Monthly Archives: September 2011

CD review: Mark McKnight Organ Quartet featuring Seamus Blake

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Do Or Die
(Whirlwind Recordings WR461)

The British-born Canadian-raised, New York based tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake is a kind of talisman for young jazz group leaders, many of them guitar players, and many of them British. And so it is here, though this time the leader/guitarist is originally from Ireland.

Mark McKnight took the logical route – it leads to Boston – and studied at Berklee College Of Music, was awarded third place in the Montreux International Guitar Competition in 2008, won Best Young Irish Musician at Cork Jazz Festival and represented a united Ireland at the 12 Points Festival in Norway. He has played with Terrell Stafford, Jason Rebello, Tim Warfield, Bill Carrothers, Sam Yahel and Will Vinson.

Mark McKnight

He has a rich, modern guitar sound which can be clean and singing, and often has a tinge of Scofield distortion to add burnish to the gleam.

He wrote all the material here, with the exception of Rodgers and Hart’s Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered, and the tunes have an easy familiarity about them without sounding like copies. They are mostly concise themes acting as heads and a springboard for solos.

This would be a fine album without Blake: in addition to the flowing, creative guitar solos of McKnight, there are the rich harmony and bass grooves of Ross Stanley on organ and the punchy, always pushing James Maddren is on drums.

But, as usual, Blake does add the cherries. He is so comfortable with any length of improvisational space, whether a single chorus or the long, slow build. His melodic, flowing style suits McKnight just fine, because the guitarist shares those qualities. Listen to both of them shining at length on Nightcap.

Stanley’s solo verse introduction to Bewitched is rich and ever so slightly foreboding, and then McKnight enters with the more familiar chorus and phrases it just beautifully and simply, throwing in just one blistering flourish on the way. Blake takes over for the bridge and restatement of the chorus, and continues the mood of graceful suspense.

Tease is a more upbeat piece with McKnight pressing the grunge pedal to dirty his tone, while Contemplate shows off the poise and eloquence of the whole band at slow speed and pianissimo, with Blake there to build the intensity near the end.

The closing track, (We’ll) Just Disappear, has one of those walking-paced, dignified beginnings, before speeding and building to a deep groove with Maddren moving from rimshots to more bustle, before it slows again for McKnight’s solo, and a duet section with Blake. Faster again for Blake’s solo and on for a fine 10 minutes in total before, yes, the band disappears.

Luckily over the next couple of weeks they reappear in the flesh, all over the UK and Ireland.

Here are the tour dates:
Tonight – 7.30pm Colston Hall 2, 13 Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5AR
Tomorrow – 8.30pm The 606 Club 90 Lots Road, London SW10 0QD
Tue 20 – 8.30pm Dempsey’s 15 Castle Street, Cardiff CF10 1BS
Wed 21 – 8.30pm The Griffin 266 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP
Thu 22 – 8pm Seven Arts 31 Harrogate Road, Leeds LS7 3PD
Fri 23 – 7.45pm Millennium Hall, Polish Centre, 520 Ecclesall Rd, Sheffield S11 8PY
Sat 24 – 7.30pm The Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre, Naul, Fingal, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Sun 25 – 7.30pm Crescent Arts Centre, 2-4 University Rd, Belfast
Mon 26 – 8.30pm The Blue Lamp, 121 Gallowgate, Aberdeen AB25 1BU
Tue 27 – 8pm The Cluny, 36 Lime Street, Newcastle NE1 2PQ
Wed 28 – 8.30pm Swansea Jazzland St. James Social Club, St. James Crescent SA1 6DR
Thu 29 – Album launch 7.15pm Ronnie Scott’s 47 Frith St, Soho, London W1D 4HT
Thu 29 – 8.30pm The Spice of Life, 6 Moor Street, London W1D 5NA
Fri 30 – 8pm Great Northern Hotel, Station Approach, Peterborough PE1 1QL

You can find out more here and listen to some of the music and buy the disc before general release here.

LJF – the full programme

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There are 280 events in 53 venues and over 600 hours of live music on offer. That’s the delicious monster that is the London Jazz Festival.

And following the launch gig last night, the full programme is now all officially up on the LJF website for you to mull – or should that be drool – over.

One big bit of late news on the programme is that the legendary Ornette Coleman will be playing the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 20 November. What a last night is that! Those tickets will go on sale next Thursday 22 September.

The rest of the programme is now on sale. Go here.

The week ahead in gigs

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They say jazz must be like a shark: always moving forward, or face death. One man who epitomises jazz sharkiness is Steve Tromans. He has yet another new band, and you can hear it on Sunday evening down in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Steve Tromans

The Steve Tromans Quartet comprises Steve on piano with Mike Fletcher on alto saxophone and flute, Chris Mapp on bass and Miles Levin on drums.

Although Steve writes a lot of music himself, this band will be exploring jazz standards, though Steve being Steve, expect a fresh approach to their interpretation. He calls it theme/open changes.

What does it sound like? Go along to The Chapel in Shakespeare Street for an 8pm start and find out. Tickets are £8 on the door, and The Chapel offers a £9.95 two-course meal.

More information at www.stratfordjazz.org.uk

Birmingham Jazz makes a modest but suave start to their autumn season with a free gig by vocalist Esther Miller at The Jam House on Tuesday.

The South African-born, English resident has a clean and clear way with a jazz standard and also mixes into her programme some originals with a South Africa flavour. She also has fine taste in sidemen, and joining her for this gig are Steve Melling on piano and Karen Sharp on tenor saxophone.

The bar opens at 6pm and the music starts around 8.30pm. You can also get a meal there. To reserve a table call 0121 200 3030.

It’s strange that the large crowd Birmingham Jazz gets for its Rush Hour Blues sessions in the Symphony Hall foyer doesn’t seem to transfer to The Jam House gigs, which are in a similarly comfortable venue with easy access to the bar, and similarly free of charge. Maybe Esther, always popular with the Rush Hour crowd, can change all that.

Before all that, the Cobweb Collective presents Gilberto Mauro at The Yardbird in Paradise Place this evening. The music starts at 9pm, and a jam session follows from 11pm. It’s all free of charge.

On Tuesday, also from Cobweb, the Fletcher/Silk Big Band fills the players’ space at the Spotted Dog, down in Warwick St, Digbeth. This one starts at 8.30pm, and audience donations are encouraged in order to pay the musicians. There is also a possible jam session later in the evening.

More about the Cobweb Collective and the gigs they promote at www.cobwebcollective.com

Finally, two gigs with the accent on dancing:

Tomorrow MYJO plays for Strictly Come Dancing at Sheldon Heath Social Club. Doors open at 7pm and tickets are £5 in advance or £7 on the door. For tickets call 07985 645885.

On Saturday The Waterworks Jazz Club (unfortunate name for an increasingly aged group of jazz lovers) has John Dunmore’s Boogie Band playing Louisiana-style R&B in the Louis Prima/Fats Domino tradition.

Venue is The Nautical Club in Bishopsgate Street, start time is 8.30pm and entrance is £9 for non-members. Find out more at www.waterworksjazz.com

Why I remember Sonny

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I’ve been thinking about Sonny Rollins a lot the past few days. It’s not only that his latest CD has been playing on thejazzbreakfast hi-fi – it’s called Road Shows Vol.2 and it’s on Doxy Records, but more of that later – but every time the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks come round, Sonny is in my thoughts.

He’s my link to what happened, because he’s the only individual I know who was there and experienced it. Here is what he said about it:

“I was there in my apartment up on the 40th floor and I heard this plane flying low. I was thinking, ‘Gee, this plane is flying sort of low.’ The next thing I heard was ‘Pow!’ I soon found out what had happened. I went downstairs and saw the tower on fire. The other tower came down first, and a lot of people – myself included – panicked and started running up the street…”

I say he’s the only individual I know who was there. Of course, I don’t actually know him. Or rather he doesn’t know me. I feel, just as so many other people do, that I know him, that he is a friend of mine, because that is what happens when Sonny Rollins plays the saxophone. It is what has always happened when Sonny Rollins has played the saxophone.

He has spoken directly to us, into our ears. He has shared the most intimate thoughts, the most universal truths, the most essential goodness.

Four days later he played a concert in Boston. It was recorded and later released as Without A Song: The 9/11 Concert. And it’s a wondrous thing. Just that it happened, just that he made it. He was 71 then.

Last year he was 80, and most of this new recording comes from his 80th birthday concert in New York City on 10 September 2010 (as does the picture at the top).

He may have looked pretty shaky and old when he went up on stage to receive his 2010 National Medal Of Arts from President Barak Obama at a ceremony in the White House (you can see a video of the ceremony here on his website) but at his birthday concert he sounds in vigorous form, and he is the company of some other vigorous old men, too.

The special guests include Jim Hall, the guitarist with whom he made his classic The Bridge album, drummer Roy Haynes and alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. I can’t say the combination of Rollins and Coleman is a marriage made in heaven, but it’s something for the history books.

Rollins interacts much better with a younger but nearly as brilliant jazz player, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, especially on the nearly 13 minutes of Rain Check. Here they are in musical conversation:

Christian McBride is also at the party, along with guitarist Russell Malone and regular Rollins sidemen, Bob Cranshaw on electric bass and Kobie Watkins on drums.

The opening and closing tracks are taken from a concert in Japan a couple of weeks later.

It’s all marvellous. How could it not be. It’s all Sonny Rollins.