By William Marshall

Jazz musicians draw freely on the contents of the mythical Great American Songbook. So what about a Great British Songbook and what would be in it, apart from a few Lennon and McCartney numbers?

Huddersfield bassist, band leader, composer, arranger and jazz impresario Ben Crosland has come up with an intriguing answer - the prolific and highly varied output of Ray Davies for his legendary rock-pop outfit The Kinks.

Of course, the Great American Songbook crowd - Gershwin et al - were writing in an idiom that dovetailed neatly with that of jazz while Sir Ray, although his influences included rhythm and blues, is generally thought of as the purveyor of a very English strain of music. Turning his songs into swinging instrumentals with space for solos must have been a challenge but Crosland has managed to use this raw material as the basis for a repertoire that covers a wide range of jazz styles from Coltrane-ish modalism, to languid Latin beats, New Orleans shuffling and moody balladry.

This meant that when he and his quintet gave their Ray Davies Songbook show at Huddersfield Parish Church (they were shifted upstairs from The Keys) we were treated to an exceptionally varied and absorbing gig. The opener, Dedicated Follower of Fashion was a cheerful up-tempo swinger, introduced by call-and-response between sax and guitar. Set Me Free was a Latin-tinged ballad nicely flavoured by minor chords, seasoned by blues figures in the keyboard solo.

See My Friends became a jazz waltz; Thank You For the Days was the basis for some florid baroquery from the soloists; Everybody’s Going to Be Happy had a New Orleans vibe; Sitting On My Sofa was a blues shuffle and Waterloo Sunset was suitably hazy, with the famous melody sketched in by the bass guitar.

To describe the Crosland Quintet assembled for this project as an all-star band would probably be to under-sell it. Saxist Dave O’Higgins (tenor and soprano), keyboard player Steve Lodder, guitarist John Etheridge and drummer Sebastiaan de Krom are among the top jazz exponents of their instruments and they negotiated Crosland’s sometimes complex charts and filled their solo spaces with all the expertise and commitment you would expect.

I particularly enjoyed O’Higgins when he took up his soprano on numbers including You Really Got Me and Lodder consistently showed what a resourceful improviser he is, drawing influences from a wide musical spectrum.

John Etheridge was the most eclectic musician on the stand, deploying rock techniques and technology with an overdriven sound and the use of chorus and wah-wah pedals, and yet combining this with the almost impossible fluency of the virtuoso jazz guitarist. On You Really Got Me, he really rocked out, while still displaying all his jazz chops.

Ben Crosland’s Kinks project has resulted in a critically-acclaimed album and there is enough material for another, he told the audience. He has certainly shown how a resourceful musician can explore unusual sources to refresh the jazz repertoire.