Herbie's Jazz Breakfast - Brighton Fringe Review 2014 by Sarah Agnew

Herbie's Jazz Breakfast, Company: Herbie Flowers
Venue: Brighton Spiegeltent, Category: Music
25 May, 1 June 11:00 £10 [2 hrs]

What better way to start your Sunday than a coffee, croissant and jazz courtesy of the legendary bassist Herbie Flowers and band.  Booked throughout the Fringe for Sunday morning jazz in the Spiegeltent, there are still two Sundays to go.  Herbie Flowers, the charismatic bassist and tuba player whose musical career has spanned six decades and self styled busker and improviser hosted a mid morning collection of popular jazz tunes.

Having garnered an envious amount of credits along the way, to name just a few Herbie devised the bassline for Lou Reed’s iconic tune ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, played the bass for Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974; as well as Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, and Harry Nilsson’s ‘Jump In The Fire’.  In fact the indefatigable Flowers is thought to have played on over 500 hit songs, and on countless album tracks as well.

The performance began with the familiar and delightful sounds of Stompin' at the Savoy, evoking the spirit of 1930s jazz and named after the famed Harlem nightspot, the Savoy Ballroom in New York City.  In between tunes Herbie kept the vibe jolly with his easy going banter.  He introduced us to his BFF (Best Friend Forever) Malcolm Mortimer on percussion before playing more tunes. My Favourite Things and Paint it Black followed, accompanied by Paul Hart on violin. 'You don't get to hear this music every day' said Herbie.  With a few final songs, Ray Noble's composition Cherokee (Indian Love Song) and a French piece called Repartie we were done.  Flowers quipped, 'we hope to have another 280 bums on seats next Sunday'.  The audience chuckled, charmed as much by Herbie as they were by the music itself.

To find out more about this fascinating and fascinated man, check out his brilliantly candid thoughts in the notepad section of his website, http://www.herbieflowers.com/notepad.html.
To give you a flavour of what he writes here are a few quotes:

HAD A TERRIBLE CRUSH ON JUNE MANSFIELD WHEN I WAS NINE. AND EDWINA BALHAM WHEN I WAS ELEVEN.  WHERE ARE YOU BOTH? I’D LOVE TO SEE YOU BOTH AGAIN.
PASSED 11+ TO GO TO TIFFINS BOYS SCHOOL. POSH DUMP. THE PREFECTS WERE ALLOWED TO GIVE YOU THE SLIPPER. JOINED THE SCHOOL BAND ON TUBA. MR GEORGE SPRIGGS WAS MATHS TEACHER AND BANDMASTER. YOU SAVED MY BACON, GEORGE -THANK YOU.

Sarah Agnew - follow on Twitter @IrishAggers