Royal Birthday Festivities at Caton Castle!

Jazz Buddies,

On Saturday, in grand style befitting a king, Caton Castle celebrated the 78th birthday of its owner, “Sir” Ron Scott, with the great Paul Carr Quartet, featuring the DMV’s “First Lady of Song”, Sharón Clark!  Castle Castle, the intimate100-seat Jazz club located in West Baltimore, first opened its doors in November 1990 and has offered outstanding straightahead Jazz shows ever since.

Notable New York City-based Jazz artists who have traveled down I-95, as well as an outstanding crop of local musicians, have blessed the stage over these past 32 years.  In a city with a legendary history of Jazz venues, as well as Jazz exports (e.g., Eubie Blake, Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, Blanche Calloway, Chick Webb, Albert Dailey, Ethel Ennis, Gary Bartz, Gary Thomas, Cyrus Chestnut, Winard & Phillip Harper, Antonio Hart, Mark Gross, Warren Wolf, and Tim Green), Caton Castle has maintained a loyal and faithful following chock full of serious and knowledgeable Jazz fans.

For his part, outstanding tenor/soprano saxophonist Paul Carr (and curator of the annual Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival) brought with him an all-star cast, including pianist Bruce Barth, bassist Delorean Fullington, and drummer Quincy Phillips.  NYC-based Barth has played with a Who’s Who of Jazz legends over the years and is currently on the Jazz Department faculty at Temple University, while Phillips played with Roy Hargrove Quintet for eight years.  And, the icing on the cake, no pun intended, was the great Jazz vocalist, Ms. Sharón Clark!

Both Carr and Clark thanked the birthday honoree for providing them individual opportunities to headline at Caton Castle when their respective careers got started.

Carr kicked off both outstanding sets with familiar up-tempo and mid-tempo Jazz standards, setting the bar very high, including his own composition, “Musically Yours”, with his bandmates contributing wonderful solos throughout.

Then, Ms. Clark, displaying her stellar skills and experience with the lyric, covered the American Songbook, as well as other genres of music (e.g., Blues, Country, Gospel, R&B), to belt out tunes made popular by Frank Sinatra, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Al Jolson, Dakota Staton, Etta James, The Coasters, and The Main Ingredient over the past 100 years.  And the audience LOVED it!   Wow!!!

1st Set

  • Speak No Evil (W. Shorter)
  • On A Misty Night (T. Dameron)
  • Musically Yours (P. Carr)
  • At Long Last Love (C. Porter)
  • The Moon Was Yellow (And The Night Was Young) (F. Ahlert, E. Leslie)
  • I Told Ya I Love, Ya Now Get Out! (H. Ellis)
  • Come Back To Me (B. Lane)
  • Country Man (D. Staton)

2nd Set

  • Speak Low (K. Weill)
  • There Is No Greater Love (I. Jones)
  • Happy Birthday Presentation
  • Tell Me All About Yourself (N. Cole)
  • Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely / At Last (B. Eli, J. Freeman, V. Barrett / M. Gordon, H. Warren)
  • Avalon (A. Jolson, B. DeSylva, V. Rose)
  • T’aint Nothin’ To Me (P. Patterson)
  • Wanna Go To Heaven (D. Akers)

Overall, a wonderful birthday celebration in honor of “Sir” Ron Scott!  May Caton Castle be around for another 30 years…

Kenneth