Author Archives: peterbacon

CD review: Sam Crowe Group

Posted on by
1

centreTowards The Centre Of Everything
(Whirlwind Recordings WR4632)

There is a book review in today’s Guardian which is headlined “How pop culture sold out”. In it John Harris asks: “Why do music and TV no longer challenge the establishment?”

If you want to hear culture that hasn’t sold out, then modern, young, British jazz has it by the bucketload. And if you want to hear music that challenges the way the establishment, and modern life, wishes to commodify art, then you have come to right place with this Sam Crowe Group album.

It’s not that Crowe and his music overtly rails against the idea of music as product, they just opt out of that game altogether. As Sam says in the cover note: “Anyone who has truly connected with music realises that, unlike consumables, there is a deeper level of connection that is felt in the body which allows the soul to ‘remember’ that we all… sprung from the same source.”

So, what does music that hasn’t sold out, that won’t play the establishment’s game, sound like? Gorgeous, in a word.

There are a lot of CDs that pass from in-tray to out on thejazzbreakfast desk, and while a great many of them contain excellent music there is sometimes the feeling that too often it is music that can be more easily admired than loved. Not so here.

Sam Crowe

Sam Crowe

I feel a real passion for this album, and in part that is for the selfish reason that it just makes me feel so damned good. Perhaps also it is a natural response to the passion that flows from it. It is not unintellectual, my any means. There are tricky rhythms, and twists and turns in the melodies that are not easy to negotiate. But there is rich feeling that flows through and an optimism – a joy in creating – that lifts the spirits, and makes the world seem a more beautiful place.

With Crowe on piano are an Anglo-American band of Will Vinson and Adam Waldmann on saxophones, Will Davies on guitar, Alan Hampton on bass and Mark Guiliana on drums. Singer Emilia Martensson joins for one track.

The rhythms are springy and Hampton continues where Jasper Hoiby left off in Crowe’s first album, Synaesthesia (the tune The Global Brain from that album is reworked here). The pairing in melody of Vinson and Davies often recalls the Brecker/Metheny partnership. Crowe and Guiliana are terrific and Waldmann is his usual exacting, lyrical self.

The playing, then, is not only exemplary, it is inspired, too, and I suspect that key to that inspiration is Crowe’s vision and his great compositions. They have melodies, counter-melodies, contrasting grooves, some great codas, rich textures and the kind of multi-layered depths that intrigue and go on intriguing in different ways with each new listen.

I won’t single out any particular tracks – the album works as a wonderful whole.

Want to be cheered up? Want out of the corrupt, soulless, commodified, unfeeling, number-obsessed, money fixated, fearful, prejudiced superficiality that is today’s Western existence? Buy Towards The Centre Of Everything, press play and escape to a wholly better world!

Here is a taste:

CD review: Third Reel

Posted on by
Reply

third coverThird Reel
(ECM 372 8269)

Third Reel is the Swiss saxophonist Nicolas Masson, the Italian guitarist Roberto Pianca and the Italian drummer Emanuele Maniscalco. Each is a band leader in his own right, but this co-operative project is very important to them all.

It came about in a thoroughly 21st century manner – they met via social networking on the web. Masson refers to the formation of the band as “the first and only good thing that came out of having a MySpace account”.

And, judging by this album, it’s a very good thing indeed. The most striking thing about it is the range of the music, the 16 shortish tracks (many are pop song length and the longest is  under seven minutes) leap from quiet chamber jazz to distortion laden rock groove to sound sculpture. The second most striking thing about it is the wonderful awareness of space this trio has. One can almost sense the area between them in the same way as the silences between notes are as vital as the notes themselves.

Third Reel

Third Reel

Masson has a clear and relatively unadorned sound on tenor saxophone, a tone he carries over nicely to clarinet on occasions. Pianca has a gentle, rounded electric sound here, a more wiry, near country flavour there, and then a Hendrix psychedelic bent over there. Maniscalco is very much the decorator a lot of the time rather than a time-keeper.

The music might be written or freely improvised – in the modern ECM manner it is often hard to tell which. The band manages to move from pensive introspection to exuberant celebration between tracks, and all in all this is a thoroughly rewarding three-way creation.

CD review: Pat Metheny

Posted on by
Reply

patTap: John Zorn’s Book Of Angels Vol.20
(Nonesuch/Tzadik 7559-79587-5)

The bad news is that Pat Metheny has not said goodbye to his orchestrion, the big instrumental machine that enables him to be an orchestra in real time, and that this is very nearly another solo record. The good news is that he is also creating interesting sound combinations of acoustic and electronic sources, that he has drummer Antonio Sanchez for company some of the time, and that he has chosen to rework the music of John Zorn.

Zorn’s Book Of Angels consists of 300 songs Zorn composed over just three months and they form Book Two of his Masada collection, inspired by traditional Jewish music. Metheny has chosen six to which he applies his myriad instrumental skills.

He recorded them in his home studio in between touring his Quartet, and in addition to the orchestrion, he plays all manner of guitars, sitar, tiples, bass, keyboards, bandoneon, percussion and even flugelhorn.

The current Pat Metheny band

The current Pat Metheny band

There is his by-now signature sound of synth guitar which he uses for those soaring solos, here over richly textured drums and other sounds – it’s as if half a dozen Lyle Mays were exploring their samplers, though in this case it could be an actual instrument with Metheny’s fingers on it, or it could be a machine triggered by his guitar or his cursor. Or, for all we know, he might be triggering them by pure thought – I mean, it’s only a matter of time.

If, for a moment, we ignore the medium entirely and just consider the message, then we can conclude that there is much sumptuous aural delight to be had from Tap. It’s at its best when Metheny works in the ugly electronic distortions among the pure acoustic timbres, or adds unexpected background textures as he does on the 10-minute Phanuel. And Hurmiz finds him on keyboards finally getting into fullly engaged mode with Sanchez.

But even here it doesn’t quite have the depth that would bring total satisfaction and equally deep rewards. It all feels a little superficial – a kind of pretty exotic instrumental tourism – partially saved by the strength of Zorn’s melodies.

And I think that it feels superficial because it is Metheny playing with his toys in near solitude once more. If there was real human exchange going on in the room, then music of more profound human emotions, art that conveyed the essence of being might be possible.

Think back to that duo album he made with Charlie Haden all those years ago: Beyond The Missouri Sky. Listen to Pat and Charlie’s intimate exchange on Jimmy Webb’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. It’s such a pretty tune but the pair bring out such a deeper feeling from it, and they do it by keeping things simple, by not getting too fancy. It makes you hold your breath, it makes you stop and think and feel. Do you get anything like that, when you listen to Tap? Not really. It’s very pleasant is what it is.

I think Pat needs to get together again with some really profound cats – Pat and Ornette again? Pat and Charlie again? Or how about Pat and Wayne? Pat and Chick? Pat and Sonny? The man needs a challenge and his toys aren’t giving him that.

Pubs and clubs are where it’s at in the jazz Midlands this week

Posted on by
Reply

Another solid week of good club/pub gigs and free treats lies ahead, with some vibrant visiting players and strong support from the home teams.

Dave O'Higgins

Dave O’Higgins

Down at Stratford Jazz on Wednesday, the joint is likely to be jumping as saxophonist Dave O’Higgins brings his particularly ebullient tenor saxophone playing to No 1 Shakespeare Street in Stratford upon Avon.

Dave will be joining the Kieron Garrett trio – Garrett on piano with Mike Pratt on bass and Pete Cumber on drums, and they bring some Latin and funk grooves into the mix along with jazz standards.

O’Higgins is a man whose playing lights up a room so this should be great night.

It starts at 8pm, entry is £10 (students half-price) and you can find out more at www.stratfordjazz.org.uk

The idea of focusing on a jazz great and interpreting their music is a good one and much in vogue at present. A few weeks ago Birmingham Jazz ran a cracking night dedicated to the Blue Note label players of the 1960s, and this evening the Tim Amann Trio is doing the same for one of the defining pianists of modern jazz, the late, great Bill Evans.

Tim and crew are at the Silvershine Jazz Club which meets at the Bearwood Corks Club in Bearwood. Doors open at 8.30pm, the music starts at 9pm, and entry is a mere £4. If you don’t hear Waltz For Debby tonight I will be very surprised indeed. More at www.bearwoodjazz.co.uk

The Jazzlines Trio

The Jazzlines Trio

Tomorrow’s early evening Jazzlines Free Jazz session spotlights the education work of the organisation with special reference to their Summer School which started last year. On the stand will be the Jazzlines Ensemble and joining them will be the Jazzlines Trio.

Pianist Reuben James has been making his mark on the professional jazz scene and had his own trio gig at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival earlier this month. With him on bass is James Banner and on drums Ric Yarborough.

Hear them all from 5pm in the Symphony Hall Cafe Bar. Entry is free, and the future is looking bright. More at www.thsh.co.uk/jazzlines

From there, James Banner will be moving swiftly in a northerly direction and if you follow him you can hear a new band emerging from the Birmingham scene. They play new music by drummer Billy Weir, and with him are saxophonist Dan Searjeant, guitarist Ben Lee and pianist David Ferris. And James Banner, of course.

The band is called Nest and they are playing at The Red Lion in Warstone Lane, courtesy of Birmingham Jazz.

This is a BJ Club Night so members get in free and the rest pay £4. The doors open at 7.45pm. If you want to become a member or to find out more, go to www.birminghamjazz.co.uk

Other good gigs this week:

Tomorrow: Sam Rogers and the Hospital Dodgers are at The Ort Cafe from 8.30pm. Tickets are £5 on the door and there is more at www.ortcafe.co.uk

Saturday: Find out what a jazz rehearsal is like by sitting in as the Blam! Composers Ensemble works on some new music in the Symphony Hall Cafe Bar from 3.45pm. More at www.blambirmingham.co.uk

Tuesday: Pianist and vocalist Martin Trotman is at the Jam House with his band from 8.30pm. Entry to this Jazzlines gig is free. More at www.thsh.co.uk/jazzlines

Tuesday: The John Fleming Quartet plays The Spotted Dog in Digbeth from 9pm. Fleming won the 2010 BBC Scotland Young Jazz Musicians Of The Year award and the saxophonist has Andy Bunting on piano, Nick Jurd on bass and Jonathan Silk on drums. More at www.blambirmingham.co.uk