Founded in 2010, the group Just East Of Jazz established a permanent home at The Elephant Inn, East Finchley, the following year. Since then they’ve built up a solid fan base by virtue of offering an eclectic blend of jazz old and new on the first and third Sunday of every month. Long on their mailing list I have, up to now, hesitated to venture so far downtown, susceptible as I am to the bends, but a recent mail-shot featured the name Lauren Bush, a performer I have admired since I first encountered her in 2019, appearing with guitarist Lorne Lofsky at Pizza Express, and although I went on to review all three albums she has so far released, and subsequently interview her (all for Jazz Journal) I had, until now, never heard her live as a solo performer, something I was delighted to rectify.
Only drummer Dave Ingamells has played on all three of her albums, albeit Dave Mannington, bass, played on her most recent, Tide Rises, which means that Rick Simpson, keys, and Jeremy Shoam, sax, are new to me, although the editor tells me they’ve been around for ages and Shoam is the founder of Just East Of Jazz. Anyway, it’s a genuine pleasure to say that jazz is alive and well and residing in North London. That’s jazz as I understand the word – with nary a nose flute or white plastic alto in sight.
Lauren Bush has the kind of pipes that make Pan want to turn in his jock but she does often do “modern” material rather than the Great American Songbook for which the pipes were surely designed. It’s rather like Toscanini conducting the Black Dyke Mills Band. This – of course – is a minority opinion, and the SRO audience clearly found nothing wrong with her selections. To be fair, her programme did include a couple of Kern melodies – Nobody Else But Me (with Oscar Hammerstein) and I’m Old-Fashioned (with Johnny Mercer). Throw in a Harry Warren (This Is Always), a Duke Ellington (In A Mellow Tone) and a Rodgers and Hart (Do It The Hard Way) and you see a balance begin to emerge.
In one respect Ms. Bush has been consistent from the start; she always gives the musicians equal time, and that meant that the evening was punctuated with eight- and 16-bar solos on piano, bass, drums, tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone. It was something, in fact, of a jazz-band ball.
Lauren Bush at The Elephant Inn, 283 Ballards Lane, London, N12 8NR. 21 September 2025
