RAY

Just a quick one:

Ray Brown was born on this day, October 13, 1926, and was one of the greatest double bassists in the history of jazz. He is most famous for being a decades-long musical partner in crime with Oscar Peterson in his iconic trio, as well as for being married to Ella Fitzgerald from 1947 to 1953, after which they divorced yet remained lifelong friends and fellow performers.

For me personally, though, Ray Brown will forever be remembered as the musician who provided one of the all-time greatest jazz concerts I've ever seen, including those I've attended in London, Italy, and New York. Celebrating his 80th birthday with a tour across Europe, Ray Brown's trio (without Oscar) found time to perform at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in May 2001, joined by additional guests, including Regina Carter (violin), Nicholas Payton (trumpet), and Kevin Mahogany (vocals).

To make the event even more unique, the musicians had lost all their luggage (thankfully not their instruments) at the airport while coming to England, so they played the entire gig in their casual sweats, as if it were a Sunday afternoon practice session after church or the gym. Cheltenham Town Hall has often felt a little too austere a setting for these types of concerts, but with Ray Brown and his band looking like they were playing in their own living room or garage, it reduced that sense of formality and resulted in a gig of relaxed musical perfection.

At one point, vocalist Kevin Mahogany interjected with a hilariously comic moment (at least to me), asking the predominantly white, middle-class audience how they were all doing. He was met with near stony silence. "That good, huh?"

His version of Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark" was definitive for me, and the contributions from both Regina Carter and Nicholas Payton made the birthday concert feel like an all-star jazz version of the Avengers, with each musician performing to the highest standard imaginable. I'll never forget hearing the sound of Payton's trumpet, threatening to take the roof off the town hall with its piercing, laser-like brilliance, seeming to contain the entire musical history of New Orleans in sustained silvery notes that recalled the other greats of that city, such as Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, and Bunk Johnson.

Through it all, Ray Brown maintained musical continuity for each standard performed with his rich, warm pizzicato and walking bass lines that felt as if they resonated in your chest like an excitable heartbeat.

The whole concert could just as easily have been played back somewhere in the great jazz clubs of the past in Chicago or New York, places such as the Village Vanguard, Blue Note, The London House, or the Jazz Showcase.

But it was Cheltenham.

Cheltenham!