The personnel of the CD under review here, Just Genuine Jazz, is almost identical to that of a previous Upbeat Records issue by this same group, Roger Marks’ Brass Farthings’ Higher Ground (UCD290). Only the bass has been replaced, Tony Mann taking the place of David Holdsworth. The repertoire on Just Genuine Jazz, like that on Higher Ground, consists of a variety of tunes and songs taken from an assortment of genres. As Marks says in the notes, the tunes have been chosen on the basis of their not having been done to death by other bands; another criterion being “the strength of the melody coupled with a certain degree of eccentricity if possible” (although he does not elaborate on “eccentricity”); and the final criterion being that he simply “likes them.”
The result is a collage of tunes: pop (“Love Me Tender”), Latin (“Spanish Eyes”), country (“I’m an Old Cow Hand”), folk (“Delia’s Gone”), hymn (“Abide with Me”), show (“Honeysuckle Rose”), etc. There is even a tune reputedly (if somewhat erroneously) from the larger-than-life 16th century English monarch Henry VIII (“Greensleeves”). If, as the cliché has it, variety is the spice of life, it can be found here in abundance.
Familiar as almost all of the tunes in these tracks will be, again the arrangements give them a new gloss. This can be seen in “Abide with Me” where the tempo
