Fat Chance

Fat Chance 'variation' Geoff Hawkins - reeds and Flute, young Phil Berry on Contrabass, Tom Anderson - vocals & Rhythm Guitar.  Ade Holland Seated with Maccaferri

Review by Chris Harris 

After all these years one doesn’t expect originality of small jazz combos. Yet Ade Holland’s wonderful band " Fat Chance" certainly achieve it. Bass, two guitars, and more often than not the soaring of a soprano saxophone on top. The result was an extraordinary combination standard ‘mainstream’ infrastructure with a vibrant, highly modern solo voice. I found this irresistible. The band certainly sent plenty of excitement across footlights. Maybe ‘Ornithology’ didn’t quite suit the line up, failing to soar and tending to chug, though it sounded fine when it became ‘How High the Moon’ and the traded fours at the end were great.

 A simply inspiring set - great variety of tunes featuring the superb solo voices of Ade, Geoff and Tom, including a Brazillian thing towards the end, for which Mr Hawkins got his flute out), Saphon Young’s unfailingly swinging bass playing, contrasted the equally brilliant inventive guitar playing by Ade and Tom. Which leaves Geoff Hawkins.  Versatile or what? Vibrato-drenched tenor playing on balIads like ‘September in the Rain’ one minute, then dazzling hard-toned wall-of-sound soprano the next. Wonderful stuff.