IN THE upstairs room in my local pub just up the road — The County Arms in Highams Park, east London — Sunday evenings are jazz feasts.

There is always a guest musician of renown, a local accompanying trio of bass, drums and keyboards, followed by a chance for local musicians, young and old, to share the stage with the guest, and gain invaluable confidence from the encounter.

Last week it was the great veteran Glaswegian guitarist, Jim Mullen, who played an opening set including beautifully sharp ballads like I’ll Close My Eyes, I Can’t Get Started and Angel Eyes, with bop classics like Clifford Brown’s Sandu and Wes Montgomery’s Road Song.

As he picked out his notes with such melodic power, tenderness and verve, suddenly it was as if the peeling wallpaper, chipped paint, the cardboard patches on the stained ceiling and the 1950s carpet were all transformed into a local palace of soaring and moving sound.

And the democratic imperative was always at hand. After the opening set it was the turn of local musicians who had brought their instruments to join in. A young woman with a tenor sax played There’ll Never Be Another You, four different young drummers took their turns, an elderly fellow guitarist strummed and chipped out Softly, As a Morning Sunrise, and another saxophonist played a rousing version of What a Wonderful World. Singers too: a greying woman scatted her way through Ellington’s Take the “A” Train, and a man shaking with either glee or nerves sang out I Remember You.

It was a collective expression of William Morris’s words on the pub sign outside: Fellowship is Life.

As I walked the couple of hundred yards home, I thought to myself, how wonderful is the jazz impulse — the chance to hear a master like Mullen in the midst of aspiring musicians of all ages, adding their sounds to the unifying mix. And all in an upstairs session of a local pub full of joyous spirit. It’s what people’s music is all about.

* Art Blakey.     
For information on future gigs visit: highamsparkjazzclub.com.