Janie and I are huge fans of solo and small ensemble jazz at the Wigmore Hall; it sounds great in that place. We have encouraged “The Wiggy” to put on more of the stuff over the years and we were delighted when they came up with the idea of curated jazz series.
Double bass virtuoso Christian McBride is the latest jazz series curator. Based (or should I say bass-ed) on this concert, his first appearance as curator, he seems like a superb choice.
Neither of us had heard two double basses as an ensemble before. Should I call that ensemble a duet or quadruple bass? Anyway, the second bass player, Edgar Meyer, was also quite brilliant.
Both Christian and Edgar (you soon feel on first name terms) are composers as well as musicians, so we heard some of their own pieces as well as their take on some good bassy jazz standards. Occasionally one of them would take to the piano, but most of the pieces were double bass duets.
Between pieces, taking the copious applause, they looked like a bit of a mutual admiration society, each denying that the applause was for him and insisting that it was mainly for the other bloke. But that was the only slight irritation for us the whole evening. They are clearly good friends and have a wonderful understanding of each other when they play together, which is the important thing.
This concert was cool. Seriously cool. Elvis Costello was sitting in the audience about half way to the back of the hall and to the side – that’s how hot a ticket this cool concert was. I hoped to say hello to my old pal Elvis as we left the hall, but unfortunately his entourage appeared and grabbed his attention just before I got my chance.