Clive Peacock gives his take on 'Swing from Paris' at Kenilworth Jazz Club on 5 February 2024.

What a difference 12 months has made to the fortunes of Swing from Paris!

Twelve months since their las visit they now have a healthy list of upcoming gigs, plans to make new recordings and a supreme confidence in their performances, this quartet has far to go as a full-house at Kenilworth Jazz night will confirm.

Fenner Cutis leads the quartet from the violin, Andy Bowen and Sam Hughes play guitars and the rhythm is created by Tomasz Williams on bass.

Their inspiration remains the music of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli; however, they will turn their attention to the inventiveness of Benny Goodman, Cole Porter, Sydney Bechet, John Lewis and George Shearing for new ideas.

Goodman's Sextet composition "Flying Home", co-written with Lionel Hampton, was a fine start followed quickly by Porter's song "I Love Paris" cleverly recreated for this quartet.

The Paris theme continued with the 1949 jazz-standard "Afternoon in Paris" by Lewis. Soon the compositions of Django and Stéphane were heard with Sam Hughes playing his Selmer guitar, favoured by Django, with remarkable dexterity and flair - a highlight, show-stopper of the first half.

Sadly Django died at the age of 43. As a tribute to his hero, Lewis wrote "Django" a year after the death – full of emotion, depth of colour and incorporating clever syncopated sections.

Andy Bowen showed his talent with an exciting recreation of the Reinhardt/Grappelli 1930's composition "Confessing", with its extraordinary-detailed chord structures, one of the most carefully crafted presentations of the night, A pacey rendition of "Airmail Special" a Goodman/Christian composition ended a thrilling first half.

With its significant changes in pace, the Reinhardt/Grappelli version of "After Youv'e Gone" opened the second half with a Sam Hughes intelligent solo and an inventive Andy Bowen contribution, before the Duke Ellington's trombone player's "Caravan" encouraged most enterprising bass playing by Tomasz Williams.

The Tomasz/Andy combination in the song made famous by Lucienne Boyer "Parlez-Moi D'Amour" was a gorgeous moment.

"But Not for Me " from Crazy Girl by the Gershwins brought out the best best from the two guitarists with Fenner driving things along. Finally, Astor Piazzolla was given an airing with one of his 'nouveau tango' compositions, "Libertango".

As Fenner claimed; what Django did for gypsy music, Astor did for tango!!

An excellent night at the rugby club