Jazz Jamaica All Stars

Jazz on a summer's day

How do you wind down from the rigours of Glastonbury Festival?

One simple solution this year was to wend one's way to the One World Stage and bliss out to the wall of sound that is the Jazz Jamaica All Stars. Despite the fact that at the very moment the first few bars of The Liquidator have passed their collective lips the rain begins, everyone at front of stage is nonetheless ready to dance.

Irony could kill a lesser band, but not the All Stars - a big band in every sense. They sound like how one might imagine Duke Ellington sounding if he'd had Bob Marley as a co-writer instead of Billy Strayhorn; not that there's a stray horn among them as the rippling waves of brass burst over the fabulous skanking beat of Vitamin A.

There's a sudden change of mood when vocalist Juliet Roberts and her deliciously husky, yet lilting, voice joins the band. It takes a little time to get used to - a two-hour gig would have showed her voice off at its absolute best - but when the band lope into a delicious party version of My Boy Lollipop ("Anyone in the crowd over 41? You might remember this!"), it's time to down notes and just dance...

But for the fact that they were a little constrained by time this would have been one of the best gigs of the festival, all febrile urban jazz over a glorious stew of ska. Heavenly.

Adam Horovitz

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