One Saturday night, in what could have been described but wasn’t quite, as the Indian summer of 2010, there wasn’t much of a Waterloo sunset to gaze on. But that night Jay Phelps, who on Monday night you’ll see on television in Stephen Poliakoff’s Dancing on the Edge as a member of the fictional Louis Lester band, was playing, as himself, a routinely relaxed but accomplished gig at the plush Waterloo Brasserie near the Old Vic. He was about to bring out his debut album Jay Walkin’ back then and in his band as “people so busy”, to echo The Kinks song, could be seen through the windows of the brasserie walking up to the Old Vic’s foyer for the evening performance of Noel Coward’s Design For Living, Phelps had Empirical’s Shaney Forbes on drums, and rising star Tim Thornton on double bass, plus the fine under-the-radar Pat Martino-influenced Kevin Glasgow here on guitar. Thornton often plays, just as Jay does, at Ronnie Scott’s regularly and last year quietly brought out a new album called New Kid which deserved more show at the time, for sure, featuring as it did some sophisticated playing and a fine cast of soulful, mainstream, and bop-into-hard bop players including Dave O’Higgins, Grant Windsor, and Dave Hamblett. The time for Thornton and New Kid has come, though, as next month Thornton is appearing with his fine quartet on a Jazz Services backed 14-date national tour beginning at Dempsey’s in Cardiff on 12 February, and concluding on 26 April at Marigolds Jazz Club in Harlow. With a sound that recalls the succulent tone of Paul Chambers, and the more recent work of bass behemoth Christian McBride, and as an alert accompanist with a listenable way about him, Thornton is the real thing. Catch up with him wherever you are. Stephen Graham

Full tour details are at http://www.timthorntonbass.com