Sancte et Sapienter came to the Bull's Head, Barnes, on Monday, 22nd January. Well perhaps not too much Sancte, though jazz does seem to breed its own hallowed image, but plenty of Sapienter in the form of almost a hundred people who went to hear the first ever public performance of the John Walters Nonet. You may not have heard of John, you may never hear of him again, bụt judging from their music on Monday, I hope you will.

He is a 3rd year Maths / Physicist at King's, but in his alter ego he is a jazz musician, and now has formed a nine piece band to play his own compositions. The music is midstream modern jazz, whatever that is. To a mere rock fan accustomed to feet swinging up and down in rigid even if delightful time, the rhythms presented distinct confusion for the first half hour, but thereafter each limb followed its own pattern, the finer points became clearer, and quiet glances proclaimed, ‘This lad is for real’. I missed the first numbers, including ‘Standard Deviation’ (an early work influenced by Dr. Laird’s statistics course rather than Soho), but was converted to the lovely ballad ‘When it rains, it rains’, and the rhythmical ‘Rock Salt’; ‘St. Vince’ and a James Joyce setting, ‘Arise, Arise’, also, stood out.

Leading the other musicians is trumpeter Laurie Brown, who also plays with the beloved Kinks, and the bass player Andy Spass [Pask!] stood out with some fine playing. The main criticism was that the band was not together, but after all this is early times. One hopes they keep playing, and that John keeps on writing. The road to artistic oblivion must not be for him.

NIGEL ROSEVEARE.