Simon Spillett Quartet vibe up The Verdict

Tonight is a celebration of what would have been Tubby Hayes’ 80th year, and as Simon Spillett bends straight into an exuberant tenor solo, with a smoothly powerful tone, which confidently handles the melodic bends in a strong-flowing river-rush of notes, it’s clear that no UK saxophonist is better equipped for the task.

Spillett is at the heart of the revival of interest in Britain’s most revered early player. His Hayes biography The Long Shadow of the Little Giant is out shortly, and he has contributed to the upcoming documentary, Tubby Hayes: A Man In A Hurry. More pertinent tonight is the Hayes-like charisma and capacity to entertain he adds to playing which is more personal than a mere tribute, but has a strength, facility and happy lust for life the man he’s honouring would surely approve. The presence of Hayes band-mates John Critchinson (piano), Dave Green (bass) and Spike Wells (drums) in this occasionally convened quartet adds to its authenticity. Critch especially, just turned 80 himself, brings with him the whole history of British modern jazz, and a bone-dry, mock-curmudgeon’s wit learned, with much else, at Ronnie Scott’s side. This meeting of old English masters with the Modernist-suited, 40-year-old Spillett would be worth hearing any time. A packed crowd in Brighton’s basement jazz Mecca, The Verdict, ices the anniversary cake.

Rocketing out of the traps, that opening version of Hayes’ ‘Royal Ascot’ screeches to a halt. Spillett, voice sandpapered to a whisper by a heavy cold, introduces another Hayes tune, ‘The Serpent’, by noting it was named after the infamous “appendage” of The Flamingo’s Essex MC Bix Curtis. Critchinson shows a flickering blues touch, then hits a lightly jabbing rhythm. Green’s antic, brightly melodic bass is, like this whole band, a deceptively breezy marvel. Spillett’s appropriately snaking, speeding ease, sneaking in a snatch of ‘My Favourite Things’ in a modal passage, finally soars into another solo which seems set to crash through the roof. The energy’s huge.
Clark Terry’s ‘Opus Ocean’, from his Tubbs In NY session with Hayes and played here just days before Terry’s death, is super-charged dance music, Wells smashing a cymbal with a flourish, everyone relishing the chance to go full-pelt. ‘Grits, Greens and Beans’ gets more dynamite-blast wailing from Spillett, who then slips gears into slower, no less relentless intensity, ending by bending into a classic sax-player’s profile. Wells provides Blakeyesque drive, while Critch spikily skims the keys. The wryly celebratory ‘Off the Wagon’, written in the wake of a rare, hospital-enforced spell of Hayes sobriety, warmly swings. Then another cut from 1967’s Mexican Green LP, ‘Dedication to Joy’, Hayes’ tribute to what Spillett terms his “short but bloody liaison” with his mistress Joy Marshall, sinks into nocturnal, noir reflection. Showing his softly lyrical side, Spillett finishes alone.

This flagging, spluttering quartet, wrung-out not by one of Hayes’ exotic addictions but multiple winter colds, slump over the finishing tape. They’re met by rousing cheers from an audience mostly very familiar with the Little Giant, who recognise he’s been done justice by a band of peers, and one worthy descendent.

- Nick Hasted