These are the notes the audience at Snape will have as a guide to the piece’s structure. It is based on The Jolly Corner by Henry James, but is set on a Transatlantic ship, New York in the late ’40s and Soho present day. Spot the Benjamin Britten references (because there’s none in the music).

THAT OBSCURE HURT.

Music by Guy Barker.

PART ONE.  Prologue: An Atlantic Overture.

Early 1950s. The English musicians of Geraldo’s Navy arrive at the docks in awe at the size of their ship, the SS Lucretia. As they board the ship, the captain and the crew bark at the disorientated new hands, sending them this way and that, looking for their cabins, their instruments, their gig and then, as they set sail into rough seas, the newcomers try unsuccessfully to find their sea legs. Eventually, they locate their berths and settle into work and, over the sounds of the ocean, we hear the strains of the dance band and we find ourselves momentarily in the Verandah Ballroom before the skyline of Manhattan makes in appearance. The excited musicians drop their instruments and scuttle ashore. They take in the sights, sounds and throbbing energy of the city – exciting and intimidating in equal measure. They find themselves on 52nd St.

PART TWO. Prince At the Pagoda.

Early 1950s. The jazz club on 52nd St where the musicians listen in rapture to host Harry Prince as the band plays a roaring be-bop piece that incorporates passages from the solos of the great modern jazz maters of that era: Bud Powell, Fats Navarro and even a four-bar quote from Dizzy Gillespie’s “Ow”.

PART THREE. In Darkness.

Present Day. Spencer Bryden is watching CCTV from a remote location and sees the ‘ghost’ haunting his club (Gordie’s or AMJG) in Soho, London. An account of the encounter is read out by Jennifer Muldoon, an investigator into psychic phenomena.

PART FOUR. Opus 50/ A Time There Is

Present Day. Spencer, still reeling from the images he saw on the CCTV, visits the Soho jazz club (Gordie’s, above) he inherited from his father, which is in its final week of operation before its proposed sale.  Harry Prince Jr – the son of the man Spencer’s father saw in NYC all those years ago – sings a song about the passage of time.

PART FIVE. Powder Monkey.

1960s flashback. Harry Prince Jr, with a little help from Alice Staverton, the club manager, evokes the sounds of the club in its sixties heyday.

PART SIX. Notturno.

Spencer is alone in the club after hours, the room silent and deserted, the tables with empty glasses, the walls slick with 60 years of smoke and sweat and the echo of all the music that has been played and is about to disappear forever.

PART SEVEN. A Kind of Ghost.

Spencer becomes aware he is not alone. He glimpses a figure. He chases him backstage, terrified but determined to confront the spectre. But the ghost doesn’t want to be caught – it is elusive and playful, giggling, darting and dancing (in one instance to a tango) through the club, shredding Spencer’s already taut nerves, until, finally, an exhausted Spencer manages to corner the phantom. When he finally does confront the ‘ghost’, he realises he is looking at a different version of himself. This was the terrifying image he saw on the CCTV.  This is the man he would have been, had he not left London for exile. But this ghost is suffering – he has cancer, is constantly chewing nicotine gum to suppress the urge for the cigarettes that have killed him. He has come to warn Spencer. And enlighten him.

PART EIGHT. I Hid My Love.

Spencer reels yet again at the revelations from his other self (musically, the brass chorale in Opus 50 reappears, but this time played on the strings). The ghost departs and Spencer discovers cans of old film from the days when his father was alive. He plays the super-8 movies and sings a song about the love of his father (and Alice), and how he denied it. This piece is designed to echo ‘the sounds of the era of ‘The Great American Songbook’.

PART NINE. Alice’s Gift.

Alice finds Spencer passed out in the club. She wakes him. He reveals what the ghost told him- that Alice has paid off the gangsters who had been threatening him and that she has saved the club – if he wants to keep it, he can. Alice makes a speech explaining herself and finally declaring her love for Spencer. He realises he has been a fool – he can have the club, and Alice too. With thanks to Henry James and his friend Edith Wharton.

PART TEN. Floods of Noise.

The spirits of every musician who has ever played the club celebrates including a reprise of Powder Monkey.