wafers:

Out, to relocate the car to the Church Street Car Park and then a gentle stroll to the RST.

A view down the length of the (uncharacteristically empty) building, through the shop and main foyer at the far end:

To our favourite seats:

Obligatory selfie:

The view just before the beginning of the second half:

And so to the play.

Fearing persecution, and already blacklisted, Brecht left Germany in February 1933, shortly after Hitler was appointed as Chancellor, and for the next several years he moved around before finally arriving in Helsinki in 1941, where he wrote "Arturo Ui" in just three weeks while he was waiting for a visa to enter the USA.  It was always Brecht's intention that the play should be performed in the USA but, given America's neutrality at that time, that did not happen and the play remained unperformed until its world premiere (in Stuttgart) in 1958 - two years after Brecht died.

The play is a "satirical allegory" (or should that be "allegorical satire"?), which describes the rise of Hitler and the Nazis through the story of Arturo Ui, a fictional 1930s mobster, and his attempts to control the Chicago cauliflower racket (!!) by systematically disposing of the competition…

All the characters and groups in the play have direct counterparts in real life, and every scene is based on a historical event.  Helpfully, Brecht's original stage directions - followed in this production - include the use of signs or projections which assist the audience in understanding the parallels between the play and actual events.

So what did I think of it? Utterly brilliant - and genuinely frightening.  Mark Gatiss, as Ui, was superb - never lapsing into a direct imitation of Hitler, but also never once allowing us to forget who he was representing.  The rest of the cast were uniformly good, and the staging was excellent.  Given the background to the story, guns were replaced by vegetables.  In the scene representing the "Night of the Long Knives"  -  the internal Nazi purge in which Hitler had rivals and perceived threats murdered - a number of characters are gunned down by someone wielding a stick of Brussel Sprouts as a machine gun, with the victims throwing (and appearing to spit) handfuls of red petals to represent splattering blood - simultaneously blackly humorous and chilling.

Parallels with 2026 geopolitics did not need to be emphasised - it was as if the whole audience was thinking as one.  At the end of the final scene, Gatiss and other cast members walked off stage, to return a few moments later, but this time out of character.  Now speaking in his normal voice, Gatiss addressed the last lines of the epilogue directly to the audience:

"This is no time for celebrating, for bunting and champagne,

Although this time the world stood up and stopped the bastard, 

The bitch that bore him is in heat again".

Pause

"What’s next?

And what are YOU going to do about it?"

and then a first for me - while Gatiss and other members of the cast stood motionless, the audience burst into spontaneous applause several seconds BEFORE the stage lights dimmed and then came back up.

I would say beg, borrow or steal a ticket to see this production, but the rest of its undeservedly short run is sold out; if it makes it to the West End or as a touring production it is a must-see.

Out, and a straightforward run home - marvelling at the contrast between this evening and our last one in Stratford.

Reviews

#BrumHour

All That Dazzles

Broadway World

East Midlands Theatre

Elemental Theatre Company

Love London Love Culture

North West End UK

Peter Viney's Blog

Stage Talk Magazine

Stratford Herald

The Arts Desk

The Arts Dispatch

The Birmingham Press

The Guardian

The Real Chrisparkle

The Stage

Warwickshire What’s On

Warwickshire World

Weekend Notes

West End Best Friend

WhatsOnStage

Amanda's Birthday - Cambridge

A day in Cambridge to celebrate Amanda's latest orbit of the sun.  A straightforward but busy drive down, arriving just before 10.00. For convenience (and because Amanda's Achilles tendons are playing up) we opted to take out a second mortgage and park in the car park above the Grand Arcade.

First - refreshments at Costa:

followed by a mooch around some of the shops in the Arcade (Amanda has yet to decide exactly what she wants from me for her birthday).

Out, and a stroll round to Cellini on Rose Crescent, where I once again took her picture outside the jewellers from which we purchased her engagement ring and our wedding rings 35+ years ago:

More walking, arriving at Seasalt, from where her present(s) and other items were purchased:

To Heffers bookshop.  Its once glorious stock of academic books has dwindled over the years, to be replaced by ever-growing selections of greetings cards, games and touristy knick-knacks.  Ho hum.

More walking - arriving back at the Grand Arcade, where we took the opportunity to store our shopping in the car, before heading back out to The Ivy for lunch:

Absolutely no prizes for guessing what I ordered:

Amanda's "minute steak":

which she seemed pleased with:

Obligatory selfie: 

Chocolate ice cream for yours truly:

and Amanda enjoyed her "Black bee honey and white chocolate cheesecake with mango sorbet, honeycomb and edible flower":

The birthday girl was presented with a celebratory (and complimentary) chocolate profiterole: 

More mooching around the shops and then home to collapse and, still sated from lunch, to decide to postpone the eating of further celebratory pre-purchased cheesecake, panna cotta and birthday cake until tomorrow...

A good day.

Nik Bärtsch's Ronin - Kings Place, London

To London to see Nik Bärtsch's Ronin at Kings Place.  Bärtsch is a Swiss pianist, composer, and bandleader with a very distinctive musical style variously described as "zen-funk" or "ritual groove music", which sits somewhere between jazz and minimalism (think Steve Reich).  Tunes (referred to by Bärtsch as "modules") are built from repeating rhythmic and melodic components and evolve slowly through small shifts which require almost mechanical discipline from the members of the band.  If you think that sounds boring or monotonous, you'd be wrong - there’s a strong groove - funky, but very disciplined.  The trick is not to listen for melodies or solos, but for how patterns lock together and shift over time.  According to my records, the first time I bought a Ronin CD was in 2007, and the first time we saw the band live was also at Kings Place - in 2013.

An "interesting" trip down on the 16.12.  The train before ours was cancelled, resulting in a large number of people transferring to the Aurora train (sounds of me spitting) that formed our service, and the normally quiet environment of the first-class carriage was suddenly transformed by it filling to capacity, with people standing. This seemed strange (I don't ever recall people having to stand in first before) but all was explained when the Train Manager came to check out tickets and it transpired that just before we got on, "our" first-class carriage had been 'declassified' so that any passengers displaced from the cancelled train could use it.  The Manager explained that she could not bring us our complimentary snacks and drinks if we remained where we were, but invited us to follow her (like royalty) to the other first class carriage, which had not been declassified, where we could receive free hospitality...

An otherwise uneventful trip, and we arrived on time and headed out to...  ...Nenno Pizza on Caledonian Road.  We'd been a couple of times before and this has now become our "go to" eatery when we're in that area (though I did note for future reference that there was a branch of Honest Burgers nearby...).

Excellent pizzas:

and ice cream and panna cotta:

and (after we'd paid!) a complimentary Limoncello for one of us:

A gentle post prandial stroll to Kings Place and eventually into Hall One where we had a great view from our third row seats:

until the tallest woman in the world, complete with Zaphod Beeblebrox hair, took her seat:

No matter, it wasn't that bad, but it did persuade us that for future visits we should choose the front row (something that we often avoid because in some venues it can lead to a crick in the neck).

Nik introduces the band:

The band in full flight:

and then, after a one-hour set and a 20-minute encore, it was all over:

I waited briefly at the concessions stand, where Nik kindly signed (and illustrated) my copy of his latest CD:

A brisk walk back to St Pancras and then onto the 23.35 home, this time on one of the original (and being replaced) Meridian trains, with comfortable padded leather reclining seats and lighting that was NOT better suited to an operating theatre...

To our delight, on this occasion the last train of the day did not take the timetabled circuitous route home, meaning that we arrived shortly after 01.00 - great news for us, less great for those passengers travelling further north who were then kept waiting for 25 minutes to ensure that the service adhered to the timetable...

Home, and in bed by 01.30. A great night out.