BillF

P.S. Yes, very nice. I saw a band very like this in a Manchester club a few years ago: Eric on tenor, LeDonne on piano and that Austrian wizard (Gheorghe please note! ), Bernd Reiter on drums.

Judging from Eric and Seamus's performance which I saw on Smalls' live stream on YouTube, that looks a very promising album, Peter. It's available on Spotify and I'll be giving it a listen.

Thanks for the info, Steve. Chubby's role in the greatest Herman bands secures his place in jazz history, the equivalent of Wellman Braud IMO. Please, no one say "Who's Wellman Braud?"

Nobody has mentioned that Chubby Jackson was bassist in one of the greatest big bands in the music - the Woody Herman First Herd of 1944-6, which of course explains the 1957 title Chubby's Back, which has been mentioned. Whether he was still there for the Four Brothers Band of 1947-8 I don't know. Someone can research this for me.

Le Carré's a master at grabbing the reader's interest with a memorable opening scene. That one with the guy living in a caravan at the end of the school playing fields is unforgettable. Clearly a guy with a history, but we don't know what. Great stuff! Another favourite opening scene is in The Looking Glass War, which begins with an assassination outside a snowbound airport in northern Europe.

Yes, I have read The Perfect Spy. I haven't seen the film version of Prick up Your Ears, but I've read the book. (See above.)

Probably Le Carré's best. Rereading it now.

- What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? - A stick.

Lonely Woman The Lone Ranger Napoleon Solo

Well, of course there's this sensational album!

Bert Swindells Alfie Conn Acker Bilk

Now playing:

As we're now talking youth styles, in my youth (around 1960) there were two tribes in this country: 1) traddies who did something called skip jive to dixieland jazz and wore baggy sweaters and ill-fitting jeans and 2) modernists who dug "modern" jazz, had a cool demeanour and dressed like this: I was, of course, a "modernist".

I was listening on Spotify and that's the image they gave.

The opening of Ronnie Scott's "autobiography": I was born in a room over a Jewish pub in the east end of London. It was called The Kosher Horses. We were very poor. My father was always unemployed. He was a shepherd. We were so poor my parents had to buy my clothes at the Army and Navy Stores. Imagine me going to school during the Second World War wearing a Japanese admiral's uniform.

All are regulars at Smalls. Try Smalls' live stream available daily on YouTube. As to straight ahead, I find this is what young musicians of Sherman's age are doing. Here's that front line of Magnarelli and Weldon with other youngsters: