Flat fives

Blue Note Fix is not the only group of musos who love this music. Post-bop is cool, bluesy but inventive, insinuating and easy to love. Think Sidewinder or Moanin' or Killer Joe or Stolen moments. This was the first outing of some mates who play as Blue Note Fix. They do it well, Hammond sound, calm choppy guitar, drums that know the essence of the tune and hold it, James up front on tenor with a deeply imbibed love of the style. No bass, but the organ works well for that, at least with that cloudy bass line with soft and gentle tonality. The Hammond in jazz is a style of its own. Peter plays a contemporary two-manual electronic Hammond sounding all the world like the original B3. Easy, laid back, chordal, arpeggiated, glissed. We joked Glissando man, but how can a bass player raise up a laugh when his instrument is relegated! You recognise all these tunes, even if they are just blues and even when they are previously unheard. This music is like that: it all feels just so simple and right with the bewitching grooves and comely melodies. And the band carried it off with relaxed persuasion. That's Blue Note for you. Every hot tune is very cool. The tunes? Chicken shack, Mellow mood, Blues walk, Killer Joe, I remember Clifford. More absolute common markers like All blues, Song for my father, and the insistent groove machine Mercy mercy mercy. All great tunes in their inevitability and simplicity and I can only share the love of this era. Blue Note remains a label for the ages. I understand the craving.

Blue Note Fix are James Hoogstad (tenor), Tyson Jones (guitar), Peter Kirkup (organ) and Jamal Salem (drums).