Though hampered by a cold that erased some of his low notes, the dapper Dominic Alldis made fine work last night of standards associated with the great Nat “King” Cole. Sporting a scarlet floral shirt of the type only international jazz-cabaret artists take to work, he showed a winning combination of old-style British charm and new style-keyboard skill. Before calling up drummer Martin France and bassist Alec Dankworth (succeeded later by bass-guitarist Maddie Edwards), Alldis sang Too Marvellous for Words with piano alone, displaying interesting chord-voicings never heard when he was the house-pianist here. After three numbers tenorist Iain Ballamy arrived with typically agile, serpentine solos, but the leader was not to be outdone. His graceful and inventive ideas, particularly on Skylark, were far more substantial than his “singers’ piano” of the recent past. France, mostly on brushes, motored tidily along with Dankworth, warming up when giving Nature Boy and Chaplin ballad, Smile, the boss-nova treatment. Let There Be Love featured George Shearing’s famous gospel-piano fills, and the set-closer, It’s Almost Like Being In Love, even found Alldis scat-singing for 16 carefree bars. He’s a class act. |
