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# Review: The Chris Bowden Quartet at Cathedral Hotel
- URL: https://lichfieldlive.co.uk/review-the-chris-bowden-quartet-at-cathedral-hotel-2/
- Published: 2023-06-10T05:59:00.000Z
- Updated: 2023-06-09T06:22:34.000Z
- Description: Lichfield’s Jazz and Blues Festival continued with Chris Bowden and his trio of drummer Jim Bashford, bassist James Oaten and keyboard player Toby Walsh playing a set of chamber jazz .
- Author: Ben Macnair
- Tags: Reviews, What's On, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-22 19:01

Lichfield’s Jazz and Blues Festival continued with Chris Bowden and his trio of drummer Jim Bashford, bassist James Oaten and keyboard player Toby Walsh playing a set of chamber jazz .

The Cathedral Hotel provided an intimate setting for a set that drew on many long form compositions and contained echoes of classical music as well as jazz and blues.

With solos spots given to all four players, they created moods that ranged from the foot-tapping to the more serene, playing music by the likes of Chick Corea and famed pianist Bill Evans.

All four players are well known figures in the local jazz scene, and more than lived up to their reputations during the performance.

Steve Swallow’s Falling Away showed the lyrical side of Chris Bowden’s playing, and the Latin swing to The Night Has Eyes provided some light relief.

Chick Corea’s Humpty Dumpty started the second half, with some great drum and bass playing, while two pieces by Bill Evans – Turn Out and Waltz for Debbie – were also served up. The bossa-nova beat given to the second piece showed the open minded approach that the quartet took to one of the more famed solo piano pieces in the jazz repertoire.

Nick Dewhurst, the director of the festival joined the quartet for their final number, a lively and rambunctious reading of Sonny Rollins’ Oleo.