Wednesday 10th February 2010 @ The Big Chill Bar, Bristol

As I enter the room, a relative jazz novice, it becomes clear that this was not so much a “gig” as I’m used to, more a sort of live background atmosphere music night in a pub that’s décor is cool and inviting. It’s every bit The Big Chill in here, like the festivals; a cool new venue that is destined for big things on the Bristol scene.

As I sat listening to SwingOuest’s melancholy, relaxing gypsy-jazz and sipping on my pint of lager, I began to imagine as though I was Casablanca’s Humphrey Bogart sipping a cocktail silently monologuing, the words in my head providing my own internal melody for the soothing backing tones the trio had so welcomingly provided me. Or imagined myself waltzing with a beautiful lady in a grand hotel ballroom the night before they send me to war, I quickly had to remind myself I was not in Hollywood but in fact still just sat in a bar in Bristol.

As the musical themes of the duelling guitars start to pick up a jollier tone and a raucous violin strikes up a melody all its own, drowning out my mind’s meaningless meanderings and fantasies and finally demands my full attention. With snappy discords it finally begins to feel a bit more like a musical event is going on. However, the atmosphere I’d built up in my own mind throughout these lucid tones is sadly dissipated each time a song finishes and I am forced to realise that often I am the only one applauding. This is of course no fault of SwingOuest who are spot on, it’s just not that sort of night - or not yet anyway. As the night picks up and the bar gets busier, appreciation for their exceptional musicianship is felt more and more by the growing numbers that means that by their last jaunt they are finally able to go out with the bang (all be it a small one) they deserve.

www.bigchill.net/bristol

Adam Hooper
Photos by Laura Palmer