There is a reason the 1920s are referred to as the Roaring Twenties. The Western world was in a period of posterity after recovering from the Great War; technological advancements from aircraft to the telephone were becoming accessible to more people, women were starting to get the vote, and arts and culture were undergoing seismic changes.
Nowhere was the latter more noticeable than in the development of ragtime and jazz music, quickly becoming the predominant form of popular music. And it’s this era that is the focus of septet The Easy Rollers, making their debut at Kennington’s Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club as the first date on their UK tour.
Drop Me Off in Harlem, an extended version of their Edinburgh Fringe hour of the same name, is a roughly chronological exploration of the Jazz Age, from the speakeasy clubs of Prohibition-era America through to the development of silent and talking pictures throughout the Great Depression.
But this is no dull history lesson. Although singer Dani Sicari links songs with contextual snippets about what else is happening in the world, the songs tell the story. From Red Hot Mama to Everybody Loves My Baby, the septet evokes the anything-goes, sexually liberated (for the time) atmosphere of those early speakeasy clubs.
There is a sense of propulsive energy throughout the performance, the band rarely resting in one era for too long. And so, as we get a fine rendition of Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man from Show Boat (an illustration of how Broadway musicals’ songs started to expand beyond the theatre), trumpeter Tom Sharp and clarinettist Jamie Stockbridge bring in melodic snatches from George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Rather than staying with that song, the band quickly shifts into another Gershwin number, Fascinating Rhythm. In that number, pianist Alex Hill is called upon to switch between slower and faster versions of that song according to audience whim, a fun and entertaining diversion and further demonstration of the Easy Rollers’ mastery of their oeuvre.
Throughout, Sicari’s pin-sharp vocals articulate the meaning, and the fun, of each number. The rest of the band backs her up not only with magnificent arrangements and individual technical skill but also with lashings of good humour. This is a group that gels well together, which always enhances the musical quality.
As the evening progresses and the band’s timeline progresses to Depression-era music, the Easy Rollers’ repertoire remains light and joyous: the deepest it gets is a rendition of I’m an Unemployed Sweetheart, a number that directly compares the struggle to find work to a quest for romantic companionship. Instead, the emphasis is on the development of the swing and big band sounds of post-depression America. Standards including Straighten Up and Fly Right, Happy Feet lead the segment, along with Cab Calloways’ Zaz Zuh Zaz – a number often overshadowed by Calloway’s other works, especially Minnie the Moocher. The lesser-known song’s use here both shows the band’s depth of knowledge and illustrates their magnetic performance skills.
As the evening draws to a close, the group marks how jazz music solidified its place in the Harlem district of New York with the show’s title number, Duke Ellington’s Drop Me Off in Harlem. For the evening, the journey through the years, and across America, concludes; for the Easy Rollers, it feels like their joyous exploration of the Jazz Age songbook is far from over.
Reviewed on 28 September 2023 and The Easy Rollers continue to tour
