So what?

And Boplicity as it turned out, and various other tunes of the era (4.56pm on October 32nd 1957, I think)

Sunday at the Leinster Arms, ancient hostelry (by Australian standards* anyway), Kay opened the innings by singing up a storm with Georgia, Stormy Weather and a few other show tunes , Taariq on bass, Mr Hirsh on drum thingies, all reduced to a state of musical mayhem by Captain Chaos blowing up a storm on his sax. Then a sit down, with an appreciative audience (well, they didn't leave, and some took their ear plugs out), suitably refreshed with Carlton Daft, Ned's Red and other varieties of lunatic soup. Frank's elegant bass took over and drove things along nicely for a while, jazz tyro Al - almost in the all time top 6,396 for drumming (but not quite...) took a stint on the drums, the aforementioned Col took his leave for a rehearsal in Dandenong, and some one whose name I will eventually get played soprano sax. Exquisitely. I don't even like soprano sax as a rule, but warmed to it rapidly.  Keith and Jack joined in for some big band style numbers. All in all, a typical jam session, except that Paul (trombone), who leaps onto bass every week and hopefully plays the opening riff of So What, actually got his chance to play it as a closing number, and absolutely smoked it. I don't even like So What as a rule, but...

...so what?




* this is ironic. Australia doesn't have any standards. If it did, they would have been stolen from New Zealand or something, and this wasn't possible, as New Zealand hadn't been colonised by the Poms, and all standards were in Maori, which is admirable but incomprehensible.