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Renell Shaw’s The Windrush Suite

Presented by The Vortex Online - Monday 22nd June, 2020

This project, supported by the PRS Foundation and The Shape Of Jazz To Come, would have been a significant statement under normal circumstances: had it been performed live at the Vortex it would certainly have informed and possibly elevated those lucky enough to attend in person. Against the backdrop of global Black Lives Matter protests and the re- addressing of the Windrush scandal its message resonates louder than ever; and performed under lockdown and over livestream, it encapsulates a particular moment of conjuncture so completely that it makes totally compelling viewing.

Proceedings begin with a dark screen over which the unmistakeable mid-Atlantic tones of patron Dave Holland introduce the show. Then the music kicks in, and the camera introduces us to the players, one by one, each performing in isolation from their respective locations. Drummer Samson Jatto lays down a hypnotic 12/8 groove from a shadowy studio corner; Ayanna Witter-Johnson dances with her cello in front of the Egyptian statue on her mantelpiece, joining Renell Shaw’s bass guitar to interweave some melodic lines and embellishments over the carefully wrought harmony, and Orphy Robinson layers some dazzling figures on marimba from his narrow sound booth with an African mask displayed on the wall behind him. The glimpses into the performer’s personal spaces make the impact of the spoken word extracts that play across
the top of the music even stronger: we are presented with a powerful image of a fractured community uniting itself around an expression of shared history and culture.

Shaw’s music moves over a series of differently paced, evolving sections; there’s a wide ranging blend of influences, from the soca flavoured pulse of We Don’t Sleep No More, spiced with marimba, baritone sax and some fluent bars from Shaw, to the gospel-flavoured intro to Umoja that develops into a slow, portentous, proggy workout that wouldn’t be out of place on a Pink Floyd release. Shaw makes full use of the multitrack recording process, layering up Nandi’s vocals into a psychedelic choir, building up the rhythm
beds with extra percussion and keyboards, and bringing tap dancer Delycia Belgrave in to add slow, precise figures over the final movement’s sombre harmony. Throughout, the recorded voices from the Windrush generation are overlaid to tell tales of aspiration and endeavour, meeting differential standards and endemic racism, additionally contextualised by Kevin Le Gendre’s narrative interlude. Out Of many Come One features Shaw reciting Haile Selassie’s famous speech, in South London accents over a pumping groove; then the pace drops, to build back up with the voice of Dr. Io Smith MBE recounting his lived experience over a slow bass and tap duet into a dramatic finale, and we are left with the word ‘Revolution’ across the black screen. Tonight’s show had the immediacy of a live performance with the extra depth and polish of a structured broadcast piece. While the Vor tex audience would have numbered in the hundreds, the video has been watched 7,000 times to date: a lesson in how restrictions can turn into possibilities if they’re embraced with resilience and collaboration.

Renell Shaw, compositions and arrangements, piano, guitar, bass, percussion, vocals; Orphy Robinson MBE, vibes, marimba; Ayanna Witter-Johnson, cello; Samson Jatto, drums; Taurean Antoine-Chagar, saxophones; Nandi, lead vocals; Delycia Belgrave, vocals, tap dancing; Kevin Le Gendre, narration.

Around The Houses Livestream Festival 

Via Facebook Live April 15th-19th, 2020

The much-touted axiom that ‘crisis’ is another word for ‘opportunity’ is proving itself repeatedly as lockdown continues, whether or not the Mandarin characters are actually equivalent (it seems they’re actually not). Hot on the heels of the Live From Our Living Rooms virtual festival/fundraiser from the NYC community, and directly inspired by its example, Around The Houses was put together in less than a fortnight by Alex Woods with assistance from Chris Mapp and Sam

Slater. As with LFOLR, the aim was to raise funds for musicians by soliciting donations, and maintain everyone’s public profile, ar tistic output and general spirits: the medium was the rapidly evolving genre of the living room recital: and the method was to collect together a roster of ar tists and present them under a single banner, on a single page, to maximise reach and exposure to a locked-in but fragmented audience.

Woods and co. reached into their contact books to assemble an impressive line-up of talent, slanted towards players from the burgeoning Midlands scene (providing a salient reminder of how diverse and vital UK jazz can be outside the capital) and towards the younger and more tech- savvy end of the demographic. Compering duties were provided by the irrepressible Jez Matthews from the Lescar, and Julian Lloyd Webber, as principal of Birmingham Conservatoire; daytime children’s entertainment by the indefatigably upbeat team of Arran Glass, Laura Carter & Tom Lenthall and MC Porridge; the artists delivered evening shows of consistent quality and surprising diversity. Liam Noble and Elliot Galvin’s solo piano recitals made a fascinating contrast, demonstrating their similarity in their thoughtfully idiosyncratic approach to the music, and the disparate way that they each combine elements from free players and the classical modernists while staying rooted in jazz. Trish Clowes and Laura Jurd gave equally contrasting performances on their respective wind instruments, Clowes tending more towards the swinging and Jurd towards the textural; Tom Ford extended the sound palette of his guitar with tasteful reverbs while Chris Mapp turned his bass into the epicentre of a wide electronic soundscape. Circumstance favoured those musicians stuck in lockdown together: Xhosa Cole’s natural exuberance came across loud and clear through the blurry little screen, ably supported by Will Markham on piano, and both Fini Bearman and Tom Cawley, and Sara Colman and Steve Banks, were able to put compelling duo sets together. The technology sometimes impeded the flow, with Soweto Kinch’s ambitious computer-enhanced performance suffering from latency issues and Percy Pursglove being obliged to reschedule his unusual offering alternating between trumpet and bass, but this was offset by the awareness that all the artists were adapting to the conditions to present a side of their performance that we wouldn’t usually see, a candid living- room intimacy which was compelling enough to attract more then 16,000 views over the week and a healthy fundraising take, all with minimal promotion.

A closing set of soul-jazz from the effortlessly charismatic Reuben James rounded out proceedings nicely - this multi-artist online format surely has potential beyond the present state crisis, with the potential to help rebuild the scene when we emerge, blinking, back into whatever new normal awaits.

The Verdict Revival Lockdown Sessions: Darren Beckett Trio, Triptych, Josephine Davies Trio, Quinto

The Verdict, Brighton

As live events make a very cautious and conditional return, there’s still a big hole in the local scene left by the closure of the local club circuit. While there’s an abundance of international livestream material available from the likes of Emmet Cohen, much of it very good indeed, the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of the kind of audience-artist connection that can only really thrive on the grassroots circuit. It’s therefore very welcome indeed to see Brighton’s Verdict club back in action again, under the directorship of drummer/ percussionist Tristan Banks, offering a regular weekly programme of ticketed livestream gigs from the roster of locally based, international quality artists who would have filled it back in the long-ago days of normal.

First up is the Darren Beckett Trio, with Belfast-to-NYC-to-Brighton drummer Beckett joined by keyboard supremo Mark Edwards and bassist/ composer Terry Pack. All three are bandleaders in their own right and operate across a wide range of genres so it’s no surprise that the programme is as diverse and well- balanced as the trio themselves. The set opens with the hypnotic, motorik pulse of Edwards’ No Snow, moves on through the rollicking backbeat of Larry Goldings’ Solidity and a light- as-air take on We’ll Be Together Againand thence from Fauré to funk via a synth-spiced workout on All Blues, further originals from Charlie Haden and the Cloggz project in which all three participate, and finishes with an uplifting Amazing Grace. There’s a superb level of interplay between all three and the the sound quality really allows the subtleties of Beckett’s drumming to come through.

Triptych is a trio specially constituted for this series, showing what an important role the localised club circuit plays in the development of new material and new projects. Loose Tuber Julian Nicholas and bass virtuoso Nigel Thomas are joined by the series director Tristan Banks himself - as Tristan is also acting as cinematographer and sound mixer we can only marvel at his range of accomplishments. The setlist showcases Nicholas’ par ticular take on the tradition, with material ranging from the classic, format-defining Sonny Rollins (his Bluesongo, spiced with congas) to Kenny Garrett’s Sing A Song Of Songs but also encompassing a riveting free-form take on the Wesleyan hymn All Mankind Shall Dwell In Harmony, a soprano-led Irish traditional melody, and Joe Henderson’s compelling groove workout Tress-cun-deo-la. Everyone’s playing is on top form, with Thomas contributing some fast- fingered solos and Nicholas’ robust tenor sound and distinctive melodic sensibility shown to great advantage in the stripped back setting.

Parliamentary Award winner Josephine Davies is a recent addition to the burgeoning Hastings jazz community, and her trio with fellow residents Ben Somers on double bass and Rob Updegraff on guitar presents an exciting next stage in the development of her truly original voice. There’s a set of original compositions by all three members plus some choice standards; the delicate melodicism of the writing is well suited to the chamber music ensemble feel, but this is no lightweight exercise: all sorts of subtle metric shifts and intricate harmonic developments give the pieces considerable depth underneath their placid surface. This is a powerful display of skill and originality from a group to watch out for.

By contrast, Raoul D’Oliveira and Terry Seabrook’s Quinto present a pure feelgood evening of Latin jazz favourites, with Tristan multi-tasking again from behind the kit and latin- jazz veteran Andres Lafone on bass. D’Oliveira is an irrepressible showman, alternating between trumpet, flugelhorn and singing, sometimes all in the same chorus, and the rhythm section cooking up a storm.

There’s a full programme of weekly livestreams to come all through the summer. The live broadcasts are all ticketed - an important statement that musicians need revenue to survive, and that the free livestream or tipping model is not universally applicable. The return of The Verdict to its role as a focus and hub for the local scene, and the musicians and audiences that make it up, is very welcome and deserves all the support that we can give it.

FERGUS MCCREADIE, ROB LUFT WITH ELENA DUNI AND GEORGIA CÉCILE LINE-UP FOR ‘LIVE SUPREME’

Love Supreme are refusing to be crushed by the cruel April Fool’s trick that has confined us all to voluntary house arrest, and have moved their Supreme Standards programme into the freedom of the digital realm via IG Live.

Fergus McCreadie, Rob Luft with Elina Duni and Georgia Cécile

This delivers us into a corner of Fergus McCreadie’s living room: the performance conventions of livestream gig etiquette are still evolving but Fergus manages to give us an unaffectedly warm welcome to camera and launches into ‘Ardbeg’ from his debut album. The exigencies of the moment have deprived Fergus of his band and relegated him to an electronic keyboard but he overcomes both these restrictions: the Celtic tonality of the melody builds naturally into a series of rippling arpeggios delivered with very precise time and articulation, rising and falling like a Scottish landscape. McCreadie has a nice line in relaxed candid chat, reacting to the live comments drifting up the screen before treating us to his as yet unreleased composition ‘Across Flatlands’, which uses a similarly static harmonic base to create an impressionistic colour piece, affording ample opportunity for an impressive display of two handed independence, speed and precision. ‘Mull’ is a romantic rubato ballad well suited for the occasion and his commitment and emotional intensity survives the journey across the 4G network to sound genuinely affecting. 

Rob Luft is quarantined with his pedal-board and his partner Elena Duni, and together they break into an original arrangement of a traditional Albanian song. Duni’s voice soars in plaintive melody over Luft’s precise, rhythmically intricate accompaniment: he uses his loop pedal to add chords and counterpoint, and his clean tone and precise articulation mean that every part is clear and distinct. Next there’s an original co-composition, a folk-tinged ballad with Elena’s voice clear and emotionally resonant: Rob delivers a superb solo, using his effects to conjure up a giant reverb and magically appearing volume swell chords. 

There’s another Albanian tune, perfectly suited to Rob’s ingenious multi-part voicings: his use of eastern-sounding ornamentation echoes Elena’s vocal inflections without sounding trite or superficial, and his finger-tapping technique creates a verdant forest of notes around Elena’s direct, emotional but unsentimental delivery. Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Couleur Cafe’ gets a bouncy Caribbean flavoured reading that makes a perfect session sign off. There’s a real match with McCreadie, both in the exploration of folk traditions and in the mix of emotional directness and precise delivery. 

Let’s hope that Georgia Cécile has music-loving, appreciative neighbours, as the power of her unamplified voice must be rattling the windows as it rises to a climactic held note on her original ‘Heartbeaks’. Sensitively accompanied by her pianist partner, who also contributes some nicely judged solos; she turns in a bravura performance of standards and originals, undaunted by the artificiality of the situation. ‘Come Summertime’ swings like the clappers, her stream-of-consciousness original is genuinely moving, and her finale on Billy Taylor’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ is as heartfelt as it is apposite. It’s a fitting end to the mini-gig series. 

Love Supreme chose the Instagram Live feature to broadcast this evening’s performances. While the platform allows each video to stay up for 24 hours, its time-restricted format and interactive facility does convey the immediacy of the performance quite well. However, it’s only available on mobile devices, which means that we’re stuck on vertical mode (much to the annoyance of one gentleman in the audience who sends out a series of increasingly tetchy demands for ‘landscape’ format before quitting), and perhaps accounts for what seems like a low audience take-up given the popularity of Love Supreme and the superb quality of the performances delivered tonight. The livestream is an evolving form and lessons are being learned along the way. 

Sam Leake Lights Up Lescar - Live Stream

Jazzwise Magazine - April 2020

As we enter the third week of lockdown, the imperative ‘adapt to survive’ has never seemed so urgent. While musicians and audiences are exploring the affordances of various livestream platforms to satisfy their collective yen for live performance, what will become of the precarious community of venues who provide a network of jazz-friendly oases across the UK? Without the enthusiasm and dedication of local promoters and the indulgence of sympathetic landlords there won’t be much of a live circuit to return to once conditions return to some version of what we used to call normality: how can they migrate to the digital world as a survival strategy? 

Sheffield’s Jazz At The Lescar is just such an enterprise, and tonight they’re presenting us with a possible solution. They’ve joined forces with highly-rated pianist Sam Leak to bring us a solo recital from Sam’s personal isolation in his living room, but streamed via a Facebook livestream event set up by the Lescar, promoted to its regular patrons (but available to everyone) and accessed after paying an ‘entry fee’ to the Lescar itself. There’s a pre-recorded welcome from promoter Jez Matthews, and even a post-gig raffle to replicate the ‘in-real-life’ (IRL) experience as closely as possible. Sam appears on the event page punctually at 8pm, seated at the piano in front of a set of fairy lights artfully deployed to provide a sense of occasion. The wide-ranging set demonstrates his adventurous genre-crossing musical sensibility, with a surprise at every turn and no source of inspiration off-limits: a chiming right hand figure, hovering above a set of plangent descending chords, resolves into a reading of The Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, which then mutates via a thunderous tremolo into a ballad rendition of the Kink’s ‘Waterloo Sunset’. Leak’s stark harmonies eschew any hint of muzak-y sentimentality, and the song’s mournful cadences make for perfect isolation listening. 

There’s a pensive Ingrid Laubrock-inspired deconstruction of the jam session favourite ‘Beatrice’, which leads naturally into a direct tribute to John Taylor via one of the master’s compositions, with the harmony slowly shifting and blurring into chords like massed clouds drifting overhead. By contrast the venerable standard ‘How About You’ gets a sprightly swinging outing, with fluid single note lines bouncing off a lattice of finely meshed left hand figures, and ‘Berkshire Blues’ swings just as hard in a joyous interpretation full of melody. 

There’s a reworking of Britten via Jeff Buckley that segues naturally into a Mehldau tune, and an original by Sam – an un-named Taylor-esque musing that develops over a lilting ostinato then breaks down into an impressionistic fog of harmonic shading. ‘If I Should Lose You’ is a perfect finale, balanced between a hopeful swing and a bittersweet melancholy. The experiment is an artistic success – let’s hope it points the way to a commercial one as well.

Swing Kids: Speake and Iverson iterate in shared idioms at The Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine - March 2020

Martin Speake’s developing association with Ethan Iverson continues to yield such satisfying results that it’s no surprise that tonight’s gig is packed to budget airline economy-class levels of intimacy with a connoisseur crowd eager to witness this latest iteration. Even though there’s been no new studio recordings from the pair since 2018s acclaimed Intentions album, there’s plenty of evidence here tonight of their continuing dialogue. 

After a typically ebullient introduction from irrepressible host Andy Lavender, proceedings start with a tribute to Lyle Mays – ‘Hidden Vision’ has Iverson playing a simple, melodic four-chord cycle, over which Speake draws elegant arabesques, creating a mood that’s suitably mournful but uplifting. They build together in intensity, as bassist Calum Gourlay adds a spare, sonorous anchor and Iverson’s fellow expat Jeff Williams contributes colours and textures in a manner recalling the late lamented Jon Christensen. Both Speake and Iverson share a rather austere, professorial onstage demeanour that’s at odds with the hip playful swing of the follow-up, a twisting blues line that kicks off with a bravura solo from Williams, while ‘Mufti’ conjures up the spirit of Eddie Harris for some school’s-out boogaloo. Speake shows his versatility in the depth and breadth of his language, now speaking fluent Coltrane-blues on the former tune, appropriately named ‘Bouncy’, now ripping out some appropriately greasy funk phrasing on the latter, but maintaining his clear, supernaturally even Paul Desmond-like tone throughout each different avatar. 

Iverson has a similarly polyglot facility – his solo on ‘Mufti’ builds from ingenious variations on a one-handed three-note lick to a hypnotic gamelan-like shimmer, then veering off into furiously virtuosic Cecil Taylor abstractions before bringing back the funk to finish with big Les McCann block chords. Speake’s ballad ‘Moving On’ inspires Iverson to an improvisation of imposingly poised command – on an uptempo, Ornette-ish variation on 'Rhythm Changes' he conjures up a storm of creative chaos that resolves beautifully in a spontaneously conceived counterpoint. 

The second set brings further evidence of Speake’s versatility as a composer and improviser, with a passionate and immaculately plotted solo over a long modal piece providing a particular highlight, but the final treat comes with the encore: a wonderfully creative reading of the venerable standard ‘My Heart Tells Me’, with Iverson delivering a comically precise, cartoonishly creative contribution, Speake’s full, burnished tone and perfect phrasing shown to maximum effect, and everyone swinging like crazy.

Cole and Phelps combine at full throttle in simpatico contrast of styles

Jazzwise Magazine - February 2020

Xhosa Cole is a man who can’t be hurried. Winning the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year might pressure some ambitious players into premature studio projects, but two years after the event Cole is here, still unrecorded, still engaged in exploring the tradition via this latest chordless quartet iteration. The easy-going warmth of his unassuming Midlands persona is offset by an extremely sharp-tailored suit, and his fellow frontman Jay Phelps is equally nattily attired. Opener 'The Moontrane' shows how well suited they are sonically as well as sartorially: matching each other’s breathing in spontaneous counterpoint, with Phelps' mercurial high-register in thrilling contrast to Cole’s dark-toned melodic explorations. Bass-and-drum team James Owston and Jim Bashford keep the energy at full throttle. There’s an interlude of free-blowing duet between the leaders that segues seamlessly into Gigi Gryce’s 'Salute To The Bandbox', then Richard Roger’s ‘Manhattan’ is taken at a mid-tempo lope that features Xhosa at his most Rollins-like, all hoarse-toned, quirkily melodic in his assertiveness, while Phelps delivers a perfectly conceived and executed statement going from hip minimalism to furious Freddie Hubbard flurries and back. Given the line-up, a nod to Ornette is perhaps inevitable, and 'Ramblin'' gets a super high energy revision, the two horns engaged in a frantic dialogue over bass thrum and cascading drums before bringing it down to the hushed closing phrases, delivered as one unified voice. 

Xhosa and Phelps get a ballad feature each, contrasting Phelps' poise, superbly polished accuracy and encylopaedic compendium of trumpet history with Xhosa’s gruffly lyrical directness that opens out into a bravura extended free coda. The exploration digs deeper in the second set: there’s a nod to the history of UK’s immigrant jazz community with a Dizzy calypso, and an impressive original by Owston that has the gravitas of a late-1960s Shorter Blue Note in its heavy swing before developing into some adventurous free-blowing. Owston has an impressive precision and power: Bashford is more usually heard in a free context, but swings hard and brings an additional level of fearless commitment to proceedings. 'Scrapple From The Apple' is a furious four-way conversation as everyone takes turns leading: the communication and commitment between the band reach breathtaking new levels, and the sell-out crowd bay for more. 

In contrast to the laden intensity of his blowing, Xhosa’s announcements have been all relaxed, infused with a sunny affability throughout. Introducing 'When You Wish Upon A Star' as an encore, he suddenly changes the mood: “What would you wish on a star for? We don’t always like to be seen to help people when we can, but where I live the levels of homelessness are getting worse than I’ve ever seen. Times are only going to get tougher for those at the bottom, and the interpersonal thing is going to be ever more important. What can we do to help each other?” The band tear into the tune, pulling at the limits of the form. Then they die away, leaving Xhosa holding a single high-note. In a gesture full of meaning, he allows the note to swell and waver as both hands paw helplessly at the saxophone, as though seeking to articulate something beyond the music. This band have something quite special going on: try and see them if you can.

Riley Stone Lonergan flaunt interpretive verve at Brighton’s Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine - January 2020

Seldom-seen tenor player Stone-Lonergan has earned himself an awesome reputation among his fellow London musicians, and those jazz fans who’ve caught him on the rare occasions that he’s emerged to lead a band before the general public. Last November’s EFG Jazz Festival saw him break cover to delight a buzzing crowd at the Vortex, and here he is again, rounding off the decade for the Verdict in Brighton in a reunion with his old running mate Dave Drake on piano. The band hit the ground running with 'Lonnie’s Lament', Stone-Lonergan's imposing presence leading the charge as Tim Thornton on bass and Chris Draper on drums set up a ferociously intense, effortlessly responsive groove. 'I Thought About You' is pitched slower, but the band attack the old standard with equal gusto. Riley delivers an unceasing flow of ideas that are Young at heart but never corny, adventurous in conception but always reaching back to the melodic core. Drake picks up the baton, evoking older stylists like Errol Garner or Ellington in his two-handed chords but with an eccentric rhythmic twist and sense of space that is all his own. Thornton’s solo moves from Milt Hinton fundamentals to flamboyant high-register virtuosity, with each phrase perfectly turned. Rarely played Monk composition ‘Bye-Ya’ is the perfect vehicle for Drakes angular, almost cartoonish imagination, and Stone-Lonergan’s tough-talking solo swings from abstract harmonic matrices to down-home licks and resolves into nagging single-note cries. 'My One And Only Love' is a masterpiece of interpretation: Drake’s statement rich in chordal voices building and almost dissolving into dissonance, Riley supplying a controlled distillation of pure emotion in the theme and exploring the furthest reaches of the melody over an insistent pedal from Thornton before a hushed reprise. ‘All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm’ is a super-fast burner with Draper showing off his skills with a wealth of preternaturally controlled, subtly-shifting ride patterns, uniting with Thornton to pull the groove apart then stick it back together.

The second set continues the mission to explore and to revitalise. ‘Slowboat To China’ is a lighthearted romp over Draper’s four-to-the-floor ballroom stomp: ‘Juju’ really gets the treatment, a stark, totally spontaneous and totally original reworking over a bass pulse and rippling, glitchy piano arpeggios that builds to a colossal climax: ‘Passport’ is an exercise in deconstructed bop where everyone finds plenty original to say, with Drake taking us from stride to the avante-garde and Draper finishing with some tasty trades. Drake’s solo on the oasis of calm that is ‘I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good’ underscores his affinity to Ellington the pianist as well as Ellington the composer – a relatively overlooked facet of the Duke’s genius that isn’t often apparent as an influence in today’s young pianists. ‘Asiatic Raes’ has the Thornton/Draper team throwing around some outrageous beat displacement tricks: Drake sets up a filigree of tumbling notes and Riley brings it back home with a barnstorming solo. 

The Verdict crowd are connoisseurs of exactly this kind of open-ended blowing session and recognise an exceptional example when they hear one. Thornton and Draper are an outstanding rhythm team, as fierce, subtle, swinging or adventurous as the occasion demands, and Thornton especially belongs to the tradition of extravagant virtuosi without compromising on groove. But what really sets this apart is the commitment evident in every contribution from both Drake and Stone-Lonergan. Neither of them deal in cliches: each loads every statement with a cargo of emotional honesty that’s not often found in the familiar standards quartet. Stone-Lonergan’s big, generous tone and unfailing response to the gravitational pull of melody invests even his most challenging explorations with an emotional directness that’s utterly compelling to experience. 

Manhattan Comes To Rottingdean

Jazzwise Magazine - June 2019

Unexpected pleasures are the best, even for jazz fans, and what could be more unexpected then to climb the stairs to a function room above a Rottingdean pub on a dark blustery evening and find George Colligan sat at the upright piano? The New Jersey-born, Portland resident has established a formidable reputation; alongside his other gigs as an educator, drummer and trumpeter he’s built up a recorded legacy over the course of 20 albums as a leader, demonstrating his chameleonic ability as the kind of contemporary uber-pianist who’s equally at home playing bop, free, classical fusion or funk. His latest trio release featured heavyweight veterans Lenny White and Buster Williams; sadly they aren’t here at The Plough tonight, but their vacancies are ably filled by a pair of outstanding players from across the Irish sea. Dave Redmond wrestles manfully with a borrowed bass, and the man behind the borrowed kit, Darren Beckett (pictured), is the mastermind behind tonight’s unexpected treat; leaving his native Ulster for Manhattan as a New School student he played with Colligan when they both worked as busy faces on the city’s notoriously competitive jazz scene; as a new resident on the South Coast he’s brought his old mates over, and here they are tonight, smashing out some high-octane post-bop to a handful of lucky aficionados as the pub’s regulars enjoy their midweek pints downstairs. 

Colligan strikes up the line of ‘Take The Coltrane’, the rhythm section answer the call, and we’re off on a rollercoaster musical journey, with the whole band delivering on the bebop verities while sedulously avoiding cliches. Colligan’s right-hand speed and sureness are exemplary – a favourite trick is to double the time, then double it again into effortless waterfalls of notes; the language pushing at the harmonic frontiers but always logically rooted in the bop heritage. The hits on ’Alter Ego’, by one-time mentor and pianist’s pianist James Williams, are delivered with accuracy; jam-session chestnut ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’ is creatively reimagined as a ballad, with a nicely judged melodic feature for Redmond, while Shorter’s ‘Yes And No’ is a vehicle for Beckett to show his mettle in a prodigious solo that rattles the windows. After a brief break we’re back for a set of Colligan originals; ‘Again With Attitude’ swings like the clappers in 4/4 and a new number grooves just as hard in 5, there are ingenious contrafacts and an affecting paternally themed ballad (‘Daddy Go Bye Bye') before the final flourish; ‘Usain’ is dedicated to Mr Bolt and captures both his speed and his flamboyance in a frenetic drums-piano duel. Such a sparely attended, under-the-radar session might engender a casual approach, and the vibe in the room is naturally relaxed and informal, but the minute the music starts all three players are utterly committed, delivering with the focus and intensity you’d expect from a festival stage or hallowed jazz club, rendered all the more special by its modest setting.
– Photo by David Forman

Charlie Stacey Stirs Daniel Harding Quartet To Great Heights
Jazzwise Magazine - June 2019

Rumours of a rift in the UK jazz scene between the much-touted new scene of irreverent South London groovers and the faithful acolytes of the tradition don’t seem to have much credence here in the Verdict tonight as a mixed crowd of young aficionados and well-travelled elder hipsters fill every seat in the Brighton club. Charlie Stacey himself crosses such notional boundaries with ease as alumnus of both NYJO and Tomorrow’s Warriors and bandmate of such diverse figures as Yussef Dayes, Nathaniel Facey and Marshall Allen; his boundless energy and enthusiasm set the pace for this quartet under the leadership of London-based Danish drummer Daniel Harding as they throw themselves at the repertoire with total commitment. A version of Coltrane’s ‘Satellite’ starts proceedings with a masterly solo from Stacey, and tenorist Alam Nathooimpresses with his range and fluency; Don Grolnick’s ‘Nothing Personal’ switches between a loping 12/8 and a burning swing that drives Stacey to even greater heights of virtuosity, with dizzyingly fast right-hand runs anchored by the rock solid timing of his crashing left hand; ‘Brew’ is a lyrical but unsentimental ballad that thrives on Nathoo’s smooth, full tone and a neatly constructed bass solo from ; ‘Clouds’ is a potentially rather drab piece of Euro jazz lifted up by the sheer energy and fertility of Stacey’s imagination. 

There are explorations of less obvious corners of the repertoire with pieces by Jerry Bergonzi, Keith Jarret and Joe Henderson; ‘Milestones’ is the earlier Miles Davis bop-fest rather than the more familiar modal workout and simply flies as the band eat up the changes with relish; they tear through Monk’s tricky ‘Played Twice’ with such gusto that when their exploration of Ornette Coleman’s ‘Round Trip’ bursts into no-time-no-changes freedom it seems like an entirely logical progression, through the depths of harmonic complexity and out the other side. Harding is a self-effacing presence, leading from behind, but his supremely sensitive drumming is crucial to the success of the project, managing to swing hard and drive his soloists to greater and greater heights without ever overwhelming them with extraneous volume. Jansen has a complementary quiet mastery on bass, breaking out into solos that reveal his prodigiously comprehensive technique; Nathoo is a superbly accomplished player, and Stacey astonishes again and again with his inexhaustible imagination. Such is the energy they generate that we’re well beyond the second half and into extra-time before anyone notices; proving that there’s freshness on the scene everywhere you care to look.

Alfa Mist Lifts Concorde From The Fog With Post-Modern Vision
Jazzwise Magazine - May 2019

Tonight’s proceedings are initiated by Laura Misch, who has imprudently got chilled to the bone while watching the sunset out on the beach. Still, she gets warmed up enough to charm the crowd with her unassuming persona and easy-on-the-ear combination of sweet alto-sax and relaxed ambient beats. Her act is more engaging when she sings as well – clear-toned vocals crooning songs of millennial urban angst.

Alfa Mist is here promoting his new record – '.44' starts with a vocal sample leading into a smoky, post-Erika Badu vibe clearly related to ‘Apple Tree’. This isn’t lowest common denominator smooth jazz, though; trumpet/flugel man Johnny Woodham is out of the starting blocks right away with an electronically-enhanced torrent of notes demonstrating real post-bebop chops, and Jamie Leemingshows that he’s a fearlessly creative guitarist with a definite penchant for the oblique and the unexpected, favouring squiggly chromatic lines that veer in and out of the harmony. Mr Mist’s own contributions on Rhodes hark back to the reverb-drenched chording style of Lonnie Liston Smith; Jamie Houghton is crisp and responsive on drums.

This is a modern jazz fusion that eschews the soulful vocal histrionics and uptempo popping basslines of earlier incarnations of the style as propagated by, say, Incognito, and replaces them with a much more ambivalent, questioning contemporary mood. The playing is as tight and focussed as you could wish, but chords are ambiguously voiced, grooves come in unexpected odd-number combinations, melodies drift past without ever clamouring for your attention; the general onstage vibe is reserved introspection. Bassist Kaya Thomas-Dyke’s mournfully impassive demeanour, under her flamboyant afro, sets the tone and makes her the coolest onstage; her basslines are on point, rock solid over the tricky metre changes.

Alfa, when he speaks, is a relaxed and genial host; when he raps, as on ‘Closer’ from his debut, the show comes into focus. His voice has a gravelly authority and could be his secret weapon; it’s a shame he self-deprecatingly claims to be too lazy to write more than one verse per album. ‘JJajja’s Screen’ is dedicated to his Luganda-speaking grandma; the consistently downbeat mood means that a certain longueur sets in and it’s not til Thomas-Dyke takes to the mic to add her clear, soaring vocals to ‘Breathe’ that the magic returns and the crowd of hip young metropolitan types are all rapt through to the propulsive groove and tumbling melody of ‘Keep On’ – his most recognised tune, and the one that you could describe in the context of contemporary post-modern jazz/hip-hop streaming culture as his smash hit. Alfa Mist is a man with his own beguiling musical vision, gently but positively spreading the word.

Maisha Re-Shape Retro Tropes At Brighton's Patterns
Jazzwise Magazine May 2019

It’s a Tuesday night in Brighton and an expectant crowd have assembled in Patterns nightclub to see Maisha embark on the first date of their belated album tour. There Is A Place came out last October, since when many of the group’s own individual careers have continued to prosper, which may account for the delay in getting the band back together – in any case, they make up for lost time by launching straight into a dynamic rendition of ‘Osiris’ that builds up from its unapologetically retro ambient flute, bells and shakers intro into a pounding Afro-beat flavoured workout.

This same club played host to Gong last week, and tonight’s show seems like a natural continuation of that set of 1970s musical values, travelling into the soundworld once frequented by the likes of Gato Barbieri and Lonnie Liston Smith; all the classic tropes of cosmic groove jazz reinvigorated by the energy and commitment of this fresh-faced crew. Nubya Garcia and Shirley Tetteh are the the dynamic duo in the frontline; Nubya in her characteristic warrior stance at the mic, Shirley bobbing and weaving with the beat, they make a charismatic pair, sharing a relaxed onstage camaraderie. Garcia’s warm rounded tone and effectively economic phrasing contrast nicely with Tetteh’s stinging guitar, and they both know how to build a solo from simple beginnings into wave upon wave of intensity, riding the swell of frantically clicking and shimmering hand percussion and the pulsing gimbri like figures of Twm Dylan’s bass. There are percussion breaks aplenty, mysterioso interludes for flutes and assorted diverse ethnic textures from the suitably attired Tim Doyle, even an extended freeform bass solo linking the tunes together.

Material is played from the whole record, taken at a much higher level of intensity to everyone’s general benefit; two full-length drum solos from leader Jake Long may be a little de trop even in this free-flowing environment, accomplished as they are, but there’s a wonderfully creative Ethiopiques flavoured solo from the new keyboard player that builds into a genuinely uplifting workout before Nubya brings it back home and leaves everyone satisfied that justice has been done.

Love Supreme at The Roundhouse

The Roundhouse, London

Saturday 13th April, 2019 

Love Supreme continue to expand the brand by bringing an all-day jamboree of jazz-and-related-musics to the Roundhouse, following their success last year. That event was dominated by the emergent New London Jazz scene – this year’s different, highly diverse line-up provides an interesting snapshot into where we are a year later. 

Representing the old school, Hexagonal are in the packed upstairs bar for Jazz In The Round, silhouetted against the busy Chalk Farm Road and showing the youngsters in the crowd how it’s done. It’s a tight, punchy 45 minute exploration of the inexorably grooving, powerfully melodic legacy of leader John Donaldson’s twin muses McCoy Tyner and Bheki Mseleku, with a tight and punchy big band sound from the three-horn frontline, Jazz FM-nominated Jason Yarde on alto leading the soloists in playing tag-team over Tristan Bank’s hyperactively flexible drumming. It’s the tradition at its most imposing and accessible.

Downstairs at the Supreme Standards stage the small theatre fills up for Dowdelin’s super-soulful Kreol-inflected electro-pop, spiced with caribbean flavours and rooted by Raphael Philibert’s Gwa-Ko drumming. Singer Olyvia has plenty of understated but poised star quality and producer David Kiledjian acquits himself creditably on sax for additional jazz input. 

No-one would ever accuse Judi Jackson of understatement, but she certainly has plenty of star quality. She fills the big room upstairs with her personality, in fishnets and wispily draped scarlet gauze, howling her way through a histrionic version of Sinner Man while exuding manic charisma all over the stage. Fortunately she has ample vocal ability to back it up, able to go from intimate to gospel overdrive in a moment with perfect intonation, but despite her excellent young band’s best efforts there’s a dearth of really memorable material to hang all the talent upon.

Layfullstop dispenses with a band altogether in favour of the classic inscrutably nodding DJ; she lays outa crisp, London accented singjay act, her agile delivery and stage presence contrasting with the laid back Baduizms of her vintage soul and jazz derived backing, to universal appreciation from the capacity crowd. 

Back upstairs in the bar, Liran Donin furnishes unfortunate proof of the old adage about everyone talking through bass solos; you have to push to the front to appreciate his virtuosic Avishai Cohen stylings, supported by an outstanding band of young UK players, noteably Josh Arcoleo on tenor; with the help of some sterling work from drummer Ben Brown he ends up winning the day. 

No such problems beset Melt Yourself Down; their punky art-skronk has one dynamic level – full-on – and their frontman Kushal Gayan is all un- ignorable passionate intensity. In their matching boiler suits under the stark lighting they’re like a throwback to the days of Gang Of Four agit-funk, fitting for our Marxist-retro political climate,
but in amongst the austere skronks and angular driving grooves there’s room for catchy hooks and one sing-along even sounds like an early 80s New Wave chart hit. Pete Wareham looks like a cross between a Gaucho garage mechanic and an Inquisition Cardinal in his overalls and signature hat.

Back at the Jazz In The Round, Alina Bzezhinska has packed such a crowd in to hear her new trio that it’s impossible to move. Who would have thought that jazz harp could be such a draw? She lays out the Alice Coltrane/ Dorothy Ashby moves with her usual aplomb to rapturous reception. Meanwhile new kids on the grime/jazz fusion block Neue Grafik delight the crowd with a tight, punchy set featuring the talents of Emma- Jean Thackray on trumpet and Vels Trio’s Dougal Taylor. 

Kamaal Williams offers his customary four-to-the-floor jam session
in the big room upstairs, laced with shout-outs to such 90s icons as 4Hero and Bugz In The Attic, but the low end gets lost in the cavernous space and much of the vibe goes with it. Jay Phelps’ contributions as surprise guest on trumpet add some jazz virtuosity and some welcome focus. 

Laura Mvula’s engineer isn’t daunted by the challenge of the Roundhouse’s legendarily difficult acoustic and the sound is clear and massive. Her band is scaled back to an all-star trio of Oli Rockburger, Troy Miller and Yolanda Charles, and she stands well forward, a tiny figure in white, armed only with her keytar and her huge voice. The mass keyboard textures point out her music’s essential kinship to the ambitious pop of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush – the band are simply terrific, and the resulting impression is slick and powerful. In between she chats to the crowd like a true pop star. We’ve travelled a fair distance from jazz as it’s often understood, but this broad church approach is what Love Supreme does best, and no-one seems to be complaining.

Turville's Quintet Dare To Dream At Brighton's Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine

This is the last show in the tour and there’s an end-of-term vibe on the Verdict’s crowded stage as our genial host Roxanne introduces the band to the packed house. “I’ve been having a lot of fun” says John Turville (pictured), adding wryly, “and I think the band have too”. The band, sporting the kind of scruffily relaxed semi-formal look typical of Higher Education academics (which several of them are during daylight hours), seem to concur; then it’s straight into the first number, 'Fall Out', drawn from Turville’s recent album, Head First. The complex head is negotiated with ease and a close eye on the chart, then Julian Argüelles surges ahead on tenor, with a torrent of ideas, followed by Robbie Robson’s powerfully precise trumpet, and the leader’s light-touch, effortlessly inventive piano flowing into a cunningly executed coda. The two horns complement each other each with their full, rounded tone, accurate articulation and endlessly fertile, oblique melodicism.

Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor are guiding lights here, and the band are perfectly suited to a spirited interpretation of the former’s '4-5-6', all the soloists coaxing a flow of lyrical ideas from the advanced harmonic base. Argüelles enjoyed a long association with Taylor, and 'Ennerdale', written by Turville in tribute, sees him rising off Dave Whitford’s big-toned, carefully constructed solo statement to raise the temperature with some inspired improvisation; his own 'A Month In Tunisia' has an airily precise latin lilt – a natural fit for Turville, who deploys a similar feel in his own 'Head First' - that leads into a super exciting drum solo from the prodigious James Maddren.

For all the band’s unassuming demeanour, these are outsize talents in this packed, intimate room. The second set starts with 'Almagro Nights' rearranged from trio format so that the full band fly over the complex, supple riffing. Then there’s a sax/piano duet, with Argüelle’s melting tone on soprano, never harsh or shrill even in the highest register, building up in telepathic correspondence with Turville’s arpeggios and swelling into a perfect torrent of notes, until the wave seems to break and the band come in with the rippling, dancing figures of 'Perfect Foil'. This is music-making of the very highest order, and it’s a rare treat to witness it so close at hand. To follow, Turville puts the band through their paces with a knotty re-working of Coltrane’s already challenging '26-2', with generous additions of metric modulation leading to a joyous group free-improv – then there’s a Bill Evans ballad, 'Laurie', dedicated to Turville’s partner, and an artful arrangement of Michel Pettruciani’s 'Beautiful But Why?' that provides a welcome dose of straightahead swing.

“This is my dream band,” says Turville in conclusion, and it’s impossible to disagree – there’s such a perfect match between their expansive abilities and the leader’s vision, and it feels as though there’s no limit to the amount of music they can make together. We are treated to an encore of 'Francisca' by Toninho Horta; Argüelles wedges bits of paper into his horn as an impromptu repair, everyone soars in solo, and then we’re left to return to whatever mundanity awaits us, carrying the memory of this exceptional two hours of artistic creation.

Kamaal Kicks It At Komedia

Jazzwise Magazine - January 2019

"This ain’t jazz, this is blue funk", declares the evenings’ special guest, an unnamed compadre from Brooklyn who appears mid-set to contribute some stream-of-consciousness verbal meandering, but there’s a definite Gilles Petersen demographic to tonight’s sold-out show, Herbie’s ‘Sly’ is playing as walk-on music, and Kamaal Williams has just been announced as a Love Supreme headliner, so what’s in a definition? Decked out in bucket hat, big shades and gold tooth, Williams looks ready to take on all comers – he pumps up the crowd with some South London hyping then turns to one of his bank of analogue keys and hammers out a simple staccato lick – drums and bass enter with a smash, pounding out a heavy groove – then break – then drop – then break again, as Williams’s lick nags away. It’s a simple idea, but devastatingly effective and enough to get everyone in the room on board. 

Proceedings continue to take shape around a two-note bassline, garnished with slickly soulful licks from bassist Pete Martin’s seemingly endless supply. He and high-powered, hard-hitting drummer Dexter Hercules provide the backbone of the show, while Williams sprinkles textures and floats dreamy extended chords over the top, his palette of sounds chosen to hit all the right reference points – ripples of echoplex Rhodes, retro-synth squiggles, scratchy clavinet stabs. It’s like an extended basement jam driven forward by the relentless power of the crack rhythm team – appealingly uncontrived and infectiously energetic, and in this packed low-ceiling room it’s viscerally exciting.

There’s a synth bass-driven track, but the groove isn’t quite as compelling and some of the energy dissipates. Hercules has to labour his way though an extended drum solo to bring it back, but when the Brooklyn MC joins the proceedings things take an unexpected, not to say bizarre, turn, as an old-school jazzy hip-hop jam mutates into an actual 4/4 jazz swing that speeds up under the MC’s repeated yelps of "Hey Taxi", like a beatnik poetry slam. So, maybe it sorta is jazz after all.

It’s time to break out some of the Yussef Kamaal back catalogue, and the crowd’s energy pulls right back up. Williams' MO has developed along similar lines to ex-colleague Yussef Dayes since the split of their joint venture; long, organic jams based around minimal themes but strong sonic identities, kept afloat by the sheer energy of the performers. If Dayes has picked jungle as his template, Williams defaults to a high-energy funky house, and ‘Lowrider’ is his mission statement. There’s room for some shredding from the superb Pete Martin, and for Hercules to pose for selfies with the girls in the front row – a good-natured, freewheeling party vibe that’s shared out among the crowd and keeps everyone engaged to the end; no-one seems too worried about what genre it should be classified under.

Sons of Kemet

Komedia, Dec 1st

Jazzwise Magazine

There is already a sense of excitement in the air as opener Vels Trio’s drummer Dougal Taylor brings their set of elegantly hip Hancock-esque minimal fusion to a simmering boil. This gig in the low-ceilinged Komedia basement sold out long ago – evidence of a far-sighted booking policy by joint promoters Dictionary Pudding and Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival. The Sons themselves take to the stage without introduction and take it to the top without delay; Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick kick off a thunderous double-drum bashment, while Shabaka Hutchings preaches above, spitting out short incandescent phrases in a hoarse tone like a furious Junior Walker, and Theon Cross prowls the stage with detached self-possession and floppy hipster hat. He looks as cool as it’s possible for a man carrying a tuba to look, thoroughly reclaiming the instrument from its association with the likes of Danny Kaye and Harold Bishop, and reinventing it as a source of low frequency wub. Shabaka leans into the attack, forcing out shrill notes with his entire body, then flashing a massive grin as he and Cross negotiate a long, complex unison. 

Club grooves, afrobeat, rave and festival vibes all combine into one 90-minute long workout, each piece blending into the next. The sheer stamina is intoxicating, with sweat and spit flying across the stage. Hutchings and Cross function effectively as co-leaders over the relentless, even chaotic double assault of the drummers, Hutchings pumping out riffs as Cross breaks out into squeals and bass-bin shaking low end bombs; their unison lines have a telepathic accuracy that shows the effects of heavy touring. A loping 12/8 groove builds into a pounding afro jig; a slow Nyabinghi rhythm invites Cross to drop down low with some sub bass that draws roars from the crowd; then the tempo shoots back up again.

Shabaka’s playing is built up from nagging two and three note motifs, repeated over and over, driving the energy ever upwards; it’s all about rhythm and groove, and those after melody or varied expression should probably look elsewhere. There’s a foot-on-the-monitor solo for Cross that provides an oasis of respite from the intensity, and a crescendo of echt free-time blowing for the alternative jazz crowd, but the majority here have come to dance, or at least sway and nod heads. The demographic is a typical Brighton mix of older hipsters, young students and assorted freethinkers, and they are all ears when Shabaka finally addresses them with an unexpected foray into  critical theory. “The first thing that oppressed communities lose is the ability to create their own histories” he states, after the cheering dies down, before launching into a disquisition upon the power of myth that would have provided useful material for any third-year students of Barthes. Then, switching off his mic and associated pedals, he moves to the front of the stage. The drummers take up the Nyabinghi groove again, but this time softly, as Cross joins in on agogo, and Hutchings freestyles over the top, in a hushed, mellow tone, full of melody and reflective yearning, as the room remains in absolute silence. It’s a magical moment that acts as a coda to, and helps contextualise and resolve, all the sound and fury that went before. Sons Of Kemet have truly broken out of the jazz box with a message for the people – long may they continue to spread the word. 

Ezra Collective

Patterns, Brighton Wednesday 14th November, 2018

Jazzwise Magazine

“This is about joy and happiness and celebrating everything that’s good” proclaims Femi Koleoso. “There’s no boundaries to how you express yourself - dance, shout, be mad quiet and stare - but let’s lose the barriers, we ain’t superstars
or nothing”. He’s talking about the crash barriers around the stage but he might as well be talking about barriers musical, cultural or social, as from the word go it’s one big sweaty inclusive party here in this seafront nightclub. Juan Pablo from their eponymous debut gets things started - a ferocious Afrobeat assault, with 34 Femi flailing at the drums like a manSJM December 2018 possessed and his brother TJ on bass, a massive presence centre stage, leaning into the beat as the twin horn frontline punch out riffs and the close- packed crowd start to move.

Ezra have come a long way since their Brighton debut in the tiny Verdict jazz club as part of the New Generation Jazz programme three years ago - sell-out shows, international touring, JazzFM awards and Femi’s appearance as star of the Champions League TV ad campaign all contribute towards a sense of boundless confidence. The energy seems inexhaustible as the album tracks are extended and sped up into high-octane workouts over pulsing urban-afro grooves, and though Femi insists “this ain’t just jazz” the band’s instinctive grasp of dynamics and interplay adds a level of depth to the music. There are real conversations taking place onstage, most notably between Femi and keys man Joe Armon-Jones as they toss accents and displaced metrical figures back and forth to each other without ever impeding the flow of the rhythm.

But ultimately it’s all about delivering the message to the people through the music. There’s a sense of relaxed, impromptu camaraderie between the band members; like his contemporary Yussef Dayes, Femi has a habit of downing sticks and prowling around the kit mid-song, before leaping back on to drive the groove even harder. TJ abandons his bass guitar to treat us all to some impromptu dance moves; the horns wander off and onstage and the road manager appears at intervals to dispense towels, send hand signals to the sound man or bump fists with the band. Appearances are deceptive however - Ezra have learnt how to put on a show, with Femi as the preacher leading his congregation and all the band playing their parts. There is a real sense of pace, with nicely judged solo spots for each member which never drag into indulgence. Tenor man James Mollison’s fluent, creative feature leads into a version of Sun Ra’sSpace Is The Place and the audience respond by demonstrating that new phenomenological development at jazz gigs attended by the under 25s - singing the wordless melody back to the band in a raucous ragged unison. Dylan Jones on trumpet has
a soulful excursion that shapes itself into the old chestnut Pure Imagination- elsewhere he demonstrates tough chops and enough power, precision and imagination to really fly over the inexhaustible updraught of energy from the rhythm section.

This is a band really in their element; facing a room packed full of their diverse peers who dance, scream their approval, film on their phones and jostle for position in the most good-natured way possible. With a fair smattering of greyer heads also among the crowd, it’s a truly mixed demographic, reflecting back the sense of positivity and inclusion emanating from the stage. The finale sees the whole club get down low on the floor before rising up to a real hands-in-the-air moment. As Femi exhorts us to “study what the prophet says and use it to move forwards”, Ezra Collective seem like a band determined to do just that - if they can harness this vibe in all its magnitude in the studio and send it out across the world, they could be set for big tings indeed.

GoGo Penguin

Concorde 2, Brighton Sunday 11th November, 2018

Jazzwise Magazine

The Concorde usually hosts mid- ranking rock bands or popular club nights - tonight it’s completely sold out for an acoustic piano trio. Gogo Penguin walk onstage like rockstars to John Carpenter style atmospherics - Chris Illingworth plucks one repeated note from the piano from amidst the swirling sea of haze and reverb - there’s a surge of excitement from the crowd as they recognise the intro to the latest release A Humdrum Star - good market penetration there, guys - then Nick Blacka on bass and Rob Turner on drums kick in with a rushing, tumbling rhythm and we’re instantly caught up and carried away.

Gogo Penguin have been working towards their vision of jazz music as spectacle since their inception, and bigger stages and 32 more financial clout have brought their design closer to fruition. The band have a level of togetherness, telepathic communication, and control at high volume that come with years of touring at a level that affords decent monitor systems. While both Blacka and Turner play with a shade more freedom than on the record, each move is still carefully plotted around the matrix of Illingworth’s repetitive piano figures to achieve maximum impact, and nothing is left to chance. The M.O. has remained basically consistent throughout their five releases to date; plangent minor chord progressions over Blacka’s rock solid, powerfully accurate bass and Turner’s busy, restless drum figures, ever building towards the big final reveal.

The dominant mood might be described as euphoric melancholy - a big-sky emotional uplift that perhaps has its closest parallels in the indie-rock of artists like Bon Iver. But everything has gone up a gear since their last release; added lights, pulsing strobes and extra sound gear are deployed to such overwhelmingly immersive effect that it’s hard to remember that the band we’re watching has the same basic line-up as, say, the Bill Evans Trio. Turner’s kick drum now has the sub- bass impact of the proper club music - Blacka’s bass retains its natural tone, with audible clicks and growls, to function as the articulate voice at the centre of the sound, and is granted most of the improvisational space - Illingworth’s piano is enhanced with massive reverbs to mimic the electronica that inspire the band’s vision. They have successfully mined the seam of wistful ambient hipness personified by such emblematic post- millennial artists as Bonobo and Nils Frahm and added a level of muscular virtuosity to deepen the appeal; the audience ranges from young twenty- something urbanites to grizzled jazz connoisseurs, and their absorption in the music’s shamelessly direct emotional manipulation is total.

One Percent from their last v2.0release is something of a mission statement, and the eerie reproductions of electronic data glitches that the band play in the closing moments have been expanded to an almost supernatural degree of tightness - this is a truly unique musical language that the trio have developed. Blacka has an unaccompanied solo spot that reveals an unexpected Celtic tinge to his phrasing, and also takes on the role of compere, breaking the tension with carefully timed announcements of unassuming Northern matiness. The final track, Transient State takes the formula and refines it to the extent that the strobes are pulsing in and out in perfect sync with the opening and closing hi-hat - the next step is surely some kind of VR-enhanced, all-out sensory assault as Gogo Penguin take their unique vision to the Albert Hall (tomorrow) and then out across the world, as far as it can take them.

Lorraine Baker’s Eden

The Brunswick, Hove Sunday 7th November, 2018

Jazzwise Magazine

Lorraine Baker recorded one of the season’s freshest sounding releases with her Eden project, dedicated to exploring the unique legacy of maverick New Orleans drum supremo Ed Blackwell. As Blackwell was a relatively infrequent composer, she’s picked selections from the back catalogue of his many illustrious employers - in particular artists
like Mark Helias and Don Cherry whose work explores the interface between groove, melody and freedom. Tonight’s set kicks off with a solo intro from bass guitarist Paul Michael that bears a faint resemblance to Stanley Clarke’s School Days; Baker leans into the kit, absorbed in the complex polyrhythms that were a Blackwell speciality, drawing all the colours out of the toms and cymbals, and Binker Golding lets fly with the first solo of the evening, his brawny tenor mixing some R&B inflections in amongst the hip modern language. Next it’s guest John Turville on keys, showing why he’s the first call for so many unusual cross-genre projects; his playing awesomely fluent, sensitive and imaginative, unbounded by cliche. Helias’ Thumbs Up gets a lively reading, and Cherry’s Guinea sees the band really getting into their stride, with Binker absolutely tearing it up and a wonderful, fleet-fingered solo from Michael, full of elegant phrasing.

The second set starts with Charlie Haden’s Chairman Mao - a pulsing one-note bassline sets the stage for wide-ranging explorations from Golding and Turville, before evolving into a groove akin to Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly - Karl Berger’s Dakar Dance features more bubbling polyrhythms with Michael assisting on extra hi-hat to allow Baker to roam free on a complex, melodic solo.

This is a vision of groove-based jazz that doesn’t feel obliged to eschew either melody or appropriate forays into harmonic depth; the clattering, chattering drive of the kit, locked in with Michael’s bass guitar, is at the heart of each track, but Baker is also a sensitive player and never swamps the soloist. Golding is best known for his commanding, strident duo act with Moses Boyd; a ravishing duet between him and John Turville on Helias’ Pentahouve shows his rarely revealed lyrical side, and his breadth and depth as a player is evident throughout.

All the band play the eclectic, unfamiliar material with total commitment and aplomb and Baker’s playing, and her vision for the project, show a distinct personality. It’s all the more unfortunate that the attendance on this dark, rainy November night is so skinny, and all the more impressive that the band deliver this exciting music with such conviction. The set closes with another joyous Cherry composition - Mopti’s uplifting afro lilt sends those lucky enough to attend out into the night well satisfied.

Sons of Kemet

Komedia, Brighton Tuesday 30th October, 2018

Jazzwise Magazine

There is already a sense of excitement in the air as opener Vels Trio’s drummer Dougal Taylor brings their set of elegantly hip Hancock- esque minimal fusion to a simmering boil. This gig in the low-ceilinged Komedia basement sold out long ago - evidence of a far-sighted booking policy by joint promoters Dictionary Pudding and Brighton Alternative
Jazz Festival. The Sons themselves take to the stage without introduction and take it to the top without delay; Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick kick off
a thunderous double-drum bashment, while Shabaka Hutchings preaches above, spitting out short incandescent phrases in a hoarse tone like a furious Junior Walker, and Theon Cross prowls the stage with detached self-possession and floppy hipster hat. He looks as cool as it’s possible for a man carrying a tuba to look, thoroughly reclaiming the instrument from its association with the likes of Danny Kaye and Harold Bishop, and reinventing it as a source of low frequency wub. Shabaka leans into the attack, forcing out shrill notes with his entire body, then flashing a massive grin as he and Cross negotiate a long, complex unison.

Club grooves, afrobeat, rave and festival vibes all combine into one 90-minute long workout, each piece blending into the next. The sheer stamina is intoxicating, with sweat and spit flying across the stage. Hutchings and Cross function effectively as co-leaders over the relentless, even chaotic double assault of the drummers, Hutchings pumping out riffs as Cross breaks out into squeals and bass-bin shaking low end bombs; their unison lines have a telepathic accuracy that shows the effects of heavy touring. A loping 12/8 groove builds into a pounding afro jig; a slow Nyabinghi rhythm invites Cross to drop down low with some sub bass that draws roars from the crowd; then the tempo shoots back up again.

Shabaka’s playing is built up from nagging two and three note motifs, repeated over and over, driving the energy ever upwards; it’s all about rhythm and groove, and those after melody or varied expression should probably look elsewhere. There’s a foot-on-the-monitor solo for Cross that provides an oasis of respite from the intensity, and a crescendo of echt free-time blowing for the alternative jazz crowd, but the majority here have come to dance, or at least sway and nod heads. The demographic is a typical Brighton mix of older hipsters, young students and assorted freethinkers, and they are all ears when Shabaka finally addresses them with an unexpected foray into critical theory. “The first thing that oppressed communities lose is the ability to create their own histories” he states, after the cheering dies down, before launching into a disquisition upon the power of myth that would have provided useful material for any third-year students of Barthes. Then, switching off his mic and associated pedals, he moves to the front of the stage. The drummers take up the Nyabinghi groove again, but this time softly, as Cross joins in on agogo, and Hutchings freestyles over the top, in a hushed, mellow tone, full of melody and reflective yearning, as the room remains in absolute silence. It’s a magical moment that acts as a coda to, and helps contextualise and resolve, all the sound and fury that went before. Sons Of Kemet have truly broken out of the jazz box with a message for the people - long may they continue to spread the word.

Partisans Peddle History Of Jazz (R)evolution At Brighton's Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine - October 2018

The night outside may be wet and windswept, but here in the Verdict's cosy basement a crowd of appreciative connoisseurs are all attentiveness as Partisans take to the stage. The band have two live dates at the Vortex coming up, to be captured for an upcoming release, and their music stands (and drummer Gene Calderazzo's floor tom) are laden with a sheaf of new music, some of it barely played before – as guitarist Phil Robson says, tonight's audience are "not quite guinea pigs" for the new jams.

They pitch straight in, Robson and reedsman Julian Siegel blowing slices of syncopated unison over Calderazzo's bustling backbeat groove – but it's quickly apparent that this is anything but your standard jazz-funk, as the beat disappears into spacious free-form breakdowns, then bursts back into life under Robson's furious overdriven solo. 'That's Not His Bag' (titled for an airport luggage incident, apparently) develops around Thad Kelly's slinky, loping ostinato, like something from Extrapolation-era McLaughlin, onto which Robson, Siegal and Calderazzo hang all kinds of explosive licks and trades – 'Nit de Nit' from the second album features some multi-textured free improv that shows how thoroughly attuned all the bandmembers are to each other's personal voices – Bowie's 'John I'm Only Dancing" is pulled apart and re-assembled ("Years before Donny McCaslin", says Robson, mock-ruefully) in an organised chaos of skilfully interlocked sounds and silences – 'Egg' is a tribute to Egberto Gismonti over a pulsing pedal groove and 'Pork Scratchings' has a contemporary-sounding lazy hip-hop inflected beat overlaid with all manner of cacophanous effects.

Elsewhere there are high-energy, densely harmonic swing sections for the soloists to stretch out over, Mahavishnu-style guitar freakouts, quirky melodic exchanges and the occasional missed ending on the new stuff that only accentuates how effortlessly tight and disciplined the band are. Robson and Siegel are well-matched, both of them combining a sure rhythmic accuracy and a clean and precise articulation with boundless melodic and harmonic imaginations – Kelly works within the limits of an unusual left-hand technique to produce an utterly solid foundation devoid of clichéd licks – and Calderazzo is a creative firework display, throwing forth showers of bright-coloured ideas that burst in the air. For all the intensity of the music this is a relaxed affair, and the band demonstrate a level of mutual understanding and good humour that testify to a 22-year back history of playing together.

The music is a patchwork of influences – the towering jazz-rock of the 1970s, the language of the post-bop revolution and its free-improv twin, the quizzical eccentricity of Anglo art-rockers like Soft Machine and Henry Cow, the uncompromising angularity of M-base, and much else harder to classify. This is a band that will never be content to do the obvious; as we see many of the tropes of 1970s groove jazz currently being embraced by a younger generation of musicians, Partisans provide a salutary reminder of how diverse the evolution of the music has been over the last 20 years; time has only sharpened their creativity and in no way dimmed their relevance.

Boogie at the Bandstand - Love Supreme's festival within a festival

Jazzwise Magazine - July 2018

With an abundance of big names on the larger stages, Eddie Myer rounds up the stars of tomorrow who lit-up the Bandstand and Arena 

Love Supreme Jazz Festival's six-year existence has run concurrently with the most recent revival of interest in UK jazz, and both seemed to have weathered the storms and be basking in the glorious sunshine last weekend. The Bandstand, programmed by New Generation Jazz in association with the Verdict Jazz Club, has been a small but vital part of things since the festival's inception; described as "the jazz conscience of the festival", its remit is to act as a platform for a range of artists who aren't as widely known as they deserve, and over the years they've given acts like Nerija, Nubya Garcia, and Ezra Collective their first Love Supreme showcases.

Friday night is New Generation Jazz night at Love Supreme, as they programme not only the Bandstand but also the Arena stage to welcome the first flood of festival goers. Kicking off the latter stage in style, Yakul brought a 10-piece band and a tight and powerful set of nu-soul and broken beat with echoes of Jose James and Dilla/Madlib, as frontman James Berkeley impressed with his confident charisma and floral leisurewear. French rockers Saults gave a powerfully energetic performance that rather missed its mark with the audience; the crowds returned for Abi Flynn (above) and her Jill Scott-influenced set of punchy contemporary soul; Flynn movingly breaking off her set to share her ongoing battle with cancer. Next up The Alex Hitchcock Quintet dazzled with a display of collective virtuosity, demonstrating that challenging acoustic jazz can hold it's own, and retain the crowds, in the midst of a backbeat-heavy lineup. By the time trombonist Tom Green's Brass Funkeys band came on the entire tent was packed to the back and heaving to their well-choreographed mayhem.

Over on the Friday Bandstand, sunny afternoon vibes prevailed as local stars Three Little Birds presented their swingingly-hip three-part jazz vocal arrangements and The Paul Richards Trio laid out immaculately summery nylon-string guitar flavours á la Charlie Byrd. A presentation by the Brighton Jazz School and a delirious dance-funk set by Giwha and the 1618 closed the stage.

Saturday started on the jazz tip as Sonnymoon For Three gave an updated vision of the classic Rollins trio with dazzling interplay between Riley Stone-Lonergan on tenor and veteran sticksman Spike Wells. Multi-intrumentalist Charlotte Glasson delighted with a set of gently upbeat, sunny originals, with features for Mark Bassey on trombone and for the bandleader herself on musical saw; then South London collective Where Pathways Meet (above) laid out some lush cosmic jazz, their powerful grooves driven by Jake Long's drums and spiced with bubbling electronics and strong solos from the frontline that included Rosie Turton and James Mollison. Representing another strand of young UK jazz, the Rory Ingham Quartet showed their effortless virtuosity in a set of complex but accessible compositions originally written by JazzFm Rising Star award-winner Ingham for the Ronnie's Late Show. The faint strains of Level 42's thunderous pop-funk from the main stage did nothing to distract the crowds from pianist and elder statesman Roy Hilton's storming quintet set of classic hard bop arrangements, with impassioned solos from trumpeter Jack Kendonand Johnny Griffiths on tenor closing off the evening.

SEN3 kicked off the early Sunday slot and drew an appreciative if somewhat hung-over audience for their free-ranging psychedelic jazz-rock under clear blue skies, with drummer Saleem Raman looking remarkably refreshed after his late-night slot at Jazz In The Round. Meg Cavanaugh followed with delightfully laid-back, intimate Americana; then Jonny Mansfield's Elftet crowded their 11-strong cohort around the Kenny Wheeler prize-winning leader's vibes and captivated the large crowd with their intricate arrangements, energetic solos and general air of boundless enthusiasm. Visiting US-based tenorist Peter Fraize joined forces with local keys supremo Terry Seabrook with a set of progressive but supremely funky organ jazz; drummer Peter Adam Hill took to the stage fresh from his sideman duties with Alfa Mist to lead his own intriguingly genre-blending quintet, featuring a memorable Bon Iver reworking in the setlist; and stage-closing honours went to Tomorrow's Warriors Female Frontline (guitarist Jelly Cleaver pictured above).In front of a field full of enthusiastic dancers of all ages, the colourfully clad band ripped through a set of groove-friendly modern standards, reaching out and connecting to the multi-generational crowd and sending a message of positive empowerment into the fading summer sky.

Vandermark and Nilssen-Love Blow Down Brighton's Green Door

Jazzwise Magazine - June 2018

The streets of Brighton have been overflowing with music fans thanks to this year's Great Escape Festival, whose ever more eclectic programming even expanded beyond it's indie rock remit to include some 'New Thing' jazz artists. As a coda to that event, the ever resourceful promotion partnership of Dictionary Pudding and the Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival brought a pair of genuine musical free-thinkers to town.

Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love took to the stage, framed by the modishly derelict-industrial girders and brickwork of the Green Door Store, launching immediately into a furious tirade of squalling tenor sax and crashing tides of percussion that gradually coalesced into a swaggering polyrhythmic funk. Vandermark's virtuosity and conviction were instantly present, projecting into the room, but equally impressive was the metronomically insistent power of Nilssen-Love's drumming, his surging, clattering, endlessly inventive playing creating a turbulent sea over which Vandermark surfed, skimming the surface or diving into the groove, responsive to every current and squall. The drummer suddenly dropped out, allowing Vandermark to demonstrate his fluency and imagination in a solo atonal workout, with long gobbling runs, interspersed with fragments of shattered melody, unexpected squawks and honks; Nilssen-Love returning to add terse punctuation. Vandermark's sax barrage resolved into a nagging, insistent three-note phrase which Nilssen-Love converted into a pulsing, monumental beat. Together, the pair ramped up the tension into a towering structure, which then shattered apart under its own internal stresses.

Next Vandermark revealed his extraordinary voice on clarinet; woody and tender in the lower register, ascending to higher notes of laser-beam intensity, melodic lines unfurling into something approaching a jaunty swing. Nilssen-Love responded with a barrage of unorthodox percussive effects that gradually merged into what, during its closing moments, appeared to be a distant relative of a Brazilian Chorinho. Further unexpected traces of Brazilian accents surfaced briefly in the snare patterns and repurposed items of samba percussion accompanying the next searing clarinet exploration. Then, all too soon, we reached the set's climax – a protracted, more conventionally free-improv passage of gnomic dialogue between sax and percussion, all high tones and sudden startling crashes like Japanese Gagaku, growing in intensity and then cataclysmically releasing into a pounding three-beat worthy of John Bonham.

It's a shame that none of the Great Escape crowd were present to witness this radical stomp – but the small, loyal band of supporters give it their all as the dynamic duo bowed, dripping with sweat, and left the stage to make for the bar.

Zara McFarlane's Jazz-Funk Jousts Bite Deep Into The Frost At Brighton's Komedia

Jazzwise Magazine - March 2018

The night outside may be freezing, but there's already a decent-sized crowd gathered under the Komedia's notoriously low ceiling as support act Thabo does his utmost to warm them up. He gives a lesson in effortless charisma, and despite appearing with just a pianist in support he easily fills the whole stage with his expansive personality and measured nu-soul stylings.

Zara McFarlane's band play her on in true showbiz style with a piece of energetic jazz-funk, with plenty of space for her to riff and scat. Pianist and musical director Peter Edwards and sax man of the moment Binker Golding toss some trades back and forth with the assurance of star basketball players. Then bassist Jihad Darwish picks up his acoustic and we're off into 'Pride', played as a sultry afro 12/8 groove, winding through the long cascading vocal melodies before exploding into a drum/sax duet of the sort that Binker's been successfully exploring with Moses Boyd. The excellent Sam Jones on kit proves that he's fully up to the job, and the crowd are onside with whoops and hollers. Then there's 'Freedom Chain', featuring plenty of long jam-outs from Edwards on funked-up Fender Rhodes, while the rhythm section deploy a kind of mutant reggae that's hip and tight enough to avoid jazz-funk cliches. 'Allies And Enemies' is delivered with just Darwish on bass guitar and Jones on trigger pads, showcasing Zara's supple, clear-toned and accurate vocals. She steers clear of the kind of gospel-inflected dramatic affectations that are current in some contemporary jazz-and-related-music circles. The results are refreshingly unhyped, personal and sincere sounding.

The band can really play, and a substantial amount of the set is given over to loose, free-flowing jamming over heavy basslines, with a kind of open West Coast Get Down vibe, big-toned angular sax solos, lots of bravura work from behind the drumkit, and a ton of palpable fun and good humour. It's not all groove material – a version of 'Row Fisherman Row' over bowed bass and muted drums and piano gets heartfelt applause from the crowd, and Darwish even gets a superbly creative solo on stand-up bass, egged on by offstage exhortations from the rest of the band. Zara is a warm and friendly onstage presence and when she leads into some co-ordinated song-and-dance participation the whole room joins in. "Police And Thieves' is a sure crowd pleaser, a new track written by Boyd and Shabaka Hutchings extends into another potent reggae-flavoured workout, and there's a triumphant return on 'Fussing And Fighting' to conclude the night.

The set brims over with vibes and joyful, expansive energy. There's a balance struck between showcasing her characterful individual voice while still allowing the communal talents of the band to flourish; Gregory Porter has this down to a fine art, and it'll be interesting to see how the show develops when McFarlane and company return from their upcoming schedule of international touring.

Alex Hitchcock/Tom Barford Quartet's Twin Tenor Frontline Fires At The Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine - February 2018

The twin tenors tradition has a long history, stretching back to the cutting contests of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray and frequently revived by promoters with an eye to cashing in on the swaggering, macho appeal of the format. Twin tenors in a quartet, with no harmony instrument and only bass and drums backing, requires a collaborative rather than competitive mindset – tonight's gig is an object lesson in how two high-output creative minds can operate in the same sonic bailiwick without getting in each other's way.

'Hitchcock and Barford' may sound like the name of a respectably conservative gent's outfitters, but this is adventurous, risk-taking music. With no chordal instrument to tie them down, the twin frontliners are free to roam at will, pushing hard against the shifting rhythmic and harmonic boundaries sketched out by the endlessly creative team of Fergus Ireland on bass and James Maddren on drums – the latter's presence in a project seems increasingly to guarantee that something unusual will be going down. Both frontmen look so similar on the Verdict's dimly lit stage that the phrase 'twin tenors' might almost be taken literally, especially as they both seem to patronise the same optician, but when they take off to solo on a deconstruction of Jimmy Heath's 'CTA' the differences are as striking as the similarities. Hitchcock has the softer, more romantic tone – he moves effortlessly in and out of lightning fast, double-time runs, up into the highest register and out again, breaking the flow with short twisting phrases against the beat, reminiscent of, but not beholden to, the style of Mark Turner; Barford's tone is flintier, more unyielding, projecting out into the room; he slips between bop language and modernist abstraction like a true polyglot, his timing and phrasing always impeccable. It's a fascinating echo of the tough/tender tenor dichotomy that stretches back to Rollins/Coltrane, Young/Hawkins and beyond.

There are a number of questingly melodic originals by Hitchcock (above left) - 'A38' features the kind of loose-limbed polyrhythmic backbeat that Maddren specialises in underneath a striking, declamatory melody – and one by Barford (above) – 'The Highly Strung Trapeze Artist' – more austere, but no less rewarding, by contrast. Fergus Ireland on bass contributes a ballad suggestion – Nat Coles' 'Beautiful Moons Ago' – and his playing throughout illustrates why he's so in demand; with a simply awesome if unorthodox technique put in the service of a powerfully individual musical imagination, simultaneously grounding the harmony and sending it into unexpected directions, he's an inexhaustible creative powerhouse. 'Blues For JC' makes the expected venture into Ornette-ish territory, but what's striking about this band is the level of relaxed, good-humoured communication that's present to temper the tropes of the avante-garde – there'a a warm, inclusive spirit at work that doesn't compromise the fierce artistic vision, but permits a mellow, reverent reading of 'This I Dig Of You' that captures the lightness of the original, and a beautiful closing take on 'My Ideal'. Hitchock is busy leading his own band, and Barford has recently been in Real World Studios recording with Iain Ballamy in producer's chair, but let's hope that they both find time to reconvene this project in the studio some time soon.

THELONIOUS MONK AT 100 #3 - Monk At Town Hall 1959
ith Charles Tolliver
Cadogan Hall; Sunday 19th November 2017

Jazz Views

We’re approaching the end of this year’s EFG London Jazzfest, and the end of today’s epic Monk-a-thon here at the quietly well-heeled Cadogan Hall. After working through almost the entire repertoire of Monk originals since 2pm today, you might expect pianist Jonathan Gee to look at little jaded, but his solo excursion through ‘In Walked Bud’ sounds as fresh and energetic as if he’d only just begun. He’s joined by loose-limbed drummer Rod Youngs and imperturbably swinging bassist Ben Hazleton for ‘Blue Monk’, further augmented by hip, smooth-toned Ed Jones on tenor for ‘Rhythm-a-Ning’, and then the main event commences as a further seven musicians take to the stage, headed by the suitably beret-clad Charles Tolliver. It’s a re-creation of Monk’s legendary 1959 Town Hall concert, the lost Hall Overton charts painstakingly re-transcribed by Tolliver, who attended the original gig as a teen. ‘Mysterioso’ is enlivened by a backbeat from Youngs and a solo from Gee that preserves some of the creator’s angularity without resorting to direct quotes, and a brief, full-toned statement from Tolliver himself, reminding us how unique his trumpet voice is, and how too seldom it is heard. ‘Friday the 13th’ is handed to Jason Yarde - entering with a quote from ‘Surrey With A Fringe On Top’ he proceeds to lay out  a series of explosive Dolphyisms that suit the music to a T. The ensemble, warming to their task, capture some of the raw modernistic swagger of the original. ‘Monk’s Mood’ has a great intro from the indefatigable Gee; throughout he rises to the daunting task of filling the great man’s shoes, maintaining his own, smoother and more contemporary voicings and preserving the spirit rather than the letter; then Dennis Rollins plays a beautifully mellifluous lead over a hushed bed of low-end brass and reeds. ‘Off Minor’ brings back the raucous energy, with the added bonus of solos from tuba and french horn. Tony Kofi, who co-masterminded the project with Gee, is grinning form ear to ear from his baritone chair in the back row, and his own solo on the low-end horn lifts the whole ensemble with it’s strident urgency. On ‘Crepuscule With Nellie’  the band’s command of dynamics really brings out the strength and beauty of the arrangement, but the showstopper, now as back in the day, is ‘Little Rootie Tootie’ with a full orchestration of Monk’s solo played with joyful abandon and another storming Kofi solo. Tolliver gets a big, battling sound from his cohort, worthy of a far larger ensemble, and drives the band hard, punching out the accents. There’s still time for an original work-out on the fiendishly difficult ‘Brilliant Corners’ , with inspired solos from Yarde, Jones, and Tolliver himself. As he says, in soft-spoken tribute to the band, ‘They really played this music”, and there’s no doubt that they really did. 

Pharoah Sanders, Denys Baptiste and Alina Bzhezhinska make for cosmic concert for Alice and John Coltrane

Jazzwise Magazine - November 2017

Banks of lights sketch out a looming angel presence on the backcloth as Alina Bzhezhinska sits at the harp and strikes an introductory chord. She reproduces Alice Coltrane's trembling flurries of high notes and swooping glissandos with uncanny accuracy, and her intensely physical relationship with her harp is mesmerising to watch. After a chiming solo sets the scene, she cues in Larry Bartley and Joel Prime who come in like thunder as Tony Kofi strides forward into the spotlight from the blue-lit wings and the band burst into 'Blue Nile'. It's the first spectacular emotional sucker-punch of the evening. The band sound great: Bartley's big-toned, magisterial bass solo draws whoops of applause, as does the climactic duet between harp and Kofi's clear-voiced soprano on 'Journey in Satchidananda' – and Alina's eccentrically effervescent personality shines through, bringing a real sense of joy.

Next up is Denys Baptiste's outfit (above), an altogether a more considered production, with Baptiste asking the audience to imagine themselves sitting on top of Everest, quipping "don't worry about the oxygen" before launching into an Expression-era group free improv, complete with electronic tambura. Next the band sets up a heavy groove reminiscent of 1970s Miles, over which Baptiste initiates a dialogue of increasing frenzy with a kimono-clad Nikki Yeoh that has the latter up off of her seat before drummer Rod Youngs lashes the kit up to the finish line. There's a duet with Yeoh on 'Peace On Earth', which allows Baptiste to give free rein to his powerful chops, then a reworking of 'After The Rain' with a simple extended major-key vamp over which Yeoh shows her impressive imagination before the piece subsides into an incongruous reggae-lite groove. Surprise guest Steve Williamson, louche and elegant in a rumpled suit, joins the leader in an extended two-tenor freak-out over Young's boiling beats – his powerful, cutting tone a reminder of just what a singular force he is; then everyone leaves the stage but Baptiste and Bartley, the bassist setting up a bolero bassline while the saxophonist shows off his awesome technique on the effect-enhanced horn.

Expectations are running high by the as Pharoah Sanders (above and top) himself is announced. The band walk onstage and the audience rises to its feet as a frail, hunched figure moves with infinite slowness from the darkness of the wings; cautiously climbing the stairs and slowly moving centre stage. Yet, once he lifts his horn to the mic the sound that emerges is undiminished – a clear powerful clarion. The band swell into a rippling crescendo as he blows a simple sequence of three falling tones, like a child's rhyme, fading away into a single held note so high and faint that it seems to suck all the sound in the room into itself, creating a concentrated vacuum of absolute silence, and the packed hall holds its breath in a moment of total stillness. Then suddenly, improbably, he blasts out the head to Trane's 'Lazy Bird' and pianist William Henderson leads the band into a crashing tide of high-speed virtuosic free-bop. Sanders sits impassively on a strategically placed chair, head bowed, as bassist Oli Hayhurst and drummer Gene Calderazzo give a good account of themselves. Then he's back up again, entering with squall of notes, effortlessly riding the rhythm. Next, another surprise. A solo rendition quickly takes shape as 'A Nightingale Sang In Berkely Square', as Henderson enters, sketching out the background with deft strokes. Sanders sounds fantastic – agile, clear, impassioned – age hasn't diminished his talent, even if it has led him to be more economical in its deployment. The speed and facility over changes he acquired in later years is still there, and while the tone no longer screams as it did with Trane there's a diamond hardness still at its core as well as a confidence in the phrasing that betokens an absolute unwavering belief in the message of his music. After Hayhurst's monumental solo he returns with a spectral, unaccompanied cadenza, each note falling through the silence like a snowflake.

Next a scarlet-jacketed Yair Dalal appears onstage and takes up his oud, to lead the band into a hypnotic ostinato that turns into an extended flamenco-tinged jam, Sanders entering and leaving at intervals, his contributions never less than riveting, before the band return to a swelling minor key rubato against which the leader plays starkly beautiful, towering phrases, like mountain peaks against a darkening sky. Then the mood changes again.

Hayhurst and Calderazzo set up the familiar line for 'The Creator Has A Master Plan', and Sanders, turning and facing the crowd for the first time, is suddenly all approachable geniality, introducing the band with palpable warmth, beaming smiles between his snow-white beard and impressive moustache. Getting the audience to sing along as the beat shifts to a sprightly calypso, he essays some shuffling dance steps and executes a cautiously arthritic twerk, to rapturous applause. "My name is Farrell Sanders, and I play the tenor saxophone," he says, then breaks into a hoarse-voiced, raucous wordless folk melody. Somehow it's the most uplifting moment of the evening: a simple affirmation of life, music and everything by one of jazz's true visionaries. The only less-than-cosmic aspect of the evening is the unsympathetic Barbican sound: all harsh, over-amplified bass, with the piano often almost completely swallowed up in the blurry sonic fog. Such masters deserve more.

Dan Cartwright Quartet Captivate At The Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine

November 2017

Even comparatively hyped new artists can really struggle to fill jazz clubs outside our major cities, let alone an unknown tenor player on his very first headline engagement. Despite the chilly ambient temperature, caused by an overzealous aircon unit, there's a warm welcome and a full house for Dan Cartwright. There's a mixed age demographic – the younger audience members look like friends and contemporaries of the 24-year-old leader, while the more seasoned attendees have the air of connoisseurs, drawn to chance their evening's entertainment on the promise of promoter Andy Lavender and the implicit endorsement of the personnel now warming their hands onstage. Joining bassist and educator George Trebar are a pair of players who bring with them a considerable freight of reputation in their own right, but whom together constituted part of the last band led by that titan of UK tenor players, Bobby Wellins. From the opening bars of 'I'll Remember You" there is no mistaking the supple, driving but infinitely flexible groove that Spike Wellshas been creating on drums for nearly half a century – nor the rich, creative voicings and subtle touch of pianist Mark Edwards.

With the band settled behind him, Cartwright has all the space and support he needs. His tone is clear and true with an attractively gruff edge – think early Sonny Rollins, though he's yet to develop the master's pinpoint precision – and there's no flash or showboating, just a succession of unhurried, beautifully turned phrases. He's sparing with the 16th note passages, resists exaggerated dynamics, but demonstrates the instinctive sense of space and timing that are at the heart of the music. 'It Could Happen To You' features a perfectly pitched, melodious solo from Wells on brushes and a logical, clear-toned and swinging statement from Trebar. Edwards' solo on 'Out Of Nowhere' demonstrates the limitless fertility of his musical imagination. The seldom-played Frank Rosolino composition 'Blue Daniel' requires a brief onstage talk-through, demonstrating the ad hoc nature of the event, but it's all about the spontaneity, and the relaxed togetherness of the band proves to be more than equal to the challenge. The evergreen 'I Can't Get Started' allows Cartwright to really play to his strengths – beautifully turned phrases precisely played against the rhythm – and the band take up the baton and play up magnificently till Wells calls time at the exact right moment.

The second set has everyone really getting into their stride. 'Recorda Me' is warmly romantic, showing Cartwright's affinity for an older tradition than that embodied by its composer. 'Portrait Of Jenny' is a highlight, a typically inventive solo by Edwards takes the tune somewhere else entirely with Wells and Trebar willing partners, while 'Ask Me Now' rises to a climax of percussion and rippling piano. Throughout Cartwright's musicality, command of language and unaffected sincerity are apparent, his tone and approach reminiscent of the underrated Charlie Rouse's contributions to Monk's Columbia recordings. You might search in vain for the imprint of post-Coltrane harmonic language or contemporary polyrhythmic shifts in Cartwright's playing, but why would you when the results are this swingingly sincere? The community's backing felt thoroughly justified by the evening's end.

Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet create acoustic alchemy at Ronnie Scott’s

Jazzwise Magazine

November 2017

Mark Guiliana is associated with a certain level of jazz-fusion high intensity, but tonight's gig, in support of the new album Jersey is billed as a different turn for his career. As if to emphasise the fact, the first number begins with no sound from the leader's drums at all: a limber, curling unison from saxophone and piano unfolds in the expectant hush, until Guiliana enters, tapping the snare with his fingers over an insistent single-note bassline. The dynamic slowly builds, as the sax peels off into a flurry of spiralling phrases. Guiliana hunches over the kit, completely absorbed in the restless chattering polyrhythms, hands and feet ever busier with the rising tide, leaning into each unexpected, sudden rhythmic bomb. He and bassist Chris Morrissey skirt around the implied pulse as Fabian Almazan's piano builds up from whisper-quiet to cascading intensity and the whole band radiate a fiercely geeky energy.

In a surprise move, Guiliana leaves the kit and sits down at the back of the stage, head in hands, leaving Jason Rigby's tenor sax to play a soft, almost pastoral melody over a droning arco bass and rumbling piano. Then he's back on the stool, and they're off into a hip three-four swing that suddenly descends again into near-silence, punctuated by a few carefully positioned bass phrases, before Rigby takes flight again, his awesome fluidity complemented by his soft, clear tone. Both Rigby and pianist Almazan share a similarly remarkable command of language, at once capable of great abstraction and immense tenderness. An extended piano solo goes from mutated blues phrases and hints of expansive Peterson or Shearing chording into dense tonal clusters and shimmering, cimbalom-like textures, all delivered with a sure and subtle touch. Morrissey takes a feature on his bass, playing it as though it's a folk instrument, his strums and simple pentatonics accompanied by Guiliana's taps on the snare and slaps on his thigh.

The quartet are superbly balanced: the almost supernatural empathy and the compatibility of their voices allows them to range freely across the open structures of the compositions, using silence as a potent musical force, pushing the dynamic almost to the lowest limit of audibility before rising again, diverging then miraculously coming back together for a short, gnomic phrase or unexpected accent. The second set pays increasing dividends as the band set up a cycle of simple minor chords, like a still pool of water, with Almazan and Guiliana creating ripples of dissonance on the surface and Rigby soaring aloft on butterfly wings. His dazzling flight seems like a clear winner for solo of the evening, until Almazan equals it with another effortlessly sustained flow of ideas, with accents of everything from free-improv to calypso, and bass and drums spin an intricate filigree of rhythm out of which Giuliana finally pulls the astonishing, climatic drum solo that everyone's been waiting for. After this payoff, there's a version of Bowie's 'Where Are We Now' as an elegiac coda for the evening's journey; an outstanding performance of a unique and convincingly realised musical vision, created by four distinctive and wholly compatible players. No wonder the leader looks quietly triumphant.

Miles Mosley Melts Down The Funk At Islington Assembly Hall

Jazzwise Magazine

November 17

Miles Mosley has already started making waves in the UK via a series of extrovert YouTube videos, then as a member of Kamasi Washington's explosive touring band, and fronting his own unit at this year's Love Supreme – now he's back as a headline act. In support are young London-based up-and-comers Vels Trio. They kick-off with a beguiling blend of shimmering keyboard arpeggios, a deep-toned snare-driven disco pulse and clipped off-beat basslines, like an update on mid-1970s Hancock, or a mash-up between Weather Report and Daft Punk. It's a deceptively simple formula; there's no displays of virtuosic limelight hogging, but plenty of creativity is in evidence in the way the trio deftly arrange and re-arrange the textures, swapping focus between Jack Stephenson's array of analogue keyboard sounds, Cameron Dawson's effect-augmented bass, and the ingeniously shifting accents of Dougal Taylor's drums. The set builds til they are making a very big sound indeed, with sweeping keys, overdriven bass and stomping grooves with some nifty details in the hi-hat work, finishing with a polyrhythmic tour de force.

Mosley takes to the stage, an impressive figure in trademark beret, shades and body armour, a look pitched somewhere between a Marvel comic character and Huey Newton. The band smash into some testifying, JB style funk, with Mosley front and centre driving things along on the upright bass and singing in a powerful but light-toned soul voice, akin to John Legend. He works that bass hard, nailing the tight funky lines in tandem with his drummer, the utterly awesome Tony Austin, throwing in slick fills whenever he's not singing, going up high for a solo, whipping out his bow and hitting a bank of effects pedals for some screaming, Hendrix-style freakout. The writing style owes a debt to James Brown, Sly Stone, and the Lenny Kravitz school of bombastic funk rock – Mosley establishes the band's credentials by namechecking work with Stanley Clarke and Lauren Hill, but also Gwen Stefani and Chris Cornell. 'Heartbreak' is a full-on bluesy power ballad that gives way to an extended effects-drenched bass solo that careers on the edge of feedback chaos, with Mosley wrangling his instrument like an unruly bronco, reining it in within a split second to belt out the chorus.

Between numbers he's engaging and effusive; his lyrics extol the virtues of hard work, dedication and collective endeavour, as personified by the West Coast Collective of LA-based musicians that launched both his and Washington's careers. He's warmly thankful towards the London crowd ("Thanks for making London my number one for streaming stats!") and they return his good vibes. This unaffected sincerity tempers the LA slickness of the show – there are solo features for Austin and impressive pianist Cameron Graves, who dazzles with a florid display, like Liszt with tattooed biceps, and the trumpet-and-tenor horn section turn in some powerful statements. But, essentially, the band are there to provide a backdrop for the leader's ebullient personality; his immensely powerful, virtuoso technique and genial good nature win the day, finishing with a direct quote from Hendrix and a triumphant rendition of his best-known number, 'Abraham'.

Hats off for Stetson's big blowout at Brighton's Duke of York

Jazzwise Magazine

September 17

Colin Stetson has enough draw to fill this arthouse cinema on a Sunday night; his collaborative discography reads like the tracklist for a Starbucks compilation full of bands who make the sort of poignantly uplifting, evocatively progressive music often associated with hipster-indie movies, from Bon Iver to Arcade Fire to Feist to The National, so it's a fitting choice of venue.

A lone figure in jeans and white t-shirt, bearded and neatly coiffed like an urban lumberjack, he covers himself with contact mics in the mode of an undercover agent on a sting, then selects an alto-sax from the array of gleaming pipework before him, raises it to his lips and launches into 'Spindrift' from his most recent album, All This I Do For Glory. A glittering torrent of arpeggiated triads burst forth, delivered in a hard, skirling tone, amid a wash of cavernous reverb. His mastery of circular breathing is soon apparent as the streams of notes gush forth in an unyielding fortissimo, the enormous reverb causing the overtones to build into shifting, overlapping patterns, like a one-man Steve Reich ensemble, while the amplified clicking of the pads provides a rhythmic counterpoint. The ferocity of his electronically-augmented onslaught occasionally threatens to overwhelm the PA's capabilities; a pulsing major third in the low register sets up a driving bassline, and then Stetson simultaneously begins to hum a wordless melody from back in his throat, which floats spectrally over the hypnotic waves of sound.

After this first salvo, it's time to bring out the big gun - his trademark bass saxophone. The thunderous impact of its low-end draws whoops from the crowd, entirely filling the cavernous space. During 'Judges', from his 2011 release, Stetson sets up a harmonically simple bassline that cycles round a minor key chord progression, adding roars and yelps in the upper harmonics like a didgeridoo player, while the clicking of the pads add a driving percussion. The ability to play multiple parts at once, without recourse to loop pedals or other sampling technology, is Stetson's great discovery – all his compositions are cut according to the same template, with repeating bass figures marching under ghostly high-frequency melodies, and despite the occasional controlled outbreaks of skronking free-jazz chaos there's a simple, wistfully big-sky melodic sense going on that explains his fit with his indie collaborators, and which contrasts intriguingly with the undeniably macho demonstration of physical strength.

If the bass sax was low, the contrabass clarinet is even lower – 'Between Water And Wind' commences with a dense fog of low frequency enveloping the auditorium and continues with the unrelenting buzzsaw drone and hum of industrial machinery. It's fascinating and a little unnerving to see a man push himself to the limits of physical endurance in the name of art – "We usually get some fainters in the audience," says Stetson, and those susceptible to panic attacks should perhaps approach with caution. For the most part, the music arising from this unique performance style, utterly devoid of dynamic variation or any interspersion of silence, has an otherworldly, hypnotic power, but on occasion Stetson's yelping and hooting over the endless grind shades over into the cartoonish, like listening to the Clangers lost and adrift in a bottomless chasm. The Duke of York's was originally opened as a turn-of-the-century music hall and variety theatre, and one could imagine the watching spirits of it's vanished prestidigitators, quick-change artists and escapologists would have felt a kinship with this remarkable performer.

Legacies live on as Sidewinder and Coltrane hit silver screen

Jazzwise Magazine

September 1

September can be a quiet month for music fans, after the summer festival season is over but before the autumn touring schedules kick in. Of course, expectations can be sustained by the promise of the EFG London Jazz Festival, coming our way in November, and there is heartening news from the wonderful South Coast Jazz Festival, set to return for a third triumphant time in January 2018. In addition, Brighton's The Verdict is attempting to plug the gap single-handedly by programming more jazz than at any other time in it's history, and there's the continuing series of lunchtime concerts at All Saint's church in Hove that shouldn't be overlooked. Chasing Trane is currently on limited release in selected cinemas, but I Called Him Morgan is available on Netflix – well worth the minimal bother of signing up for a month's free trial as currently on offer from the service, if you're not already a subscriber.

Coltrane is such a titan of modern music that it's almost a surprise that it's taken so long for a theatrically released documentary. Morgan's name may be less universally recognised outside the circles of jazz aficionados, but it's possible that the general public might actually be as familiar with his music – or at least with his seminal tune 'The Sidewinder'. The eponymous LP was released in 1964, when Morgan was 26, with seven Blue Note albums as a leader under his belt but still developing his career, and Coltrane was 38, already established as a major musical force, but with only three years of music making ahead of him. 'The Sidewinder''s driving boogaloo beat and powerful, bluesy soloing turned the tune into a surprise hit, breaking all previous Blue Note sales by a factor of 10 (including those for Blue Trane, the 1957 Coltrane recording on which Morgan was featured), and it's been a constant feature on soundtracks, adverts and compilations whenever anyone wants to evoke the grooving 1960s. Such was the commercial success of the record that it set a template for Blue Note for the rest of the decade – small-group records with the leading track in a driving straight-eight feel, followed by a swinging mix of original blowing heads, blues or rhythm changes, and perhaps a standard to round things off. The album marked a high point in the integration of the intricacies of bop with the earthy roots of jazz in blues and gospel, and must have seemed to some to indicate a commercial salvation for jazz; but it also marked the beginning of the end. Rock'n'roll was poised to take over as the music of young America and by 1965 the baton of musically hip standard bearing had passed to Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Byrds or James Brown.

'The Sidewinder' is a truly terrific record, without a single wasted note or empty gesture, full of virtuosity lightly worn, by players so utterly immersed in the culture of their music that it seemed they could turn out this material effortlessly – Morgan later claimed that he'd conceived of the title smash as a last-minute filler to complete the session. Yet it's very facility contained the germs of it's own redundancy – audiences at the time were looking for something deeper, more unexpected and less formulaic, that would make grander gestures – the wave of artistic neophilia that had swept the post-war world was breaking into the mainstream. Morgan's hip, polished, harmonically aware funk suddenly seemed to be approaching the corny. Blue Note tried to ride both horses by signing artists like Grachan Moncur, Andrew Hill and Sam Rivers, but their most successful record also heralded a long period of decline into both the commercial and the cultural margins.

Anyone looking for depth, unexpectedness, or grand gestures in the jazz world of 1964 would probably have turned to John Coltrane.Two of his superlative statements. Live At Birdland and Crescent were released that year – the former in particular saw him chafing against the constrictions of harmonic tonality which he had already explored with a thoroughness unmatched by his contemporaries. So titanically, monolithically freighted with significance are Coltrane's later recordings that they can overpower some of the other aspects of this supremely rounded musician – an important composer (Giant Steps is full of memorable tunes sometimes overshadowed by its titular etude), a gifted, velvet-toned interpreter of ballads, an impeccably swinging blues player, and someone who matched Morgan's jukebox 45 hit with one of his own – an instrumental cover of a hit song originally performed by Julie Andrews in the guise of a singing nun. Coltrane gave Morgan a break on Blue Trane but moved much faster than the younger man, and by the end was recording and playing music that some didn't recognise as jazz at all.

The legacy of both men continues to be influential, but in vastly different ways. Most general music fans, when they think of jazz, imagine something like one of the cuts off The Sidewinder – the Blue Note hard-bop sound and house design style have become a sort of benchmark of authentically hip jazz, regaining the popularity that drained away in the late 1960s, so that the name 'Blue Note' is hardly ever divorced from the word 'iconic' in cultural journalism. If Coltrane sought to move beyond the bop idiom he had mastered so fully, Morgan and his cohort preserved it by presenting it's harmonic intricacies in a digestible form that you could even dance to, and it's appeal has endured among audiences even if the artistic standard bearers have moved on. Coltrane, of course would be avowed as by far the greater artist by most musicians, and his multifarous legacy continues to dominate, to the extent that aspects of that dominance are being called into question. Ben Ratliff's book on Coltrane explores how the legacy of his late period masterpieces was interpreted as a cult of sheer volume married to spiritual sincerity among free players that overlooked the way that he himself was steeped in every aspect of the tradition, from blues to bop.

Coltrane's influence reached beyond jazz – the aforementioned Byrds were big fans – and he could be credited with unwittingly promulgating the idea that it's acceptable to solo for 15 minutes over a single chord – an idea seized upon by a generation of rock guitarists – and that meaningful jazz can be effectively approximated by whizzing up and down the dorian mode over a moody minor-key vamp. Pianist Ethan Iverson recently published a fascinating article comparing two 1967 performances of Ellington's 'In A Sentimental Mood' by Bill Evans and Ellington himself (Coltrane recorded a definitive version with the composer in 1963). In it he decried the influence of the scalar approach to jazz on the introductory level, stating: "Bach and Parker built structures based on internal counterpoint, where the melodic impulse was true in every dimension, while Beethoven and Coltrane offered fast-scale passagework over varied textures. The music of Bach and Parker is essentially at one volume and one affect, while Beethoven and Coltrane are able to go from quiet to thunder and back. While it would be foolish to proclaim that Bach and Parker are greater than Beethoven and Coltrane, it is true that Beethoven and Coltrane are easier to imitate (not to mention teach), simply because acquiring the essentially untheatrical craft of Bach and Parker is harder than that of the later, more theatrical masters"

Would it be pushing the analogy too far to compare the music of Morgan to that of Mozart – standing between the rigourous austerity of harmonic counterpoint exploration and the theatrical thunder of passagework and texture, to offer a version dominated by melody and a determination to make music that is rigourously ordered but also pleasing and accessible? Like Mozart, his detractors may accuse his music of being lightweight compared to the intensity of Coltrane, yet part of its lasting appeal lies precisely because it doesn't place such heavy demands upon the listener.

As with all artists whose careers were cut off in their prime, the temptation remains to speculate where their muse would have led them had they lived their full span, and how they might have changed the music we hear today. Morgan combined his bebop sophistication with an earthy, blues-drenched sensibility, which lent his music an easy populist appeal, as the crossover commercial success of The Sidewinder testified. The values that made him a superlative interpreter of what used to be called 'funk' in the 1950s – as in Horace Silver's 'Opus De Funk' – could probably have translated seamlessly into funk as it was understood in the back-beat heavy, Rhodes-drenched 1970s, and he might have challenged Donald Byrd as contender for the R&B groove heavyweight title. Or perhaps the wilder leanings that were hinted at in the Live At The Lighthouse sets would have prevailed, and he might have explored along the boundaries of free and fusion, jazz and rock, that were touched on by frontline partner Bennie Maupin and by Maupin's employer Herbie Hancock during his Columbia tenure, and which found it's deepest and darkest expression in Miles Davies' increasingly opaque series of recordings that started with the release of Bitches Brew two years before Morgan's death. Where Coltrane might have gone next is far harder to guess; such was the lightning speed at which he reset the frontiers of his art that it's hard to imagine him settling into any of the set pathways that jazz followed as the 70s progressed. Afro-haired funkateer, dashiki-clad free blower, bombastic fusion technician, staunch traditionalist – all these roles seem too small to contain him. Perhaps as the end approached he was nearing to his goal, progressing beyond all sound into the silence that surrounds every note and that waits behind every piece of music, and into which all music returns.

Edwards and Castle pursue chaotic pulse at The Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine

August 2017

'Crossover' is a word much employed by critics when talking about the current crop of young UK jazz artists, but tonight's event reminds us that cross-fertilisation has been quietly going on in the background of the scene for some time. Both the protagonists have strong jazz credentials – Mark Edwards, for instance, was longtime pianist for the late lamented Bobby Wellins, and you can find Ben Castle providing saxophone for countless recordings with the likes of Lianne Carroll, Jacqui Dankworth and Geoff Gascoyne. The setting is the impeccably jazz-centric Verdict club, and the audience is drawn largely from its pool of devotees. Yet both men can also be found, equally and effortlessly at home, roaming freely across the wider territories of pop and rock, from Radiohead to Katie Melua, and the simply uncategorisable creations of such as Matthew Herbert.

Tonight the stage is festooned with garlands of cables, banks of keyboards, blinking digital displays and dusty analogue effect pedals, giving fair warning that we're not in for an evening of hushed, reverent duo renditions. A typically effusive introduction from host Andy Lavender is immediately sampled and warped into a filtered, pulsing loop – synth arpeggios and streams of electronic bubbles sketch out an open landscape through which Edwards and Castle wander at will, scattering handfuls of half-familiar melody, alternately lushly romantic chords and dark clusters of notes from the piano, squelchy sequenced basslines and scraps of found sound. It's briefly reminiscent of the kind of territory explored by The Orb – but in this MIDI and Ableton-free environment, the tempos shift up and down at random, creating a far more unpredictable climate. All sorts of aural flotsam swirls around in the sonic maelstrom, briefly surfacing before submerging again – bits of 'Autumn Leaves' and 'Pent Up House', what sounds like the theme music to Blankety Blank and a twisted mash-up of Miles Davis and Status Quo. Suddenly everything comes together in an upsurge of ascending chords, and Castle seizes the moment, and demonstrates what a fine player he is, with a wonderful clear tone and clean articulation, as a flood of melodic ideas tumble out over a wash of Vaughan Williams chords, providing an oasis of real beauty.

Set two brings the added delight of Castle on clarinet, dropping fragments of 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love' over a pulsing balearic groove – the pair visibly relax and exchange smiles as Edwards manipulates recordings of Trump speeches into horror-movie monster tones over dark synth textures. The magesterial, declamatory melody of Coltrane's 'Resolution' morphs into a nightmarish version of The Archers theme tune, an incident that instigates regrettable outbreaks of onstage corpsing; as if to make amends, 'Coronation Street" is twisted into 'Acknowledgment'. The set finishes with shards of 'Darn That Dream' drifting over spacious, otherwordly electronic tones. There's no encore, of course – "It would take another three hours," explains Edwards – but the rapturous reception to this wholly unpredictable, entirely improvised journey through sound shows how many different sonic avenues can be successfully explored while still carrying the banner of jazz forward.

Boogie at the Bandstand – the Love Supreme low-down

Jazzwise Magazine

July 2017

Ahead of the start next week of the fifth edition of the Love Supreme Jazz Festival, Bandstand programmer Eddie Myer previews the exciting emerging artists who'll be performing across the weekend

This year's Love Supreme line-up is the festival's most exciting and eclectic yet, with the trademark mix of big name headliners, led this year by the mighty George Benson and soul-jazz vocal star Gregory Porter, and more esoteric jazz acts, augmented for the first time this year by a new Jazz In The Round stage offering late-night sets from a range of intriguing UK performers. The Bandstand Stagewas described in Jazzwise as "the jazz conscience of the Festival", and it's become a central component in maintaining this musical diversity, creating a platform for a rich mix of local talent and up-and-coming UK artists, and this year it's matching the headline stages in its eclectic appeal.

Programmed by New Generation Jazz, the ACE funded new artists project run by Jack Kendon and myself at Brighton's Verdict club, it features several of the acts who've appeared as part of the New Gen roster – precocious teen trio Zeñel (top right), sax virtuoso Alex Hitchcock (top left), and fusioneers Cesca are all young talents to watch out for in 2018, while Jake Long's Maisha are set to open the Arena Stage on Saturday.

Representing the tradition are Bobby Wellins' longtime bassist Adrian Kendon and piano master John Donaldson, who brings his tribute to Bheki Mseleku to Sunday's line-up, alongside Terry Pack's epically outsized Trees Big Band and George Trebar's cinematic Nighthawks project. New Generation are also presenting Friday's roster on the Arena stage – among them, local supertrio Howes3, crossover stars Jam Experiment and Tru Thoughts signed Afrofunksters Lakuta (above centre). Add in blues from King Size Slim, New Orleans joy from The Old Jelly Rollers, classic swing vocals from Sara Oschlag, big band vibes from Seven, Kaiyote-style nu-soul from Pocket Dragon, the Neon Saints marching band, and NY-based piano prodigy Dave Drake, and you've got a weekend of musical delights waiting to be discovered.

Shobaleader One take drum’n’bass to the dark side (Jazzwise Magazine)

The Concorde

May 2017

Four figures take to the stage of The Concorde in Brighton, masked and robed like Kendo warriors – the leader slings a mighty matt-black bass over his shoulder and the band smash unhesitatingly into the mutated cop-chase funk of 'Cooper's World'. At the first beat, the masks light up in flashing multi-coloured LED displays that alter with every note they play, chasing across their faces like the console of a 1970s movie spacecraft.

This tour is the second outing for Squarepusher's Shobaleader One and his colleagues Strobe Nazard, Arg Nution and Company Laser with their live interpretations of Squarepusher's studio classics, and it's immediately apparent that this time they are determined to push the awesomeness quotient to the limit. There's so many effects on everything that it's sometimes hard to tell who's playing what – a relentless assault of slap bass and skittering drum breaks, like Level 42 gone over to the 'dark side', sitting beneath howling storms of ring-modulated noise from guitar and keys. Deliberately woozy tempo shifts even suggest the technical chug of death metal, and indicate the levels of musical skill and precision at work behind the sci-fi aliases – the anonymous masked jazzers are among the country's finest progressive players, and the 'Pusher himself is a phenomenal high-velocity bassist as well as being a cult hero to the crowd of frantically moshing drum'n'bass fans.

There's a risk that music this intense will suffer from diminishing returns over a 90-minute set but Laser's incredible energy pushes things along, always managing to take it even higher on surge after surge of pounding drums. Technical problems send a hapless roadie scurrying to the rescue with spare bass amps, but the band rise to the occasion and ride it out, leaving the audience dazed, deaf and ecstatically happy.

Alina Bzhezhinska Quartet

The Verdict

Friday 17th March 2017

The harp has a very marginal history as a jazz instrument, barely even appearing in the ‘miscellaneous instruments’ category in the self-appointed arbiters that are magazine polls. However, it does possess at least one major voice, and one that’s closely linked into the very heart of the tradition; Alice McCleod, otherwise known as Alice Coltrane, released a handful of albums after her husband’s death that placed her unique harp playing at the centre of an idiosyncratic, spiritually charged and highly accessible take on modal jazz. While the cosmic trappings of the presentation of such albums as ‘World Galaxy’ and ‘Universal Consciousness’ may place them very firmly in the context of 1970s Californian counter-culture, the music within has an unflinching directness and powerful emotional intensity that transcends genre, and there’s been a revival of interest that’s seen Alice Coltrane’s work grow in popularity and influence, both within the jazz world from artists such as Matthew Halsall, and far beyond to encompass tributes from such artistically disparate fans as Paul Weller and her own grand-nephew, Flying Lotus. 

Alina’s repertoire tonight is based around the classic albums ‘Ptah, the El Daoud’ and ‘Journey in Satchidananda’. The seminal‘Blue Nile’  is the archetype for this style – hypnotic, repetitive, with a stately swinging groove overlaid with sweeping harp glissandos and simple majestic melody. The performance stands or falls by the degree of gravitas which the performers are able to impart – fortunately Tony Kofi on tenor and soprano is the perfect partner, able to switch from searing Pharoah Sanders style intensity to a fluid, mellow tone on demand. His soprano sound is full-voiced and powerful – on tenor he has a gruff intensity and free-flowing melodic sense reminiscent ofBennie Maupin’s work with McCoy Tyner, shedding any traces of standard bop language. Bassist Larry Bartley adds his own imposing physical and sonorous presence to the stage; his contribution is pivotal to the success of the band with his dark tone, and starkly powerful, imperturbably swinging lines recalling Jimmy Garrison.  Joel Prime provides tasteful accompaniment on drums, and exotic percussion as necessary. Alina herself attacks the harp with great vigour; her personality fizzes with energy, balancing between a suitably profound seriousness and a sense of barely suppressed hilarity. There’s a composition of her own, showing off the her instrument’s range over a pulsing groove, and a welcome reading of John Coltrane’s seldom-heard ‘Syeeda’s Flute Song’ that shows how the harp can function effectively in a more conventional jazz context, adding colour to a spacious sax-plus-rhythm trio sound. Everyone plays with total commitment and the result is fresh sounding, intense and utterly compelling; a welcome addition to the scene and a great tribute to a long overlooked but increasingly revered artist.

Photo of Alina Bzhezhinska by Rachel Zhang.

Damon Brown International Quartet With Ed Jones Deliver Hard Bop Judgements At The Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine

15th February 2017

It's a complex web of internationalism that binds this band together; an Englishman, a Scot, an American and a German, all resident across the far east from Singapore to Seoul, joined by a saxophonist from London, and playing here tonight in the warm refuge of The Verdict. Damon Brown is dealing out the classic hand of dry wit introducing hard bop; opener 'My Deposit' is an uptempo cooker with a tricky truncated metric interlude; Sean Pentland on bass and Manuel Weyand on drums whip up a storm as Brown floats cooly above on his battered trumpet, his tone full and clear. Weyand is a terrific drummer, powerful, subtle and swinging. 'Mongolian Bossa' is introduced as "a love song... to a camel", though there's nothing flippant about its carefully constructed harmony. Then 'Han River Tales' features an artfully constructed arrangement that lets the rhythm section show off their aptitude for subtle interplay, powerfully driving behind the horns, pulling the dynamic down to build up again behind Paul Kirby's carefully measured piano solo, breaking down again to a perfectly paced bass statement and then to a drum break which is a masterpiece of control and technique. The pretty hipster standard 'When Sunny Gets Blue' is sung by Brown in an unvarnished baritone; standing forward in the club and singing off-mic, the effect is artlessly, utterly sincere, followed up by a truly breathtaking trumpet solo, a little gem of poise and soul.

Brown and Ed Jones have a long history together. As befits the leaders of an international band, they have the appearance of seasoned voyagers who have weathered many a storm; Brown in particular, a burly figure in knitted cap, hoodie and black-rimmed specs, looks like a bebop trawlerman. As players they're very well matched, both with a tough-but-tender tone that recalls the Harold Land/Clifford Brown partnership; they both specialise in long, logically constructed melodic phrases, driven forward by an unfaltering sense of time and a tone that projects outwards into the room. The set closer is a swinging 6/8 that has the clarion call quality of an Art Blakey classic.

The second set brings a minor key Blue Note-boogaloo named for Harold Land himself, that draws a real tour de force from Brown and sees Jones live up to the tune's namesake with his urgent but perfectly poised contribution. 'Lef And Lee', a tribute to pianist Leon Greening's powerful left mitt, sees intricate bass figures give way to a deep and heavy swing from the rhythm team. Pentland and Weyand really swing like the clappers; Kirby's piano favouring thoughtful harmonic depth over flash and fire, providing an effective contrast with the frontliners. Jones calls 'Out Of Nowhere' and gives a lesson in reading a standard through the art of bop. The evening's highlight though comes with 'I Don't Mind' – an original ballad by Brown with all the grace and wit of the Great American Songbook, the melody seeming to sing the lyrics which Brown himself claims to have forgotten. 'Kit Kat' closes the evening, until crowd pressure brings the band back to deliver a hearfelt 'My Ideal'.

This was a display of unpretentious musical mastery over a noble genre, delivered in exactly the intimate small club setting it was designed for, in front of an appreciative audience – judging by the smiles on the band's faces, a welcome stop-off amid their tireless globe-trotting.

Saxophonist Tim Armacost triumphant at The Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine

24th February 2017

Tim Armacost is here tonight on one of only three UK dates as part of a Europe-wide tour promoting his new record, Time Being. His last visit to London was as part of the New Standards Quartet, the ideal showcase for his awesome technique and deep familiarity with the classic language of the Great American Music. His latest project is an exploration of the wider-ranging freedoms possible within the sax-plus-rhythm format pioneered by Rollins in the 1950s – a real test of stamina and imagination for the frontman.

After a typically effusive welcome from host Andy Lavender, the trio stampede into 'Alawain' – Austrian drummer Klemens Marktl sets up the kind of loping waltz groove that Elvin Jones deployed so effectively with Coltrane, and Armacost takes flight over the top. His tone light and clear, his articulation amazingly clean and precise, he rides Marktl's boiling polyrhythms, circling round a single repeated note like a predator stalking its prey, suddenly swooping and diving into peals of rippling phrases. Michael Janisch's accompaniment on bass has the solemn, drone-like quality of Jimmy Garrison's work, and there's even a 'Love Supreme' quote from the leader, but where Coltrane's music had the urgent, yearning quality of the unresolved seeker, Armacost offers a contrasting display of almost academic poise and restraint in his controlled tone, clean articulation and the precise confidence of his ideas. It's a bravura start – "Marktl doesn't mess around" says Armacost – and there's no mistaking the powerful musical intelligence on display from the whole trio.

'Time Being' introduces a sombre theme played in unison with the bass – Marktl colours on the kit whilst simultaneously fixing an errant cymbal stand. The tune features Armacost's experiments with multiple tempos, and though the device is used as a brief bridging device rather than the main component it's still an impressive feat to pull off as naturally as the trio make it sound. '1 And 4' has an extended solo intro from Janisch, demonstrating the breadth of his musical imagination with all kinds of extended techniques, slides and whistling harmonics – Armacost switches to soprano, his tone still rounded and mellilfluous and Marktl's brushes solo descends imperceptibly into silence, so that for a split moment he's playing the air. "We love the real acoustic atmosphere", Armacost says appreciatively.

'Darn That Dream' receives a stately treatment benefitting from another typically adventurous statement from Janisch, and the full glory of Armacost's burnished tone. '53rd Street Theme' simply flies, Armacost delivering a Joycean stream-of-consciousness of bop language, never descending into cliché, while the rhythm team perform time-stretching miracles behind him. They end with a display of protracted musical high-jinks that shows that you can take the music as seriously as your life but still retain a sense of humour. 'Teo' is a bop swaggerer, with Marktl on coruscating form and Janisch delivering a tremendous performance, worrying at a phrase and picking it apart, always in flawless time. Kenny Wheeler's 'Mark Time' is played on soprano and with reverence, with Marktl demonstrating an effortless four-way independence on drums.

This is muscular, impressive, impassioned and intense music, hard swinging and fiercely intelligent, but the good-humoured interplay between the three participants in the conversation, and the leader's relaxed confidence, make this a warm affair. They even return to encore a gut-bucket blues, though it's hard to imagine such a clean-cut, urbane trio playing anywhere remotely insalubrious.

Avashai Cohen with the BBC Concert Orchestra at The Barbican

Jazzwise Magazine

11th February 2017

The evening starts with the restraint and decorum proper to a classical concert – the correct formalities of applause for the first violin and conductor (Bastien Still) are observed, the baton is tapped on the lectern, and the 57-strong orchestra launch into Cohen's compositions 'Noam' and 'Hayo Hayta'. We're placed firmly in the sound world of 19th century romanticism, with a passing suggestion of Gershwin's 'Summertime' emerging briefly from the sweeping strings - the effect is soothing rather than sublime. Avishai Cohen strides on from the wings; pianist Omri Mor and percussionist Itamar Doari follow, black-clad like their leader. After a spoken tribute to his late friend, London promoter John Ellson, Cohen picks up the bass that lies centre-stage and the orchestra launch into a sombre waltz. As the trio starts to play, the sonic focus switches rather abruptly from the subtle acoustics of the orchestra to the band's amplified sound coming through the PA system; but after Cohen's long, virtuosic solo full of shifting Middle Eastern accents, the strings return briefly and the sound becomes more integrated. Next comes a traditional Ladino song passed down from three generations of Cohens; backed by strings and woodwind, Avishai sings very affectingly in a light but powerful alto, and there's another brief exploration from the trio. Then 'Two Roses' takes us into more familiar territory; a pulsating polyrhythmic groove against fleet, complex unison lines from piano and bass, the orchestral arrangement sitting closely with the trio and building up with a rush to a sweeping wordless vocal melody, with Doari kicking up a storm on a hybrid array of jazz, orchestral and eastern percussion instruments that draws the biggest applause of the night so far.

The journey through Cohen's musical multiverse continues with Hank Jones' 'A Child Is Born' – the ingenious rhythm arrangement and lush orchestral texture seems to call out for a vocal from Nat King Cole; it's bold, exciting and poised all at once. There are outstanding solos from Cohen and Mor – on the final beat Cohen hits a clear, powerful bass note and lets go of the bass so that it seems to stand for a second, balanced by it's own resonance. Cohen is a commanding, almost military presence, but the mood softens as he performs an Israeli pop song from his youth and sings straight from the heart; then there's a medley of material from Lebanese singer Samira. The band move effortlessly into the language of the Levant; the string section swoop and soar, the bowed bass echoes the grainy wail of the rabab fiddle, and Mor creates a spectacular solo by imitating the frenetic shimmer of the qanun or Arabic zither on his piano to roars of applause. "In music, everybody gets along – who says I can't play Arab songs?" comments Cohen wryly.

Things are really starting to hot up; 'Morenika' shows off Cohen's power, precision and flawless intonation and builds from compelling groove into a moving coda, with the orchestral writing powerfully integrated with the trio; then 'Alon Basela' explodes into an amazing dumbek solo from Doari before Cohen leaps aboard the stirring theme and rides his bass off into the sunset. The crowd are on their feet for an encore, and Cohen obliges with a bass solo on 'Seven Seas' that demonstrates how, in a world where many hip young musos are busy playing furious, offbeat ostinato grooves in impossible time signatures, Cohen is still the original and best. The crowd won't let him go, and he returns again and again and even offers to take requests. Playing solo, singing and accompanying himself by strumming, tapping and drumming on the bass, standing proudly centre stage, he seems to be channeling all the power of his diverse heritage. After a rather measured start, it's been a captivating journey through the unique world of this immensely talented multi-cultural maverick.

Pianist Dave Drake Finds Common Ground At The Meeting House, Sussex University

Jazzwise Magazine

January 15th 2017

Manhattan's New School Of Jazz was set up to nurture the well of the jazz tradition as it springs straight from the source; in an age where jazz has increasingly sought the security of an existence on campus, New School remains one of the first and best, and the number of applicants far exceeds the available places. Brighton homeboy Dave Drake has made the journey from local jam sessions, to NYJO alumnus, to New School student, and now returns to his hometown to present a concert of solo pieces.

Sir Basil Spence's dramatic modernist architecture provides a suitably elevating backdrop; a chequerboard of rough concrete and gently glowing stained glass. The concert is entitled 'A Common Ground" and all profits are to go to the Jo Cox Memorial fund. Without waiting for the applause of the crowd of friends and supporters to die down, Dave strides across to the piano, sits and starts playing in a single motion. A tocsin of plangent chords announce a pastoral melody, like Vaughan Williams as filtered through Keith Jarrett. Dave isn't afraid of a simple, appealing tune, but also delights in unexpected shifts of rhythm and register – jagged handfuls of notes drift like petals tossed over deep still pools of bass. The next piece is more overtly rooted in the language of 20th century jazz, with a swaggering left-hand motif somewhere between art house and barrel house. Any lingering idea that the event might capsize under the weight of it's own importance is dispelled as Dave recites an affectingly artless poetic tribute to his little bro, to whom 'The Little Warrior' is dedicated. Again the minor key melody is simple and direct, but there's an angularity or awkwardness, embraced to form an essential part of his artistic character, that's extremely compelling and extirpates any trace of the saccharine. He hits the keys with a tremendous force, especially high up in the right-hand register, drawing a strident, chiming tone from the piano that's all his own. 'Guns in the Hands of Men' references the Black Lives Matter movement; a rising tide of sonorous chords against a right-hand tremolo create a dramatic effect reminiscent of Meldhau. 'Devotion' has a powerfully plaintive theme that takes flight into thrilling cascades of 16th notes, with the feeling of a spontaneous improvisation.

There's further stylistic explorations in the second set – 'Daisaku' is lyrical and swinging. 'Bucharest' has traces of Chopin and Debussy, alternating calm and dissonance to wildly romantic effect, and 'Turning Poison Into Medicine' presents garlands of melody, beautifully executed and controlled. A true internationalist, Dave presents an incongruously wide range of influences, from Soka Gakkai Buddhism to Rudyard Kipling via a recitation of 'If', to a tribute to the late Doudou N'Diaye Rose that attempts to capture some of the rolling polyrhythms of West Africa, before finishing with a rollicking stride piece for an encore, yet the strength of his personal vision ties them together into a compelling whole. There's a powerful sense of his need to communicate and share his musical vision in the most positive way possible, set against a backdrop of awareness of the rapidly increasing stresses and strains at work in the wider world as the 45th US President takes office. The gig is being recorded; an album should be forthcoming before long so watch out for it.

Andrew Bain's Embodied Hope Quartet deal in wish fulfilment at The Verdict

Jazzwise Magazine

November 8th 2016

Andrew Bain is a truly transatlantic talent, dividing his time between Manhattan and Birmingham UK, with an impressive list of musical and educational attainments behind him. Tonight he's here with his all-American quartet to showcase a brand new opus, underpinned by some weighty philosophical ideas borrowed from a book entitled The Fierce Urgency Of Now that links ideas of musical improvisation to struggles for social change. 'Fierce Urgency' is a perfect description of the opening number – an extended, surgingly romantic rubato with George Colligan's rippling piano and Bain's restless drumming maintaining an exhausting intensity, exhorting Jon Irabagon's saxophone to ever greater heights over Michael Janisch's resonant bowed bass. It's a mixture of the free and the lyrical that recalls Jarrett's American quartet of the 1970s. Then there's a typically wide-ranging solo excursion from Janisch, from which emerges a staccato 7/8 line, that doesn't seem to truly settle until the band hit a fat 4/4 swing and Colligan takes off on a solo of seemingly limitless power and inventiveness. Irabagon shows why he's been constantly topping polls in the US – unfazed by the fastest tempo, slightly ahead of the beat, he can deliver a torrent of the most contemporary language, but tempers it with an attractive mellowness lurking within his diamond-hard, centered tone. 

We're being treated to musical interpretations of the seven necessary aspects of embodied hope, as laid down by the guys behind the Fierce Urgency book, and the next offering is another seven metre – a funk with a blues-inflected line reminiscent of Eddie Harris. It's smoking hot solos all round on this one as it breaks into a swinging extended-blues form, but Janisch probably takes the laurels for a staggeringly virtuosic display that leaves no part of the fingerboard unexplored. 'Hope' itself is a celebratory, uplifting melody, developing from a single pulsing note. Bain, his lanky form splayed behind the kit, abandons himself completely to the music, eyes closed and head thrust forward, the picture of transported absorption. His playing is powerful and instantly responsive, and he matches his bandmates in the pinpoint rhythmic accuracy for which New York players are renowned. There's a certain gawky awkwardness to his musical persona – it's probably fair to say that he's not really a groove guy, but the sheer energy of his polyrhythmic flow keeps the music surging forwards.

The second set offers us 'Surprise", a thrilling breakneck-speed slice of swing with Irabagon and Colligan vying for solo honours with superb performances, and 'Listening', a real tour de force going from eerie free explorations to latin-tinged free-bop and some high-energy drum trades. This is an outstanding band with seemingly bottomless reserves of energy and excitement and a strong concept driving the leader – the upcoming recording session should yield some explosive results.