The Easy Rollers: Live at Pizza Express, Holborn

The Easy Rollers have created a fabulous line-up and set-list that recreates the music of the 1920s and 1930s but brings it right up to date for 2025. I reviewed their new album - ‘… And Another Thing’ - last month and it was a delight to hear some of those tracks live this week, as well as a whole new selection of tunes.

It was the first time for me seeing this band live, despite their upcoming ten year anniversary: the Easy Rollers manage to delightfully combine arrangements of traditional and familiar songs from a century ago with original compositions.

Tiger Rag and Lady Be Good were a good starting point for the capacity audience at Holborn’s Pizza Express Live and we all understood what was coming. The switch to originals such as the humorous and slightly dark The Ballad of Billy, A Kid was seamless.

Combining songs from the new album - … And Another Thing - with newer tunes will have pleased even those who had seen the band before.

When a band works around the absence of an unwell drummer (get well soon, Matt Brown), that is even more impressive. The Easy Rollers are: Dani Sicari (lead vocals); Alex Hill (piano); Tom Sharp (trumpet); Jamie Stockbridge (tenor sax and clarinet), James Girling (guitars) and Sam Jackson (double bass).

Another nice touch involved members of the band sharing the job of talking to the audience. Each one infused their song introduction duties with some humour and some education. When James Girling talked about his use of acoustic and electric guitars, he was explaining the crossover between older and newer compositions, as well as between the US and French influences on the band’s style. Dani engaged most with the audience, and shared a welcome to her parents and discussion of her operatic training.

Full disclosure - James Stockbridge was at school with my son, so his sax playing, composition and arrangements were all something I’ve come to expect, but hearing him for the first time with The Easy Rollers was truly a joy. I look forward to the next time, and hopefully there’ll be a drummer, too!

You can read my album review here.