Soho

This release is for anyone who, during this pestilence, is missing going out to a restaurant or bar with live music.
Warning: This is not a great recording.

In November 1989 Dudu Pukwana and I started playing once or twice a month at a New York style deli in Soho London. It was not a room ideally suited to music, having tiled floors and walls – all mirrors and shiny metal. It was a large room with an upright piano halfway down and, if I remember correctly, the service was done in the same room – you can certainly hear it.
Dudu used to carry a radio/cassette player and would tape his gigs – just to check them out, I think. He gave me a box of them one time, but they were not good quality. So, besides the recording quality and the room acoustics, there’s the racket of the diners enjoying themselves – this was not a jazz club situation.

The tracks I’ve chosen, from the only usable cassette, are from what I think was our first night at the deli and have Dudu playing mostly on the joanna. Diners would often get up between courses and have a little dance round the table. So, put on the music, make yourself a pastrami on rye, close your eyes and rattle some cutlery.
Nick Lockdown Stephens

Released June 14, 2020