1. Ragging the Scale
2. S'posin'
3. The Panic Is On
4. Morning Air
5. Ragtime Dance
6. Sweet and Slow
7. Piccadilly
8. Belladonna Took
9. Who Wouldn't Love You
10. Send Me to the 'lectric Chair
11. King Porter Stomp
12. Ragtime Nightingale
13. Hungarian Dance No. 5
14. Lonesome Me
15. Caprice Rag
16. Laughing at Life
Spats Langham - Banjo, guitar, vocals
Martin Litton - Piano
Malcolm Sked - Double bass, sousaphone
I had some reservations about Debbie Arthurs' recent CD on the same label but three musicians from that session here correct the balance and produce an album which is charming as well as brilliantly performed. All three musicians are in full control of their instruments. Malcolm Sked is even adept enough on the sousaphone to play a commendable solo in the opening Ragging the Scale. This tune typifies the trio's enthusiasm for digging out neglected songs and giving them a new spin, and it is good to hear the old Venuti-Lang speciality given a sharp new suit of clothes.
Other tracks continue the theme of resuscitating forgotten songs, like Morning Air (a composition by Willie "The Lion" Smith), Joseph Lamb's Ragtime Nightingale, and Who Wouldn't Love You (recorded in 1925 by the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, a band remembered affectionately for the daft Roodles). They also play Belladonna Took by the Australian composer John Sangster. It has a relaxed four-four swing, which makes a change from the many examples of two-beat.
The trio went on tour in Australia last year, and that is probably where they honed their togetherness. The tour was designed as a tribute to Fats Waller and this disc includes several Waller songs, like The Panic is On, which Spats Langham sings with Walleresque verve. The session also includes Piccadilly from Waller's London Suite, delivered by Martin Litton as a vigorous piano solo. In fact Litton is a rock of strength throughout this CD: backing up the others superbly and soloing with enthusiastic awareness of the tradition he exemplifies, whether in the stride of The Panic is On, the decorations of Morning Air, or the ragtime of King Porter Stomp. Martin gives Ragtime Nightingale extra character with some neat touches of rubato.
But Spats Langham is also notable for his versatility, playing banjo and guitar as well as singing. His vocals on such songs as the title-track and Lonesome Me are entirely natural and unforced. His banjo-playing is virtuosic in songs like Who Wouldn't Love You. And his banjo duet with Malcolm Sked's sousaphone on Brahms's Hungarian Dance No. 5 is both skilful and amusing, with echoes of Spike Jones's Flight of the Bumble Bee.
So I can recommend this album to all lovers of good old jazz numbers but also to anyone who enjoys the sound of three musicians playing as one.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Lake LACD 287
