Jazz club's helping spring go with a swing

JAZZ fans are in for a treat, with the promise of a “red hot spring” starting early next month.
Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club, which this year celebrates its 21st anniversary, hosts the four-piece band Café Society on Saturday, March 4.
Club co-founder Ray Sams said he was delighted to have secured the gig.
“Café Society specialises in Dixieland and jazz from the Charleston era and they’re in high demand across the UK.
“They’re bound to get feet tapping and faces smiling. They’ll brighten up a March afternoon with the red hot American sounds of the 1920s and 30s.”
Fellow co-founder Graham Foster said Cafe Society was the first of an impressive line-up of bands booked for the coming months.
On April 1, the Brownfield Byrne Hot Six, featuring soloists Jamie Brownfield and Liam Byrne will take the music of the swing era stylists of the late 1930s and early 1940s and give it a 21st century twist.
Expect to hear tunes from the likes of Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Waller, early Duke Ellington and the John Kirby sextet, all set to their own arrangements.
Spats Langham and his Hot Fingers band, with guest star Emily Campbell will entertain on Saturday, May 6.
Clarinettist Sammy Rimington is the headliner on Saturday June 3, backed up by an all-star line up of Emily Bacon’s Good Time Band with Ian Wynne.
Sammy is well known in America and Europe and has played with an impressive range of New Orleans greats.
Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club meets at St Augustine’s Parish Hall, Larchfield Street, Darlington, 12.30pm on the first Saturday of the month.
Admission is £10 on the door.
There’s a licensed bar, tea and coffee available, and everyone is very welcome to bring their own food along for a picnic while the bands entertain. Doors open at noon.
“Everyone’s always welcome to come along and we’re very proud that the club is going from strength to strength,” said Mr Foster.
For more information about the club go to www.dar lingtonjazz.co.uk