As I have often said, the U.K. has been blessed with many traditional jazz bands since the revival of the late 1940’s, and the Red Beans ‘n’ Rice band is another of them. The group hails from Norfolk and was founded in 1992.
Like so many of the U.K. bands, Red Beans ‘n’ Rice favors the New Orleans style, meaning much emphasis on ensemble work. Syncopation is another mark, and it is particularly evident when Jim Finch is on drums. He has obviously listened to the New Orleans marching bands and successfully incorporates the street beat, especially the bass drum syncopation, in the tracks on which he appears.
In addition, Robin Burgess’ sousaphone playing is not “leaden’” two-beat, and that, coupled with Norman Munroe’s and John Bright’s steady four-beat banjo chording and the drummers’ eschewing the backbeat, means the band does not become ponderous, as so many with the brass-banjo-drums rhythm do, the brass bass laying down a heavy beat on one and three and the banjo an equally heavy two and four in each bar and drums a weighty afterbeat. No, here it has the feel of a four-beat rhythm.
The front line and almost a third of the rhythm section remained constant throughout these three years of the band’s existence, and much of the band’s consistency is no doubt attributable to this fact. But some of that accord must be attributed to the leader as well, Robin
