Featured this time: Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes; Daryl Hall and Todd Rundgren; Branford Marsalis Quartet; Henry Tozer.

After the glories of Bruce Springsteen, there was no let up, with concerts on two of the next three days. A big dash of nostalgia: Bruce, Southside, Daryl Hall, Todd. All in their 70s, but still relevant and still bashing it out with style.

I’ll get some modernism next week – it’s time for Latitude. Then again, some of the expected highlights are Pulp, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Proclaimers. One step forward, two steps back…

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 7 July

The day after Bruce! Southside and Bruce – even more so Steve van Zandt – go back a long way, to the early 70s, when they played together in various bands around New Jersey. Southside and the Jukes were big amongst my university friends around 1977-78, just at the same time as I was really getting into Bruce’s music. There were a couple of key albums: I Don’t Want to go Home (1976) and Hearts of Stone (1978). I bought the latter at Oxford and played it to death. Bruce wrote a few of the great songs on it, including the title track. Stevie had done the same on the first album. Bruce also gave the band what might be their finest tune, the jazzily soulful The Fever, a tale of lost but not forgotten love.

Last time I saw Southside and the band was in 2008, also at the Empire. That was some show: 32 songs in all according to Setlist FM. Fifteen years on we weren’t expecting such a marathon, but we still had high hopes of the show. There was just that chance too, that Bruce or, more likely Stevie, would make a guest appearance on their night off. Neither did, as it happens – I expect they were tucked in bed nice and early, readying themselves for another three hour epic on Saturday. That aside though, our hopes were very much fulfilled.

I’m not playing for three f*****g hours, Southside quipped as he arrived on stage; but we were treated to an hour and three-quarters of high-spirited R&B and soul, powered along by the ever-excellent Miami Horns. Most of the old favourites were featured – the main exception being Hearts of Stone itself. Love on the Wrong Side of Town, This Time Baby’s Gone for Good, Talk to Me, Got to be a Better Way Home, I Don’t Want to Go Home. Classics all. As for The Fever – probably the highlight of the whole show. Such a stirring tune, and sung with panache by Southside. He was in good voice all night – giving plenty of limelight to the horns, which allowed him to pace himself. I was reminded what a great soul singer he is in some of the covers they played, notably Don’t Walk Away Renee and a beautiful rendition in the encore of Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come. The three song encore was terrific, starting with Bruce’s Sherry Darling (off The River) and finishing with the only song it can really be: another Sam Cooke song and a Southside perennial, Having a Party.

A good party is guaranteed with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes!

Daryl Hall with Todd Rundgren at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith, 9 July

There’d been six of us at Southside – me, Jon, Dave, Tony, Kath and old friends Christine and Ant. That was down to three – me, Jon and Dave – for Daryl and Todd. I was intrigued to see how the two artists would interact – it seemed on the surface an odd match. But they are long-standing friends, sharing a love for the Philly Sound, which was so big in the mid-70s. They are both from Philadelphia, or nearby, so it’s in their blood. The format, which Daryl has been performing as part of his Live from Daryl’s House series since 2007, involved a set first from Todd, then one from Daryl, then one together, before Daryl finished it all off.

I’ve never really got into Todd Rundgren’s music in a big way, finding it a bit overblown and proggy, though there is plenty of the soulful sound too. He’s something of a musicians’ musician and is a highly respected producer. His production credits include the New York Dolls first album, Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell (aaaaargh!) and XTC’s Skylarking. I went with Dave and others to see him perform his cult prog album A Wizard, A True Star at the Apollo in 2010. It was spectacular – completely over the top, but brilliant.

Tonight was a bit more down to earth. He played a 13 song set, most of which I didn’t immediately recognise, though when I saw the setlist, I did know quite a few of the songs. Next to me Dave, a big fan, was loving it. Jon too. Highlights for me were I Saw the Light – one of his soulful rock classics – and a cover of Smoky Robinson and the Miracles’ Ooo Baby Baby. Both reminded me that he must have been an influence on Prince, both in the way he combines soul and rock and through his musical virtuosity.  The next day I couldn’t get either of those songs out of my head!

Todd Rundgren

My knowledge of Daryl Hall’s music is mainly through the pop-soul classics he made with John Oates in the 70s and early 80s, songs like She’s Gone, Sara Smile, Rich Girl and I Can’t Go for That. I saw them play their hits at Latitude in 2014, standing just outside the big tent as it was absolutely rammed inside. The last two of those got an airing tonight, though somehow I didn’t recognise I Can’t Go For That! It was a set of quality rock-soul, about half of which was from Hall and Oates times. My favourite song though was his cover of the Eurythmics Here Comes the Rain Again, transformed from electropop anthem to sultry soul ballad.

Daryl Hall

Here Comes the Rain Again

The joint set was quite short, but featured Todd’s Can We Still Be Friends and another old soul cover: the Delfonics’ Didn’t I. Daryl and band finished off proceedings with another from the Hall and Oates canon, You Make My Dreams.  A satisfying evening of music from two masters of their craft.

Together

Dave and Jon were both buzzing about how good it was, and unusually we all went for a drink afterwards to reflect on the evening – and indeed those three days of wonderful music.

The Branford Marsalis Quartet at the Barbican, 12 July

Branford Marsalis is a jazz saxophonist, and brother of trumpeter Winton Marsalis. I’ve liked his music for a long time, without being expert in any way. I’ve got a couple of vinyl albums of his in my collection: 1988’s Trio Jeepy, which is superb, and the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues, in which he had a big hand. I saw him live in Prospect Park, Brooklyn in June 2018, the night before Bruce Springsteen on Broadway. It was a free festival, and he and his band were brilliant. So when I saw that he was playing at the Barbican, I had to go.

Kath and I went to this one. The show started at seven-thirty and was over at ten past nine! Wish more concerts were like this! We were home by 10.30. As I said to Kath as we walked back to Barbican tune station, a lot of the smaller bands I go to see don’t come on until 9-9.30. We got an hour and 40 minutes of the highest quality jazz music you could imagine, spanning the jazz story – from some pretty out-there modern compositions, with Branford’s soprano sax leading the way, to swingin’ Duke Ellington in the encore. The band were all impeccable; Branford on tenor and soprano sax, Joey Calderazzo on piano, Eric Revis on double bass and Justin Faulkner on drums. The first two have been playing in the quartet since 2007, Justin Faulkner since 2019. Like so many of these top jazz ensembles, the musicianship was astonishing – you didn’t have to know the songs to marvel at them. Branford was brilliant, but he also gave a lot of space to Joey to lead with his piano – and exhilarating it was too! Justin was a phenomenon on drums – so dynamic and inventive. And Eric, like so many bassists, was a calm and resonant presence. He wrote at least one of the tunes, called The Mighty Sword. Mighty they were indeed.

The Duke Ellington at the end was a light-hearted joy, with a singer and different pianist coming on to help perform It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing. An irrefutable sentiment!

Henry Tozer at St Mary’s Perivale, 13 July

This was another of the monthly jazz concerts at St Mary’s church. I wrote about pianist Matyas Gayer in the previous roundup. I went to that one with Kath; today it was Dave and Tony. Dave and I did a ten mile walk beforehand from Kew Bridge to Brentford Lock and along the canal and River Brent to St Mary’s. Refreshment stops were built in!

Henry Tozer is a singer, pianist and composer. He grew up in Devon, studied music at Cambridge and makes music now in the classical and jazz/pop spheres. He played and sang set of standards from the Great American Songbook, focusing on the compositions of Gershwin and Cole Porter. It was such an enjoyable hour and a quarter. So many of the great songs you know and love, even if you don’t realise it sometimes. He started with a dramatic classical flourish before seguing into Summertime by Gershwin, made famous by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong amongst others. Amongst others – all these songs have been sung and played by countless performers. Henry was putting himself up against some illustrious names, but he gave a good account of himself! I particularly liked his piano playing. His singing was quite theatrical, which suited some songs more than others. He also played two piano improvisations in which he asked the audience to choose the starting key. D major and A flat minor came out of the hat. He had a good patter in between songs and really engaged a capacity audience – the applause for the last few songs was very enthusiastic. Last song was The Tender Trap, which is from a Sinatra film. Other highlights for me were Night and Day and Everytime We Say Goodbye. I associate the former with Frank Sinatra, the second with Ella Fitzgerald. Both Cole Porter compositions.

Afterwards, we walked though Pitshanger Park and dropped into the Duke of Kent pub for a quick pint; walked back to Northfields and had another pint at the Foresters before a superb and great value meal at Mama’s Nepalese restaurant, with Kath and Jon also with us by then. Back home, I watched the Tour de France highlights – there may have been some snoozing – and then read a bit of Cormac McCarthy’s final novel The Passenger while listening to a playlist I call mashpotatoschmaltz, taken from a line in Roxy Music’s Do the Strand. Full of those brilliant songs from the Great American songbook, updated to the sixties, with a couple of British classics thrown in. Inspired to listen by Henry Tozer, of course!

Next review – Latitude.