I have to admit that the reason I agreed to go and review this gig was because of the venue, which is in the basement of the swanky restaurant they built on the site of the Legendary Wardour Street version of the Marquee Club (the club's second of many incarnations). I wanted to see what the current performance space looks like and the fact that it's actually more of a high end supper club than a music venue means that it's doubtful I would go and see any bands there otherwise.
However, having made sure to dress smartly enough to get in without problems I then had to sweet talk the guest list lady when my name wasn't where it should have been, but that sorted I went downstairs into a reasonably large very smart room with over half the space given over to the restaurant tables and then a smallish dance floor and the stage and a very large and well stocked bar. Sulene Fleming
SULENE FLEMING was already on and singing her heart out about Freedom. She was accompanied by a pianist and damn she has a great hearty voice. In between songs she did everything she could to get the crowd going but to be honest most of them were more interested in the Lobster Thermidor or Steak in front of them. The other song of Sulene's I heard was Burning In Your Heart. That was a good love song and she belted it out and drained every bit of emotion she could out of it like she was trying to be the new Maxine Nightingale meets Minnie Ripperton. She sounded great and actually got a fair reaction from the diners that bothered to pay her some attention. She would be well worth seeing at a venue where the punters actually want to hear the music.
There was then an absurdly long wait for the headline act PUSH to come on while I did my best to drink the very overpriced drinks as slowly as possible and watched a good part of the crowd leave when they finished eating which actually meant that there were possibly more people there for the support than the headline act, Then again, an hour and half between acts is a long wait especially when there isn't that much of an changeover going on.
Still, finally PUSH came on. I sort of remember having seen them way back in the late 80's and hating them as I didn't really listen to anything funky back then. But I have to say from the get go when they opened by introducing the band to us they were wickedly tight and funky as all hell or - as the band leader put it "2% Jazz and 98% funk."
Much of the set was instrumental which is no surprise as they do most of thei work as other peoples' backing band, having worked as part of Galliano or backing the likes of Candi Staton etc, but what instrumentalists! With a bit of an afro-beat feel to them, they were very danceable which when everyone is sitting at tables is a bit odd. But they had a great funky groove going on.
The first song the introduced was Mr Hot Pants. It had a very funky trumpet solo and would have sounded good as the opening bed on the Robert Elms radio show which is just about the only place I ever hear their music anyway. To their credit,they do sound like they ought to be the house band at his forthcoming Funking for Grown-ups club night. They then played a sax-led piece that sounded like it could have been a rip off of a Donald Byrd/blackbyrds tune. They followed it with a keyboards showcase tune that had a big Jimmy Smith influence to it.
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They then pulled Sulene Fleming up onstage to sing Cutting Loose and she did everything she could to get the audience to get up and dance, managing to get about 3 people on the dance floor in the process. Still it was a great dancey tune and from where I was standing behind the tables the people who were there for the band seemed to all be grooving along nicely.
Sulene disappeared again and they did a instrumental introduced as Football that again veered into Donald Byrd-type territory. It was followed by a tune that reminded me of the stuff on the John McLaughlin/Joey De Francesco/Elvin Jones LP After The Rain which meant we had entered the dreaded fusion section, but they pulled it off nicely even if it did go on for rather a long time. But then those fusion tunes often do.
Sulene was begged back up to the stage to sing You're Losing Me which with folks slowly leaving throughout the set seemed appropriate even if it was about losing her love. Having lost one love it was of course time to be Talking About Love and, damn, with a voice like that and a funky as hell band behind her who could deny Sulene the love she was requesting? Even the dance floor seemed to almost have a dozen folks on it by now.
Well, having talked about Love Sulene now posed the question What Do I Have To Do To Prove my Love To You, well to me the correct answer would be lean forwards as you're singing and bellow at me like that and that is more than enough. I'm sold. This song should be a big jazz funk hit if it hasn't already been one along the way.
They then closed the set with what was introduced as The Push Mental Instrumental which meant they went round and introduced all the 6 band members and let each of them have a solo as the song built and ebbed and flowed and got us all dancing to it. The encore was called From Push With Love as they thanked us all. As they funked it up one more time, we did our best to make sure there was some atmosphere for this most funky of bands to play to.
If you like funky soul jazz then Push are still one of the best and most definitely worth seeing live.
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