Matt Skelton presents The Blackhawk Quintet: Celebrating Shelly Manne – July 2026
Progress Theatre, Reading, Friday 3 July 2006
Tom Dennis trumpet & flugelhorn | Mark Crooks tenor saxophone | Leon Greening piano | Simon Read bass | Matt Skelton drums
A highly successful and varied season of Jazz at Progress reached a thrilling finale on Friday 3 July when Matt Skelton presented his Blackhawk Quintet in a celebration of the music and enduring spirit of legendary drummer Shelly Manne.
A true polymath – a central figure in the West Coast jazz scene from the late 1940s onwards, drummer, composer, arranger, bandleader (Shelly Manne and His Men), club owner (Shelly’s Manne Hole) and renowned breeder/trainer of pedigree American Saddlebreds and Standardbred Trotters – Shelly could swing a band like no other. As he wrote in an article for Downbeat, ‘I feel if a drummer can swing, he can play with anybody. It doesn’t matter whether he’s playing with Art Hodes or Ornette Coleman’ … and Shelly did play with everyone from Art Hodes to Ornette Coleman!
His impeccable musicianship, taste and perfect sense of time graced countless studio recordings; such distinguished figures as Henry Mancini were known to set recording dates according to when Shelly was available. Only Shelly could deliver exactly what was needed and add something special of his own into the bargain. He coached Frank Sinatra in the skills of drumming in preparation for Sinatra’s role as a drug-addled musician in the controversial 1955 movie ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’ and received acting credits in 1959 playing Chicago drumming pioneer Dave Tough in ‘Drum Crazy’, the Hollywood biopic of Gene Krupa.
As Matt Skelton remarked in his introduction, ‘Shelly kept time for everyone and never had a bad word to say.’
Shelly’s groundbreaking recordings from San Francisco’s Blackhawk Club in September 1959 with his quintet – Joe Gordon, trumpet; Richie Kamuca, tenor sax; Victor Feldman, piano and Monty Budwig, bass – provided Matt Skelton with the inspiration and blueprint to form his Blackhawk Quintet. Taped over the course of an entire residency and issued on 4 LPs , the recordings are regarded as the ‘final flowering of jazz on the coast’ at the close of the 1950s. They firmly put paid to the notion that west coast jazz couldn’t match the east in terms of excitement, invention, soul and swing.
All these attributes were in stunning evidence as the band launched into ‘Kings Swing’, an early composition from the pen of John Williams, known then as ‘Johnny’, with the blistering trumpet of Tom Dennis and muscular tenor of Mark Crooks well to the fore.
Victor Feldman’s quirky ‘Eclipse of Spain’ brought a change of mood and tempo, giving everyone the chance to relax and really stretch out over the gentle pulse of Simon Read’s gorgeous bassline.
With the towering figure of Tom Dennis switching to flugelhorn, Cole Porter’s ‘I Am in Love’, from his 1953 stage musical ‘Can Can’, eased into gear and accelerated away with all the precision of a finely tuned F1 racing car.
Matt Skelton used the words ‘a singer of songs’ to introduce Mark Crooks’ ballad feature on Victor Feldman’s ‘Falling in Love’. What an apt description; Crooks’ warmth and invention captured the dreamlike qualities of the tune to perfection.
A breakneck arrangement of ‘Poinciana’, conceived way back in 1938 by writers Nat Simon and Buddy Bernier as a sedate Latin-tinged depiction of a tree valued for the flamboyance of its shape and colours, demonstrated the transformational powers of jazz and brought the first set to a rousing close
The second set opened with a tribute to Victor Feldman, the British born multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger, who deputised to such tremendous effect for Shelly Manne’s regular pianist, Russ Freeman on the Blackhawk residency. A child prodigy, dubbed ‘Kid Krupa’ for his skills on the drums, Feldman added the piano and vibes to his instrumental armoury and emerged from war-torn London, still a teenager, as one of the foremost pioneers of the new music known as bebop. The knockout ‘One Momentum’ dates from a 1956 big band session. featuring the cream of British musicians of the day, such as Jimmy Deuchar, Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott and Phil Seaman, which Feldman led shortly before he settled permanently in the USA. His post-Blackhawk career included stints with Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis, for whom he wrote ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’, as well as extensive first-call studio work for such luminaries as Tom Scott and Steely Dan.
In Leon Greening, Matt Skelton found the ideal flag-waver for Victor Feldman, a musician who must surely rate as one of the greatest all-round jazz musicians to have hailed from these shores. Leon is also up there with the best in the world. One member of the audience likened his playing on ‘The Breeze and I’ to the ripple effect caused by throwing a stone into a pond. I disagree. It’s more like a tsunami, with wave upon wave of emotionally charged invention sweeping across the ocean. Awesome!
What’s more, the siting of the piano close to the centre of the stage meant that many in the audience could enjoy a full view of Leon’s astonishing keyboard skills.
The slow burning ‘Step Lightly’ gave a respectful nod to its composer, Benny Golson, who happened to be the MD for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at the time of the Blackhawk sessions.
Victor Feldman’s ‘Pullin’ Strings’ stands in the classic lineage of conversation pieces between walking bass and the rest of the ensemble; think of Ellington’s ‘Jack the Bear’ or ‘Two Bass Hit’ by Dizzy Gillespie’s Orchestra. Simon Read maintained a quiet dignity amid the increasingly ferocious contributions of his colleagues and successfully brought order back to the proceedings.
The delightful ‘Blue Daniel’, written in ¾ time by trombonist Frank Rosolino and featuring the mellow flugelhorn of Tom Dennis and liquid gold of Mark Crooks’ tenor took us through to ‘A Gem from Tiffany’, the band’s theme and the ‘Grand Finale’ to a tremendous night at ‘The Blackhawk’. Bill Holman’s evocation of the Tiffany Club in Los Angeles swung like the clappers, culminating In a show stopping extended solo by Matt Skelton.
What a performance on one of the hottest evening’s ever! The pace didn’t let up for an instant – five richly talented musicians playing at the peak of their form capturing the spirit, magic and excitement of a seminal moment in jazz from nearly seventy years ago. Matt Skelton is be congratulated for having the vision and imagination to bring the project together. Long may it continue to enjoy success!
Thanks also to the Progress Front of House team who looked after everyone’s comfort and safety in their ever generous and friendly manner, to Rich Saunders for the excellent quality of sound and lighting and to Hickies Music Store of Reading & Tiverton for the hire of the piano.
Review posted here by kind permission of Trevor Bannister
Photo by Zoë White Photography
