Salt Peanuts with John McDonald, Kidderminster Jazz Club, St. Ambrose Parish Centre, Kidderminster, Worcs. 06/06/2025

Carolyn Evans – alto & soprano saxophones, vocals, shaker, Iain Elliot – electric bass, Tom Fisher – drums with John McDonald – keyboard

It has become a tradition for Kidderminster Jazz Club to feature at least one local act as part of their annual programme. In previous years these have included the Steve King Big Band, the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra, saxophonist Chris Gumbley’s ‘Tribute to Cannonball’ quintet and KJC organiser Annette Gregory’s own quintet.

This season’s local showcase featured the Worcestershire based trio Salt Peanuts, comprised of saxophonist / vocalist Carolyn Evans, bassist Iain Elliot and drummer Tom Fisher. The core trio, who describe themselves as “the three amigos” is frequently joined by guest musician drawn from a pool of players that includes keyboard players John McDonald, Leif Jonsson, Jules Benjamin and Joe Masterson, saxophonist / keyboard player Jay Riley and guitarist Loz Ruston.

Tonight’s guest was John McDonald,  a musician well known to KJC audiences as the leader of the Club’s house band during its early days at the Corn Exchange Room at Kidderminster Town Hall. A highly talented musician he is also Gregory’s regular pianist and also acts as her musical director.

Salt Peanuts, named after a Dizzy Gillespie composition, is led by the versatile saxophonist and vocalist Carolyn Evans, who also plays with the funk band Juiced, the Big Blues Tribe and the Boperator Boogie Band. In addition to the Gillespie reference the group name also references the fact that in Evans’ words the band’s music is “tasty, crunchy, familiar and hopefully addictive”.

Evans and Elliot also play with Loz Ruston’s quartet and the bassist has also worked with Worcester based singer, guitarist and songwriter Rose Hannant. Veteran drummer Tom Fisher has played in formats ranging from trio to big band and has accompanied many leading regional, national and international musicians. He has toured the UK with the Ella Fitzgerald Celebration Show.

The Salt Peanuts repertoire features an interesting mix of ‘real book’ standards allied to an even more intriguing series of what Evans’ describes as “left field turns” into funk, blues, soul, Latin and more. Given the sheer variety of the music presented by the band McDonald elected to play his Nord Stage 3 electric keyboard rather than KJC’s upright acoustic piano “Delphina”, variously deploying acoustic piano, electric piano and organ sounds. For the purposes of this review ‘piano’ refers to the Nord’s acoustic piano setting.

The quartet kicked off with a sure-fire classic in the form of Herbie Hancock’s “Canteloupe Island”. Its rolling rhythms framed solos from Evans on soprano sax and McDonald on piano as the quartet set their stall out in enjoyable and impressive fashion.

Evans then switched to alto sax for the Oliver Nelson composition “Stolen Moments”, a tune from Nelson’s acclaimed 1961 album “Blues And The Abstract Truth”. Ushered in by Elliot on his distinctive five string upright electric bass, reminiscent of the instrument deployed by Eberhard Weber,  the piece included fluent solos from Evans on alto and McDonald on piano. These were followed by a series of piano and bass exchanges that evolved into a full on bass feature from Elliot.

The first vocal item of the evening was a Madeleine Peyroux inspired version of the Leonard Cohen song “Dance Me To The End of Love”. Evans is a saxophonist first and a singer second, but she is a more than adequate soloist and the songs that she chooses to sing are well suited to her voice. She also augments her singing with a series of simple but effective hand gestures that add a visual element to the performance. Here she concentrated on her vocalising, with McDonald on piano the featured instrumental soloist.

Evans returned to soprano sax for a tune that she described as “a classic of modern jazz”. This proved to be an arrangement of Miles Davis’”All Blues”, with Elliot’s playing of the familiar bass motif framing solos from McDonald on piano and Evans on sinuous soprano. Elliot was subsequently featured on bass. A word too for the undemonstrative,  economical, but always apposite and subtly swinging, drumming of Fisher.

Another change of direction with the “funky offering” that was the Roy Hargrove tune “Strasbourg St. Denis”, apparently named after a Paris metro station. This featured funk rhythms and an electric piano sound with solos from Evans on alto, McDonald on ‘Rhodes’ and Elliot on electric bass.

Next an excursion into the blues with the Mose Allison song “No Trouble Living”, another vocal outing for Evans and another song well suited to her voice. This featured a typically witty and amusing Allison lyric (“I don’t have no trouble livin’, it’s just dying that bothers me”) allied to a bluesy piano solo from the versatile McDonald.

A return to the classic jazz repertoire for the Horace Silver composition “Song For My Father”, apparently written after Horace and his Cape Verdean father took a trip to Brazil. The opening bass motif, plus a melodic fragment from McDonald, drew knowing smiles of recognition from the Steely Dan fans in the audience (Becker and Fagen nodded in Horace’s direction at the beginning of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”). A spirited rendition of this much loved tune featured solos from Evans on soprano and McDonald on piano.

An entertaining first set concluded with a funk style instrumental arrangement of the song “I’m Coming Home Baby”, once a vocal hit for Mel Torme. The song’s melodic hook provided the jumping off point for solos from Evans on alto and McDonald on electric piano, with the scholarly looking McDonald adding a dash of musical humour with a quote from “The In Crowd” and then with a sprinkling of Ray Manzarek “Riders On The Storm” style keyboards.

Set two commenced with an engaging version of “Autumn Leaves”, still managing to bring something fresh and interesting to perhaps the most familiar of all jazz standards, with Evans featuring on alto sax and McDonald on piano.

Then it was back to the funk with an “updated version” of the Bill Withers song “Use Me” that featured Evans on both alto sax and vocals. Also incorporating elements of blues and soul this was another song that was well suited to Evans’ earthy vocals. The instrumental solos were shared between Evans on alto and McDonald on electric piano.

Like Chris Gumbley Evans is an acolyte of Cannonball Adderley, the man she describes as her “sax hero”. Next up was Nardis, a composition written for Adderley by Miles Davis and a tune also performed by many other artists, among them pianist Bill Evans and guitarist Ralph Towner. Tonight’s version actually featured Evans on soprano sax, her solo bringing something of a Middle Eastern / North African feel to the music as she shared the features with McDonald at the piano.

Another tune from the catalogue of modern jazz standards, Wayne Shorter’s “Adam’s Apple”, saw Evans reverting to alto and delivering an earthy, almost tenor like sound during her solo, with the excellent McDonald again featuring on piano.

Another diversion into left field territory with “Cuba New Orleans”, a tune written by the contemporary New Orleans pianist Peter Martin. Evans informed us that New Orleans had once been ruled by the Spanish and has subsequently retained close links to Cuba – for me Jelly Roll Morton’s references to the distinctive “Spanish tinge” that characterises New Orleans music also came to mind. As its title suggests this was another lively, Latin flavoured piece with McDonald introducing Afro-Cuban rhythms to his piano solo. Evans was featured on soprano, and was also seen wielding a shaker during the course of McDonald’s solo.

A second ‘left field’ sortie was a version of “Smokin’ At Tiffany’s”, a tune by the 1970s funk quintet Funk Inc.. This saw McDonald deploy an organ sound for the first time as he shared the solos with Evans on alto sax and Elliot at the bass.

This was an item that was particularly well received by an audience that included many friends of a band who seem to have accrued a strong local following. It helped to pave the way for the closing “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”, the Civil Rights anthem with music by Dr. Billy Taylor and words by Nina Simone. These were sung by Evans in a gospel flavoured arrangement that saw Fisher encouraging the audience to clap along as a highly entertaining evening ended on a joyous note.

Salt Peanuts and their guest John McDonald enjoyed an excellent reception from the Kidderminster audience and Annette Gregory had little difficulty in persuading them to remain on stage to play a deserved encore. This proved to be “Blue Bossa”, an infectious and uplifting tune written by the trumpeter Kenny Dorham that represented the final vehicle for the soloing of Evans on alto and McDonald at the piano.

I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I had enjoyed this performance. True, there wasn’t anything particularly profound here and some of the tune selections were rather predictable, but there were plenty of unexpected and very welcome surprise choices too – and as Gregory observed “sometimes it’s good to hear something you know”. The standard of the playing, particularly from the main soloists Evans and McDonald, was excellent throughout and the quartet’s obvious love for, and knowledge of, their chosen material shone through consistently.

Evans proved to be a confident, intelligent and articulate spokesperson for the band, a good focal point. Her tune announcements were illuminating and informative and carried just the right amount of information without becoming overly detailed or verbose. For a reviewer this was particularly welcome, but I’d like to think that the rest of the audience appreciated this aspect of the performance too. In addition to her skills as an instrumentalist she also impressed as a vocalist on a well chosen and admirably varied selection of songs. It was also good to be reminded of just how talented and versatile a pianist / keyboard player John McDonald is, his solos were consistently inventive and imaginative, and when appropriate great fun.

However I did have my reservation about the exclusive use of electric bass and felt that its sound wasn’t always suitable for the essentially acoustic jazz numbers. I’d liked to have seen Elliot alternating between double bass and electric bass, deploying the latter on the more overtly funky numbers. However this is a relatively minor quibble in the context of an excellent overall group performance with Fisher an understated but vital presence behind the kit.

My thanks to Carolyn Evans for chatting with me after the show and to Annette Gregory and KJC for presenting such a high quality local act. Salt Peanuts is certainly a band that I’d be more than happy to see again.

 

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