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THE encore alone was worth the trip to Berwick. On the fortieth anniversary of Duke Ellington’s death Tommy Smith and Brian Kellock honoured one of jazz’s greatest figures, as they did together on the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra\'s In The Spirit Of Duke album, with Ellington’s The Single Petal Of A Rose.
It began with Smith playing his tenor saxophone into the piano so the strings vibrated and sounded an otherworldly, some might have said heavenly, response to his call and continued with the most delicate, sincere and soulfully intonated duet of this lovely ballad.
Quite a contrast it was to the liberties the pair took on Surrey with the Fringe On Top, where it would have been difficult to reconcile their adventurously developed improvisations with such a seemingly conventional starting-off point, or the fun they had – Kellock in particular – in trying to roll Chattanooga Choo Choo into the room in, near as dammit, steam-engine form.
Such contrasts, however, along with conversational spontaneity and sheer virtuosity of their playing are what make Smith and Kellock such a mighty team. They complement each other so brilliantly and have so much fun together, involving the audience while doing so, that it almost becomes not so much a performance, more a casual get-together of old pals. Except the playing is scalpel keen. It takes some brio to reproduce Chick Corea’s intricately demanding but as dancey as its name suggests Armando’s Rhumba as both a means of fluent expression and an almost throwaway ditty but they did this in a set that combined advanced musical mastery with easy accessibility.