Tommaso Starace and Dave O’Higgins Quartet

What a wonderful evening of powerful foot-tapping jazz grown from the ashes of the planned group. Sadly, Tommaso Starace, the fine young Italian saxophonist broke his ankle whilst running on the morning of the concert, so was unable to bring the music of his new ‘Harmonyless Quartet’. Instead, Dave O’Higgins enlisted the help of his pathologist wife Judith to provide another tenor sax to join him, with the further addition of Graham Harvey on piano, to augment the original rhythm section of Rio Kay on bass and Chris Nicholls on drums. This combination treated us to a feast of jazz reminiscent of the treat tenor duos of the past, played hard-driving jazz standards that swung intoxicatingly from the very start. In beautiful contrast, we also had solo tenor ballads in the form of ‘Polka Dots and Moonbeams’ from Judith O’Higgins and ‘Darn That Dream’ from Dave himself. This was yet another memorable evening at the CJC.  

We all wish Tommaso a speedy recovery and hope to see him back at the club very soon.