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The Oxford Concert

Alyn Shipton

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2026
Views: 228

Tracks

1: Precious Lord (Thomas A. Dorsey) 5.42 2: Streets of the City(Garfield Haywood) 4.42 3: Just a Closer Walk (Kenneth Morris) 7.08 4: The Old Rugged Cross (George Bennard) 5.14 5: Over the Waves (Juvenito Rosas) 5.24 6: Jerusalem Blues (George Lewis) 3.28 7: Algiers Strut (Kid Thomas Valentine) 6.06

Personnel

Alyn Shipton

bass

Trevor Richards

drums

Alan Gresty

trumpet

Martin Litton

piano

Simon Picton

guitar

Album Description

Jazz historian and broadcaster Alyn Shipton formed the New Orleans Friends in 2019 to celebrate the music of the great Crescent City clarinetist and bandleader George Lewis. Every member of the band, along with Alyn himself, has spent time in New Orleans, learning the music at first hand from the musicians who created it. But this particular concert is special, as the clarinetist, Tom Sancton, grew up in the city and was encouraged to play by Lewis himself. Tom is now one of the leading exponents of the style, anywhere in the world.

He and Alyn met as students at Oxford University in 1972, and formed their first band together then, which also included thedrummer on this album, Trevor Richards. He was also a student at the time, at Surrey University, but he had already spent time in theUSA studying drums with the great Zutty Singleton, and later lived and worked in New Orleans for many years. Trevor has played and recorded with many legends of traditional and swing era jazz, and although he, Tom and Alyn have played together occasionally over the years, this collection finds Trevor reunited with his original band-mates in Oxford, 52 years after their very first concert in the city!

Also joining them in the line-up is cornetist Alan Gresty, a long-term member of Monty Sunshine’s band and at one time co-leader of thevery popular UK band, the Ragtimers, with clarinetist Brian White. He has played alongside several New Orleans legends and keeps theauthentic cornet style alive. Martin Litton, on piano, is an acknowledged expert on the style of Jelly Roll Morton, but here he catches all the nuances of the Big Easy’s piano tradition, fitting perfectly into the rhythm section. And that section is completed by the Scottish-born banjoist Simon Picton, well-known in the UK and Europe for his fine and empathetic playing.

The repertoire here is largely drawn from George Lewis’s famous “Jazz at Vespers” concerts, and the New Orleans Friends have often played this music in churches across the UK, from Cornwall to Cambridge. For this Oxford concert most of the tracks are drawn from the vespers pieces, but we move into secular territory for Kid Thomas’s lively tribute to the suburb over the Mississippi from New Orleans, “Algiers Strut”, and for George Lewis’s waltz-into-swing number “Over the Waves”.

Album uploaded by Rupert Burley