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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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JON CLEARY AND THE ABSOLUTE MONSTER GENTLEMEN
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The
100 Club, London
April 6th 2008
I
don’t want to sound like a broken record,
but although it’s officially British Summer
Time it’s been snowing in London for much
of the day (more misery at our brave new Terminal
5) and it is simply freezing cold. I reckon it’s
about twenty-five degrees in New Orleans, so it
will be interesting to see how much of the heat
Englishman John
Cleary, for many years a N'awlins
resident, has brought with him from the Big Easy.
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| He’s
a busy man. Perhaps best known as pianist and composer
for Taj Mahal,
he’s in the middle of a short European tour
with his band the Absolute Monster Gentlemen, getting
back home, I’m very glad to say, in time for
a gig at the Tulane Crawfish Boil (mmm!). He’s
then touring as pianist with Bonnie
Raitt before returning with his band to Europe
and in particular London in the summer, when he’ll
be playing a gig at the ghastly Pigalle
Club. Maybe he likes to come over to see his
family – he was born in the picturesque village
of Cranbrook in Kent not far from London. And in
fact I wonder if the reason that the place is so
packed isn’t because half his family are crammed
with us into the 100 Club. It’s certainly
a big crowd for a ‘little known’ (my
assumption) artist, with a surprisingly young and
feminine feel to it. |
| The
Absolute Monster Gentlemen are Cornell C Williams
on bass, the wonderfully syncopated Eddie Christmas
on drums, and on (mostly) Fender Telecaster, Derwin
‘Big D’ Perkins, who without being disrespectful
is not the sort of guy you’d like to see taking
the seat next to yours on a ‘plane (or a bus,
cinema, park bench etc.). On a serious note –
his size does not prepare you for the delicacy of
his playing, particularly on the Caribbean and calypso
infused ‘Zulu Strut’ (which can be found
on Cleary’s 2004 album Pin Your Spin) where
he duets with Cleary on guitar, or during his big
solo on ‘Help me somebody’. But for
the most part he plays behind Cleary who leads with
his forceful keyboards which display a variety of
influences from the classical New Orleans style
of Professor Longhair through to more contemporary
R&B. We get one Taj Mahal tune – ‘21st
Century Gypsy singin’ lover man’, which
Cleary co-wrote, but sadly not the wonderful ‘Cheatin’
on you’, which he also wrote. And as the band
play they swing from New Orleans stomp-style such
as ‘Go to the Mardi Gras’ to a more
accomplished Average White Band, particularly with
Big D’s backing vocals to Cleary’s gravelly
lead. |
Derwin ‘Big D’ Perkins and Cornell
C Williams |
| Needless
to say Christmas’s drumming was at the heart
of almost everything, and was showcased, appropriately
enough, on ‘Second line’. |
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By
this time the temperature had been predictably over-adjusted,
so the evening ended with us wading in pools of
sweat and beer as Cleary finished with ‘Help
me somebody’, ‘Groove me’, and
‘When you get back’, all of which, in
the very same order, can be found on his new (and
recommended) live album ‘Mo hippa’.
And it was then that something very strange happened.
With an audience totally engrossed in the music
no one noticed the phalanx of burly blue-track-suited
Chinese guys who jogged down the stairs, with what
looked like promoter Jim Driver in their midst clutching
a flaming torch, pushed past the backs of the crowd
and out through the fire-exit by the entrance to
the malodorous Gent’s urinals. Stranger than
truth? Hardly. - Nick Morgan (photographs by
Kate)
Kate's
gig photo album 
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Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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