Jean Toussaint – Saxophone Giants

The sax player cut his teeth as one of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and tonight’s programme paid tribute to many of Blakey’s sax-playing contemporaries. Fellow US tenor maestro Keith Loftis alternated and duetted with Toussaint on pieces by heavyweights such as Ben Webster and Lester Young, backed by a superbly fluid rhythm section but it was the 20 year old Reuben James who stole the show with a dazzling display of piano skills far beyond his years. The pace intensified on more modern works by Joe Henderson and John Coltrane and concluded with a masterful take on Bird’s ‘Confirmation’.

Studio Theatre, Brighton Dome, 17 November 2013

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