Celebrating The Jazz Couriers

Pizza Express Jazz Club, London

Given that the original Jazz Couriers were together from April 1957 to August 1959, it's likely that one of my companions in Dean Street was the only person in the club to have seen the group led by Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott. He was impressed by this loving revival of Hayes's snap-tight arrangements, all laboriously transcribed from recordings by Mornington Lockett, one of the two tenor saxophonists in this outfit and its co-founder along with the drummer Martin Drew.

This pair are worthy interpreters of the Couriers sound, both having been long-time collaborators of Scott. The other members of the crew – pianist Steve Melling, double bassist Andy Cleyndert and Nigel Hitchcock on tenor sax – may be more youthful, but they know how to bring the right edge to these arrangements. Take a couple of the numbers, 'Cheek to Cheek' and 'What Is This Thing Called Love'. These standards, redolent of Astaire and Sinatra, are given a punch in the ribs, Hayes's versions imbuing them with a crisp aggression and a brisk (very brisk) swing. Hovering in the ether is the ghostly presence of the Fifties saxmen, sharp-suited, yes, but with a hint of menace and accompanied by a whiff of the old, seedy Soho to which they belonged.

The balance of this quintet really cannot be faulted. Melling, a tinkling brook of a pianist who bears a close resemblance to Ken Clarke, plays classy, elegant hard bop that fits perfectly with Cleyndert's solid woody bass. He's one of the few British bass players capable of laying down a bass line that really underpins a band on a slow-medium swing. In the ballads, where time moves as slowly as a summer gust and is sometimes in danger of drifting off just as aimlessly, Cleyndert knocks sturdy crampons into the rockface with beautifully timed lard thick notes capable of anchoring the most wayward of soloists.

The man mountain that is Drew draws on a reservoir of experience that has made him one of Oscar Peterson's favourite drummers. He's a master at dominating the background, providing great tummy-rumbles on the toms contrasting with agreeably trebly cymbals, but never overpowering the band. The front line comprises two powerful and individual saxophonists, Lockett possessing the lighter t one and the more Tranish sensibility, Hitchcock richer and more Brecker-influenced.

It's refreshing to hear a quintet make no apologies about ripping into virtuoso arrangements with no concern about breaking new ground. It swings, and swings hard: and that's what the Couriers were about.

The only shame was the pitifully low attendance. As Drew, who's clearly picked up on Scott's infamous sense of humour, put it: "Come again, and tell your friends. Tell your enemies!"