Anyone who held down a place playing with the late Humphrey Lyttelton’s band has to be very special and that certainly applies to sax player Karen Sharp, who from 2004 spent three years in the front line of Humph’s band.
 
Not content with touring the UK and Europe with his band Karen also made time to establish her own quintet with which she has, to date, recorded four CDs and her latest, “Spirit”, recorded in March this year in a quartet format with pianist Nikki Iles.
 
This is what Humph had to say about her 2007 album “Wait and See”...
 
“Karen Sharp’s new album confirms what I have already observed, that over the past three or four years, she has steadily - I might almost say stealthily - developed into a major artist on the scene. Wait and See is a delight from start to finish. Karen’s playing on both saxophones is a perfect blend of poise and passion. One moment she is bringing out the beauty of a Billy Strayhorn composition with rare tenderness, the next she leads her wonderfully complementary band in a track that captures, in a way remarkable for a small group, the urgency of one of Charles Mingus’s rampaging gospel-inspired pieces. Some of the best things here are Karen’s own compositions. I know, because I have had to discipline myself to play some of them. Anyone who approaches them in the expectation of a predictable ramble down familiar paths will have many a pleasurable surprise.”
 
Karen, with her seemingly effortless swinging ability on both tenor and baritone saxes, makes a welcome return to the club with her superb regular working quartet featuring Robin Aspland piano, Dave Green, bass and Steve Brown, drums.
 
Tickets (available at the door): £13 (Members £10, Students £6)