Cognisant that I was about to attend yet another gig by Down For The Count, just about the best big band currently working, I invested in a Ouija board and sent an urgent SOS to Dr Peter Mark Roget begging for a set of fresh superlatives. With a deadline staring me in the face and not a peep out of Pete I’ll have to do the best I can with the old favourites.
The first thing that struck me was the virtually all new repertoire, and the second thing was the fact that they have begun to stray outside their decade of choice – the 1940s – but tastefully. Take the opening number, Frank Loesser’s Luck Be A Lady, from the 1950 smash Guys And Dolls. The number, of course, is “owned” by Sinatra but Marvin Muoneké doesn’t let that faze him, and he and the band kinda sidle up to it with a laid-back verse before exploding out of the starting stalls with the chorus. Muoneké is a showman first, vocalist second, and wearing both hats, he kickstarted the evening with a bang.
Lydia Bell, the finest female vocalist on the planet, inched further into the 50s with the crowd-pleaser Get Me To The Church On Time, which meant that within 10 minutes there wasn’t a stationary foot in the joint. The audience sat gobsmacked as one by one a string of gems – S’Wonderful, On The Sunny Side Of The Street and Embraceable You – sparkled all around them like dazzling charms on a Tiffany bracelet. The band, drilled to a fare-thee-well by Mike Paul-Smith, contrived to sound like the cream of West Coast session musicians.
There was a perfect blending of the tried-and-true – I’ve Got You Under My Skin and You Make Me Feel So Young – and the slightly less often performed – Cole Porter’s You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To and Burt Bacharach’s A House Is Not A Home. Throw in Old Man River and There’s No Business Like Show Business and the SRO audience were begging for mercy. This band always has a big finish up its sleeve and this year was no exception: le tout ensemble wailing New York, New York threatened to take the roof off, and drew a more than well-deserved standing ovation. A superb evening.
Down For The Count at Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace, London SW1X 9DQ. 4 October 2025
