Fraser Smith [Benthe de Vries]

IF you catch the No 88 bus from Parliament Hill Fields towards Camden, when the bus stops at the junction with Prince of Wales Road, look to your left. There you will see a rather careworn shopfront with the sign declaring it offers “Phonographic Services” and a faux-Blue Plaque suggesting that Chuck Berry once had a curry there and did a runner.

It’s almost a true story. As the signs says, the site was once occupied by the Delhi Diner Indian restaurant. Mr Berry did indeed eat there after playing the old Town & Country Club (now the O2). When it came to pay, he produced an American Express card which, as anyone who has tried to use one in this vicinity can testify, was a fool’s errand. Politely told that his money was no good there, the original Johnny B Goode rose to his feet and ambled – not ran – out.

It was no fault of Chuck’s that the Delhi Diner went bust and fell into disrepair and dereliction, habitation fit only for pigeons and rodents. It was in this state when it was bought by on the “retro-rockabilly” group Daisy, Kitty and Lewis (Durham), three multi-talented siblings.

As befitted their musical taste, their new studios also harked back to an earlier generation. Old school microphones, valve amps and magnetic tape rule at Durham Sound Studios – there is probably a swear box that you have to feed if you even mention “Pro-Tools” or “Auto-Tune”.

Last year I interviewed photographer and film-maker Dean Chalkley who put together a scratch group with Nick Corbin (of Big AC Records and a another very talented chap who supported Billy Valentine at The Forge in Camden recently) to make a promotional tune for the clothing company Sunspel, celebrating the London’s “nu-jazz” sound.

“Nick and I knew we had to have the right place to record this track,” Chalkley said, “and we visited a few different studios before I remembered I had shot at Durham Sound Studios, which is almost off the radar of people because it’s not really advertised.”

It is, though, a second home to various members of the jazz community, including the diaspora of Kansas Smitty’s. “It is totally analogue, with loads of vintage gear, like a 1960s drum kit, a brilliant Wurlitzer piano you can hear on the finished record, various sized tape machines and an amazing desk that Lewis himself built.”

All this is a roundabout way of saying that one of the latest albums recorded at the studios was Fraser Smith Quartet’s Tip Top! which was produced, mixed and mastered at Durham by Lewis and is itself (as the old-fashioned phrase that serves as a title suggests) is something a welcome throwback.

Instead of the spiritual jazz, soft soul or the knotty Wayne Shorter-like compositions that often seems to dominate jazz releases these days, Tip Top! embraces the big-hearted, warm tones of often overlooked players such as Stanley Turrentine, Wardell Gray and Illinois Jacquet, as it ticks all the bops – pre-bop, be-bop, hard-bop and post-bop.

Fraser Smith’s sax sound is sometimes smooth and soulful and at others muscular and rough-edged, suggesting to me the Dexter Gordon of Go! or Our Man in Paris. Elsewhere fleet-fingered, harmonically twisty tunes like Iroquois are testimony to Smith’s evident love of Charlie Parker.

With Rob Barron on piano, Simon Read on bass and Steve Brown on drums, the record also swings like a demon.

You can catch a somewhat different version of the quartet live when Fraser Smith headlines two shows at the suitably intimate Piano Bar Soho in Carlisle Street (opposite the Pizza Express in Dean Street) on May 19. Tickets: https://www.soho.live/tickets

The Piano Bar, incidentally, is part of a group that includes The Boulevard Soho and The Shed, both housed in the old Raymond Revue Bar in Walker’s Court, which are well worth checking out.

Membership for all three venues, which gives you reduced and free entry to various shows, is just £35 a year. Again, see https://www.soho.live/

Birmingham-born but Welsh raised, Fraser Smith was a contemporary at London’s Trinity Laban with Kansas Smitty’s pianist Joe Webb, no stranger to these pages, who has also recorded at Durham Sound Studios. Webb is at Ronnie Scott’s on May 20, with a tip-top band that includes in-demand drummer Jas Kayser and Kitty Liv, aka Kitty Durham of the eponymous studios, who sings and plays a very down and dirty harmonica plus, on tenor, one Fraser Smith. Small world, the jazz world. Tickets: https://www.ronniescotts.co.uk/performances/view/8196-joe-webb

Matt Anderson Quartet play the Parakeet on May 22 [Jimmy Glass]

Fraser Smith is also up the road at the Parakeet in Kentish Town as one of drummer Robbie Ellison’s storming septet on May 9. It’s part of the Jazz at the Oxford Tavern series, which sees a world-class guitar duo of Nigel Price and Alban Claret (the latter French, in case you hadn’t guessed) with Matt Fishwick on drums and bassist Mikele Montolli playing on May 15; versatile young saxman Matt Anderson and his exciting quartet are in residence on May 22, and Zoe Francis (voice) alongside the peerless Jim Mullen on guitar and the funky Hammond organ of Ross Stanley, appear on May 29.

The admission price has crept up to £12 (£7 musicians/students) but given the talent on stage, this still amounts to excellent value. See https://jazzattheoxfordtavern.com – yes, they’ve kept the old name.

The Francis/Mullen/Stanley group (aka “­Blue Town Trio”) are also at the Hampstead Jazz Club on May 19, part of a varied and packed programme for May. See https://hampsteadjazzclub.com/

James Brandon Lewis plays The Vortex on May 27 [Ben Pier]

If your saxophone tastes run to something a little more avant-garde, might I suggest that stalwart of the New York scene James Brandon Lewis who, in something of a coup, is playing two shows at The Vortex on May 27.

I caught him at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Festival in Sete near Montpelier a few summers ago, and he can be both winningly lithe and melodic and also wildly free, often in the same tune. It was sometimes bracingly challenging (guitarist Marc Ribot says he solos “like a jumbo jet”), but the fact my son ended up dancing on the stage to his choppy rhythms speaks volumes. As does – possibly even more so – an endorsement from Sonny Rollins, who digs Lewis’s playing. There are two shows for his trio and I’ll be at one of them: https://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/

Robbie Ellison is joined by Fraser Smith at the Parakeet, Kentish Town, on May 9

Also, worth checking out is Xhosa Cole’s new quartet, Rhythm-a-Thing, which explores the intricate, angular, quirky and endlessly fascinating music of Thelonious Monk with a fresh set of arrangements.

I saw Cole at a Jazz at the Oxford Tavern gig last year and he’s a really interesting, original young player, a Birmingham lad who was mentored/inspired by Shabaka Hutchings and Soweto Kinch but who quickly found his own voice. The twisty harmonics, playful solos and contrapuntal dialogues on his album K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us suggests he’ll be right at home with Monk.

Xhosa’s new sax-bass-drums-guitar line up is at the Pizza Express Soho on May 10. Book on: https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/xhosa-coles-rhythmathing

Another youthful rising star of the saxophone, Emma Rawicz, is making a giant step forward into big band arrangements for her own Jazz Orchestra at the Pizza Express Soho on May 19. A wise-before-her-years performer, she’s already shown she can wrangle and compose for classic small group line-ups, so I’m curious to hear her work expanded onto a broader canvas. She’ll be playing as well as conducting. Tickets: https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/emma-rawicz-jazz-orchestra

Further north, but not quite north of Watford, both Xhosa (with new band) and Emma (with the Oscar Lyons Quartet) appear at the lively Watford Jazz Junction Festival on May 19 and 20 respectively. There’s also a jazzy pub crawl with live music around Oxhey Village on May 21. See https://www.watfordjazzjunction.com/ for full list of gigs and events.

On May 14 I am in conversation at the Dartmouth Arms in York Rise, NW5, (https://www.disappearingdiningclub.co.uk/dartmouth-arms), with Danny Silverstone, who writes an excellent jazz blog (https://mylifeinjazz.co.uk/) and plays saxophone in the Equinox Jazz Quartet.

The subject will be the legacy of the great John Coltrane, which will include a playback of Blue Note’s “ultimate” version of the saxman’s seminal Blue Train.

Expect a few other examples of our favourite things (relax, we won’t be astral travelling to the far reaches of his later works).

The discussion/music starts at 6pm, entry is free, and “Playback Snacks” are available.