Benoit Viellefon, originally from Northern France, has led various bands since arriving in the UK in 1998, and regularly plays at Ronnie Scott’s, the Toulouse Lautrec, Café Zédel, the Nightjar Carnaby, etc. but somehow I never got to see him in London. I first saw him play a couple of years ago in St Leonards-on-Sea where I now live and where he has also settled. The show was in a delightful venue called Crown House. Outside, it is an elegant mansion, inside The Regency Rooms resemble a cross between a Russian Tea Room and a Montmartre Cabaret, all mirrors and chinoiserie wall paper, velvet curtains and festoon lights. There’s a stage at one end, a bar at the other and seating in between for about 100, around tables, cabaret style, perfect for Hot Club-tinged dance music. It was a terrific night’s entertainment, and now I go and see him perform whenever I can. I have heard various iterations of the band play over the last two years, including a trio show right on the shingle at a beach bar Goat Ledge.

The new album Out of Dates was actually recorded some time ago on Brexit day 31 March 2019. It was recorded live, in the old fashioned way with a single stereo microphone positioned in front of the band, at The Kino-Teatr St Leonards another excellent venue in a shabby chic old cinema which is now a combination of picture house, concert hall, art gallery, and bar restaurant.

Some of the personnel in the band changes from time to time, and many previous members have gone on to develop substantial careers – for example Sara Dowling, Sam Braysher, most of the Kansas Smitty’s and Duncan Hemstock. This has, of course, often been the way of jazz bands – they act as spring boards for the next generation of musicians and new jazz movements. Former members of Ted Heath’s band famously include Ronnie Scott and Stan Tracey who went off in their own different directions.

I went to hear Benoit play again last week (back in Crown House) and I can report that the current band is top notch. In Hove, and on the subsequent tour, this is the band you will see. What with the global pandemic, and the travel restrictions of Brexit, the original band did not get to do the full planned tour, just a couple of gigs in Vienna and Bratislava.

I met him in his Japanese wife’s restaurant, and asked him about his musical life. He was very forthcoming.

I learned that Benoit (as he has asked to be referred to in this piece, as he maintains that hardly anyone can pronounce Viellefon) grew up in Northern France, in Douai. His was not a particularly musical family, though his grandmother had been a frustrated concert pianist. As a boy he attended lots of family parties where music from the thirties and forties was played. He himself loved English and American rock music, and wanted to be a rockstar like Jimi Hendrix when he grew up. He bought a guitar and taught himself to play. He actually saw his future as a bass player but could not afford a bass guitar at that point in his life. After university (arts, film and photography) he worked in Paris for a spell in graphic design, animation, video games and new media and was quite successful but not happy. He sold everything and went to America to follow his rockstar dream. Going to live in San Francisco, without knowing a soul, and only speaking a little English, was a bold move, and turned out to be a crucial part of his education. Growing up in fairly egalitarian France, he only knew the USA as it represented itself in the cinema, and through music – he had not anticipated the poverty that he would encounter in the Land of the Free. He was genuinely shocked by what he saw – and was chastened by the experience. He stayed for several months and returned to Europe, a changed man. He decided to go to that other source of rock music, England.

He moved to London and devoted himself to music in the time-honoured tradition, busking, following up on ads in Denmark Street and in Loot, looking for regular music work, but he soon ran out of money. Returning to his new media background he set up a company designing web sites etc to pay the bills, and had some pretty good clients, including the BBC, but his heart wasn’t in it – he had health problems, broke up with his girlfriend and took another step back. By 2004 he was back on his feet, doing various temp jobs, and then, for a spell, wound up working on 1920s bi-planes, not as a pilot but as mechanic and operation manager. He loved it, enjoyed dressing for the part, and spoke English all day during the flying season. Through this work he discovered the world of nostalgia tourism, with its historic reenactments of the 1930s and 40s, which chimed nicely with his parents’ interest in that period of history, the clothes and most importantly – the music. That autumn he signed up for a course at the City Lit, studying jazz harmony under Della Rhodes one day a week.

By this time he had acquired a bass guitar too, and now played in bands in a variety of genres including Gnawa music, ska, reggae and blues. He got a regular job as a guitarist with a band called the Skamonics. They played the 100 Club one night, after which, according to Benoit, a man in a hat came over and gave him a telephone number, asking him to call him the next day.

Fully expecting this chap to have forgotten him, he phoned as requested and the man in the hat turned out to be John Mayall’s son Gaz, who invited him to join his Celtic Ska Roots band The Trojans. This was the turning point for Benoit’s new life as a professional musician – he played lead guitar with Mayall from 2005 to 2012. Another key moment was touring Japan with the Skatalites in 2008. It was there he met Yuka, a Japanese woman who had also travelled the world, and was equally in thrall to Western popular music. They got married, and after a period in Japan, returned to England.

In 2009 Benoit was ready to try out his new idea of creating a small orchestra, to play old-fashioned feel-good music. It was a success – the orchestra have performed in several films and TV shows where an authentic sounding (and looking) period band is required, and they also get gigs at themed private parties for the rich and famous from Madonna to the royal family, and the Hot Club is shortly off to India to play a private gig at the Lake Palace in Udaipur. Benoit is already working out the logistics of looking the part but keeping cool (he’s thinking linen suits all round for the band).

There are the regular gigs in London, and now a following on the South Coast too. Benoit has very firm views on the point of his music and his shows – he wants the audience to have a good time. His aim is to inspire and uplift them by putting on a show, and the band always look very smartly turned out – Benoit himself favours Dior and Jaeger suits, and he usually wears those two-tone correspondent shoes, English made, which I associate with tango milongas and prohibition era films. The first time I saw him perform, his wife Yuka was on the ticket desk, wearing 1940s evening dress, even the audience looked appropriately Bohemian – well this is St. Leonards. There is often a light touch of audience participation, call and response – the general plan is to send everyone home smiling, and it works.

His current band are terrific. He has a virtuoso guitarist – Brighton based Jarrod Elks, who really shines on the Gypsy jazz classics like Reinhardt’s Swing 39 and L’Indifference. On piano is the talented Alexander Bryson, such a versatile player, and also a fine composer and song writer (album reviewed here).

He and Benoit have worked together for several years, and are now doing some composing together. I look forward to hearing the results. At the gig Bryson excelled in the South American pieces (a beautiful tune by Cuban master Ernesto Lecuona from about 1915, Melodia del Rio, a barnstorming Tico Tico from Brazil from around the same period and a natty Tea for Two played as a lively cha cha cha) He also sang in Earl Hines’ Dinah in three part harmony with Benoit and Elks, an appealing rendition of this novelty song. Incidentally, Bryson is the only person on this tour who also played on the 2019 CD apart from Benoit himself.

On trumpet is “Magic” Mike Henry who played with the Big Chris Barber Band and the Pasadena Roof Orchestra for decades, and then freelanced with many others. He is steeped in these popular jazz genres, and his enjoyable playing seems effortless. His solos on Paper Moon and Caravan were particularly entertaining.

On double bass – well who knows? Several bass players play for Benoit. The last couple of times it has been Will Collier, another chameleon performer, who is a terrific bass player, but who also sings, and plays guitar and piano too. He is perhaps most well known as the bass player in Alex Horne’s comedy musical outfit The Horne Section, but I have heard both his Chet Baker and his Miles Davis Projects, as well as his rhythm support in this band, and others, and I enjoy his sure intonation and impressive technique very much.

I have also heard Simon Thorpe in the double bass chair with the Trio. He has played with many people (Stacey Kent, Bheki Mseleku, Alan Barnes) and has his own swing band Jivin Miss Daisy, and so is also completely at home with this sort of music. The bass player at the Hove gig will be newcomer Jack Garside, recent graduate from the jazz course at Leeds School of Music, and former member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Benoit assures me he will be a bass player to watch.

There is currently a guest in the Hot Club – a Romanian violinist called Rarès Morarescu, originally from Bucharest, and a star in that country, in Italy and in France. He studied classical piano and violin from a young age, and had a life-changing encounter as a teenager in France with Stephane Grapelli. Grapelli gave him some lessons and ignited in him a passion for Jazz and Swing. Morarescu has lived and played extensively in the US and in Europe, especially Italy – his wife is Italian. He performs in various musical styles: classical; traditional Romanian; Cuban violin; Neapolitan popular and, of course, the Hot Club de Paris. It is a rare treat to hear a violinist of his calibre.

Benoit himself, front man for the band, mainly plays rhythm guitar, taking the occasional solo, leaving the other guitar solos to Elks. He sings most of the songs though, and I do enjoy hearing him sing in French. At Crown House he gave us a lovely rendition of the Charles Trenet hit Ménilmontant, and a lively Neapolitan tune sung in French called Bambino.

It is difficult to choose, as the hits just kept coming, but my favourite of the instrumentals was probably L’Indifference, an old Hot Club tune by Colombo and Murena. The intricacies’ of the playing by this skilful ensemble and the appeal of hearing authentic Bal Musette music in such a perfect setting are hard to beat.

Fans of the popular music of the 1910s to the 1950s, particularly of the Hot Club de Paris, will want to explore more of the Great European Songbook as well as the more usual American one, with some classic Cuban and Brazilian tunes for good measure, go and see Benoit Viellefon and his Hot Club. You are guaranteed a band of fine musicians playing songs to gladden your heart, all fronted by the charming Benoit.

The post Benoit Viellefon and his Hot Club: ‘Out of Dates (Live)’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The specific inspiration for jazz quintet Monsterosa’s new album The Seasons in the City is Calvino’s set of short stories from 1963, Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City, which follow the adventures of a poor former country man and his family who now live in a big city. The themes of these stories seem remarkably contemporary, considering that they were written in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Calvino deftly describes the passing of the seasons in a Northern Italian industrial city, with all its chaos, noise, pollution and consumerism in direct contrast with the main character Marcovaldo’s nostalgia for the rural life. The translation of the Marcovaldo stories by William Weaver, published by Secker & Warburg in 1983, is still available.

The music, lyrics and arrangements on this album are all by Edinburgh-based saxophonist Graeme Wilson. This is his take on the subject:

“The stories follow a man trying to recapture country life in an urban setting, and the music follows the joy in each moment of possibility he finds: sleeping outdoors, or gathering firewood, or eating well.”

Wilson has an interesting career – he has performed with Marilyn Crispell and Julian Siegel, recorded with his own Quartet (reviewed by Adrian Pallant here), and has composed for jazz orchestra, for silent films and for a collaborative sculpture project. He is also a visiting fellow in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, researching improvisation, community music and allied fields. Here he plays saxophone, all woodwinds, piano and balafon.

What Wilson has composed is a themed jazz suite, with a nod towards contemporary art music. The music plays to the strengths of the varying interests of his band, including elements of soul, folk and Latin music.

I was not surprised to learn that Monsterosa’s The Seasons of the City emerged from a lockdown project. Many of us became hyper-aware of the changing seasons during those strange months of sequestration, even hardened city dwellers. Marcovaldo’s often thwarted attempts to find the natural world in the city strikes me as an excellent choice of subject matter.

The band are terrific. Rebecca Hollweg, a songwriter from South London, provides crystalline vocals for the six vocal tracks. She conveys the joy and the poignancy of these tales, of the bewilderment when appearances which seem so promising turn out to be deceptive. She sounds equally assured across the differing genres, whether it is the bouncing samba of ‘Awake in the Park’, the folky ‘Domitilla’, or the lovely ballad ‘Into the Billows’.

Scottish guitarist and composer Ross Milligan plays all the guitars – he is another versatile performer. Here, his intricate playing (often in counterpoint to Wilson’s reeds) is a joy to listen to.

Bass player Andy Hamill, Rebecca’s husband, has played double bass & bass guitar with loads of other stars across the genres, from Eska to the Carthys via Nitin Sawhney and Tracey Thorn. Tom Gordon has been drummer for the BBC Big Band since 2002, and has played in big bands, jazz and classical orchestras. His percussion works perfectly with this more intimate jazz chamber outfit, and Gordon and Hamill are a great pairing. There is a delicacy to their playing, but they also can be a rambunctious, driving jazz rhythm section where required.

The Seasons of the City stands alone as a beautiful jazz collection, but I feel it could also work well as incidental music. I asked Wilson about the band’s name, which is also one of the song titles on the album. The song is inspired by one of the tales in which a sad, uncared-for office pot plant is rescued by Marcovaldo who takes it out into the rain. You can hear the pattering rain in the song (that balafon!), and the ascending chords as the plant recovers and then flourishes and grows. I won’t give away the ending. Wilson told me:

“The plant in the story is never named but I pictured it as a cheese plant, which I thought had the scientific name Monsterosa. I have since had it pointed out to me that it’s actually got a shorter name, Monstera, but by then, that was what the track was called.” The band decided to take this new word Monsterosa as their name.

Inspired by the Marcovaldo stories, Wilson has written his own lyrics. Calvino would have heartily approved of his approach. According to Adam Pollock, who worked with Calvino on a Mozart opera project:

“Calvino felt that adaptations of literary works for other media need not, indeed should not, be totally faithful to the original. He argued that every art form has its own priorities.”

In a late set of essays written just before he died, Calvino wrote about two qualities which he considered to be essential in art. One is “lightness”, and in my opinion this is a characteristic which is often overlooked. A light work may be unfairly judged as being slight, and not taken seriously; take bossa nova, for example. Because such music has pretty tunes and an agreeable combination of instruments which are easy on the ear, the subtlety and profundity of a work may be missed. Monsterosa’s The Seasons in the City has a pleasant lightness to it, and the whole ensemble play with a deftness and sensitivity appropriate for the charming but actually quite troubling subject matter.

The work also has “consistency”, Calvino’s other cherished characteristic. There are no longueurs; the music drives forward with fascinating variety until its charming conclusion. You don’t need to read Calvino to appreciate this finely crafted album, but I would recommend that you do.

CREDITS:

Music, lyrics and arrangements by Graeme B Wilson.

Musicians:

• Rebecca Hollweg – vocals
• Graeme Wilson – saxophones and other woodwinds, piano, balafon
• Ross Milligan – guitars
• Andy Hamill – double bass & harmonicas
• Tom Gordon – drums, percussion
• Ruby Hamill – backing vocals (track 9)
• Julian Ferrareto – violin (tracks 1, 2, and 4)
• Chris Letcher – organ (track 6)

Tracks:

1. The Seasons In The City
2. Awake In The Park
3. Domatilla
4. Monsterosa
5. Venti Secondi
6. A Forest
7. Brains For Turnip
8. Into The Billows
9. The Damages
10. The Seasons In The City
11. A Moment In Midstream

The post Monsterosa – ‘The Seasons in the City’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

It is her tribute to ten iconic women singers and songwriters, who have had a massive influence on the development of the popular song. This is Morris’s lock-down project. She and her husband artist Mark Pulsford spent the months of isolation studying the lives of pioneering singers and musicians, women whose music is world famous, but whose stories are less well known. Together Morris and Pulsford then wrote a series of song lyrics, each an illuminating, sometimes shocking tale from the lives of these remarkable women.

Morris then got together with her long time co-writer/co-producer/guitarist Tony Rémy to write the music. Each song would be absolutely contemporary, it would also reflect the styles, forms and influences of the artists depicted. The ten women chosen are: Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Annie Lennox and Kate Bush – representing a wide mixture of styles of popular music.

To honour the legacies of these stars, whilst creating new work demands a breadth of experience of different popular musical forms as well as great versatility in performance styles. Clearly Morris and Rmy have the necessary skills.

The Sisterhood is a musical tour de force. Right from the funky opening bars of the Aretha Franklin tribute Sisterhood, with its rousing refrain “We lock arms in sisterhood”, the wall of sound arrangement, and beautiful Jason Rebello piano solo, you know you are in for a musical ride. Bessie Smith gets a potted biography, Couldn’t Be Without, and a lovely horn arrangement courtesy of Byron Wallen. I was impressed by the way Rémy comfortably inhabits the wild man rock guitar of Big Brother and the Holding Company on the Janis Joplin inspired Tomorrow Never Happens. Morris, who once, inexplicably, was passed over by Hollywood to play Joplin in a biopic, a role for which she would have been perfect, is right at home in that rock genre.

The hit single of the album for me would be the Nina Simone homage So Much Love, for which Rémy has written a soul ballad with a smooth groove and Sally Herbert, former fellow-Communard violinist turned orchestral arranger, has provided a lush string arrangement – it’s a lovely tune which deserves airplay.

Most of the lives of the women featured are extraordinary. Morris says of On the Jazz Side of the Road, the song she wrote for Rickie Lee Jones: “Her grandfather was a one-legged tap dancer in vaudeville. You couldn’t make that up. She went out for a year with Tom Waits. Dr John got her hooked on heroin. She was influenced by Van Morrison and she was hitching her way round America aged 12. It’s all in this song….”

Then comes a complete change, Rimbaud of Suburbia, Morris’s homage to Kate Bush whom she links to Rimbaud – both started their creative lives as young teenagers. There are guest appearances from Orphy Robinson on vibes, David Coulter on jaws harp, some appropriately electronic drums from Martyn Barker (echoes of Peter Gabriel in there somehow) and a dreamy pop string arrangement from Italian cellist Enrico Melozzi, with whom Morris has played over many years.

I am on more familiar territory with the next track, a homage to one of my favourites, Joni Mitchell. Nice details in this one – something of a Tom Scott period feel, Patrick Clahar has a lovely solo, another set of strings from Melozzi, and the repeated line “Joni of starlight”.

And so the variety continues with, in my opinion the other hit single of the piece, the Billie Holiday tribute Junk in my Trunk. It’s a gentle jazz/hip hop number underpinned by drummer Westley Joseph, with a plethora of guitars and some gorgeous brass from Quentin Collins.

A classy piece dedicated to Annie Lennox For the Voiceless celebrates both her music, and her work for human rights charities, before the tribute to Miriam Makeba brings the album (and the live show too) to a rousing close, with the huge sound of the Soweto Gospel Choir, Morris’s voice weaving in and out, above and below.

Morris and Rémy play with their usual bandmates – Henry Thomas on bass guitar, Tim Cansfield on guitar, and new member Jason Rebello on piano and keyboards. The band is augmented by many starry friends and colleagues and there are guest appearances from Courtney Pine and Dominic Miller too, arrangements from The Chaps, with sterling work from backing singers Gina Foster and Beverley Skeete.

Rémy’s guitar runs through the album, though so chameleon-like is his playing that you may need to check the sleeve notes, as I did to see who was playing which guitar bits on Miss Makeba (answer Tony Rémy – all guitars). His range is astonishing, playing every kind of guitar, including bass, but also keyboards, and even occasionally drums and drum programming.

What ties this varied collection of songs together is Morris’s magnificent voice. As John Fordham writes in the liner notes, on first hearing Morris in the 1980s: “Sarah Jane’s sound caught the raw majesty of legends like Janis Joplin and Nina Simone, and her octave-vaulting contralto range stretched from sonorous reverberating low tones to a searingly soulful falsetto.”

These new songs act as a showcase for the breadth and versatility of that unique voice. Morris is also a compelling live performer.

Track Listing – all songs by Morris/Rémy/Pulsford

Sisterhood (Aretha Franklin)
Couldn’t Be Without (Bessie Smith)
Tomorrow Never Happens (Janis Joplin)
So Much Love (Nina Simone)
Jazz Side of the Road (Rickie Lee Jones)
Rimbaud of Suburbia (Kate Bush)
Sing Me a Picture (Joni Mitchell)
Junk in My Trunk (Billie Holiday)
For the Voiceless (Annie Lennox)
Miss Makeba (Miriam Makeba)

The post Sarah Jane Morris – ‘The Sisterhood’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The Sisterhood is celebrated soul singer and pop diva Sarah Jane Morris’s lockdown project when she, like so many musicians, was stuck at home with no gigs but plenty of time to think.

She had recently finished a recording which involved singing Beatles songs, online, with an Italian string quartet. (After lockdown this turned into a successful British and Italian tour, and a lovely CD, All You Need is Love – Solis String Quartet & Sarah Jane Morris)

This Italian Beatles endeavour got her pondering her own musical inspiration, in particular the women who had impressed her as a young singer.

She started to research and re-listen to a broad range of personally significant singer-songwriters, and so she sat down with husband Mark Pulsford, and they got to work. Theirs is a house without a TV, so instead of piling through streamed TV series, like so many of us during lockdown, Morris and Pulsford spent time reading biographies to each other and discussing the often extraordinary and frequently tragic lives of some extremely talented women. From this came the idea of writing a song cycle, each piece a miniature telling of a particular woman’s story, and the two of them together crafted the lyrics for The Sisterhood.

The field was narrowed down to ten artists: Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Annie Lennox and Kate Bush, each a major influence. (There are more songs in the pipeline).

With her creative right hand man Tony Remy, Morris agreed that the songs would use the musical form and style of each chosen artist. This of course demands great versatility from the performers as well as compositional flair. Fortunately Morris and Remy are both well known for the broad range of musical genres in which they happily perform, including the rock, jazz, blues, and many shades of pop and soul required for this project.

However a project of this scale and ambition requires funding, so Morris went into overdrive as soon as lockdown was lifted. She spent time in Italy, where she is a household name in the pop world, doing shows, and guesting with other Italian stars, appearing on Italian TV. She ran singing masterclasses on the South Coast where she lives, gigged as much as she could in this country, and Pulsford, who is a painter, sold some paintings. They also set up a Gofundme page (link below)

The result of all these efforts is an album, The Sisterhood to be launched next Spring. I have heard it, and it is a musical tour de force for Morris and Remy. With her band augmented by friends including Courtney Pine, Jason Rebello, Dominic Miller and Patrick Clahar, and with string arrangements by Sally Herbert, former Communard violinist, now orchestral arranger, the results are impressive. The unifying element of these ten very different songs is SJM’s magnificent voice.

A single from the album has already been released, The Jazz Side of the Road, written for Rickie Lee Jones (more detail)

Rickie Lee Jones heard it, and commented online: “Sarah Jane Morris thank you, you have gone right into my heart, like a convertible GTO at a drive through car wash, except the top was down and everything got all wet. Moms gonna kill us. Tears today, lots of tears. Thank you for this Truth. I dig it, and I am honoured”.

The show will be performed by a specially extended twelve piece band, with special guests, and with a virtual appearance from the Soweto Gospel Choir. It should be a thrilling night out.

The post Sarah Jane Morris – new show ‘The Sisterhood’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Biscoe has previously successfully explored the music of American jazz greats Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus among others. I have enjoyed these, so was pleased to hear that he would be reimagining Westbrook music too. He explains: “The idea behind Music Is is a simple one: take some of these great pieces out of their context and play them with a small jazz group as you might an Ellington, Monk or Gershwin song.”

The quintet here is ideal for the task – they are experienced, versatile and inventive players all. Like Biscoe, they have played across a broad spectrum of jazz and other musical genres.

On piano is Kate Williams, winner of Best Album in the 2020 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, and long-time Biscoe collaborator.  Her contributions are thoughtful and understated. Virtuoso Mike Outram is on guitar. The rhythm section are Jon Scott on drums – who now plays with GoGo Penguin – and Dave Whitford on bass, who has played with so many greats from Bobby Wellins to Bill Frisell. These two are sensitive foils throughout. This is a truly empathetic ensemble .

When one goes back to the original Westbrook recordings after listening to Music Is, what is very striking is how simple Biscoe keeps his arrangements. He chooses just a theme or two from the dense and complex pieces he is revisiting. Some of the arrangements were created in the studio collaboratively, and two are unaccompanied saxophone tracks. The album begins and ends with the title track Music Is, taken from On Duke’s Birthday, a glorious Westbrook melody played first in its original tempo, and reprised for the final track as an endearing waltz.

My favourite is View From The Drawbridge. The quintet had an initial run-through of this beautiful tune – a couple of them had not played it before – which fortunately was recorded.  This is the version that appears here, and it is perfect. 

Wasteground and Weeds is a lovely tune which really should be a jazz standard by now.  I have only heard one other version, by a classical soprano at Trinity Laban – where the Westbrook Collection of music scores is held – it worked well because it’s a great song. Biscoe’s take is a delight – he plays solo baritone, improvising and embellishing, finding new facets in the music while still maintaining the wistful yet joyful mood of the original.

I love this album. It is a pleasure to hear these great Westbrook tunes being treated by Biscoe as the standards they deserve to be.  

A special recommendation to buy the physical CD – Biscoe, like Westbrook, is articulate about his art, and also about the life of the touring musician.  The liner notes are informative and amusing and illustrated with a couple of photo portraits and some lovely pictures by Kate Westbrook, a fine painter as well as musician, who always travels with sketchbook and watercolours. 

The post Chris Biscoe – ‘Music Is’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Frisell said: “It was traumatic not to be with people, so I picked up my guitar, and my guitar saved me.” 

The quartet is new, with Gregory Tardy – clarinet / saxophone, Gerald Clayton – piano and Johnathan Blake – drums and Frisell mainly playing electric guitar. Frisell has known the musicians for many years, and has played with each of them individually in different contexts, but this is the first time they have all worked together. It turns out to be a lovely thing.

There are nine new compositions based on fragments which Frisell had turning around in his head during his exile, linked to remembering old friends – musical soulmate Ron Miles, painter Claude Utley, music producer Hal Willner and his friend since childhood Alan Woodard.

There are also three old tunes revisited from 1999 Good Dog Happy Man, Monroe, Pioneers and one from 1988 Lookout for Hope.

The pieces, many of them first takes, are great – the playing is matchless, no-one dominates, and each musician plays with great sensitivity. The album is called Four and it does feel like a proper collaboration between the four artists. Even so, the overall sound will be familiar to Frisell fans, because he always is so very much himself whatever the setting, and whoever he is playing with. There are the usual elements of Americana – melodies like half remembered spirituals or blues. Then there are elements of contemporary classical music, echoes of Aaron Copland and Nino Rota. Underneath it all is the groove of jazz, albeit finely textured, melodic chamber jazz. Despite the underlying melancholia, there are still moments of joyfulness and lightness, particularly in my two favourite tracks Holiday and Waltz for Hal Willner.

In an interview with Don Was, president of Blue Note Records (embedded below), Frisell explains the memorial aspect of the album. In the same way that his house is filled with paintings by his recently deceased friend Utley, he maintains that his own playing is permeated with the influences his musical friends have had on him over many years.

“Music is for me the most tangible solid way of keeping these people with us, you know…”

Musicians:

Bill Frisell – Electric Guitar, Baritone Guitar and Acoustic Guitar

Gregory Tardy – Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet and Bass Clarinet

Gerald Clayton – Piano

Johnathan Blake – Drums

Track Listing: ( All compositions by Bill Frisell)

1. Dear Old Friend (for Alan Woodard)
2. Claude Utley
3. The Pioneers
4. Holiday
5. Waltz for Hal Willner
6. Lookout for Hope
7. Monroe
8. Wise Woman
9. Blues from Before
10. Always
11. Good Dog, Happy Man
12. Invisible
13. Dog on a Roof

The post Bill Frisell – ‘Four’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

This album is performed by a broad sweep of artists from the younger end of the R&B, soul and jazz scenes. Surprisingly to me, many tracks are actual songs, with an emphasis on the soul and R&B side of things. The choice of Blue Note artists covered is also interesting. There’s a muscular take of Monk’s Epistrophy from 1948 by tuba virtuoso Theon Cross and drummer/producer Emre Ramazanoglu, but the rest of the pieces selected are from the 60s, 70s, a couple from the 90s and two Norah Jones tunes – Don’t Know Why from 2002 sung by Parthenope and Sunrise from 2004 by Cherise Adams-Burnett, lovely voices and both new to me.

There are four Donald Byrd covers. Ned Franc and Jon Moody and their two backing vocalists sound like a whole choir as they present Donald Byrd’s Christo Redentor (1963) as a film soundtrack by Morricone with a funky beat. Venna and Marco Bernardis with vocalist Fabienne Holloway play a later Byrd piece Where Are We Going (1972) in a different cinematic style – classy jazz fusion I can imagine playing behind some film title sequence featuring a night cityscape. There’s Miss Kane from 1973, played in a lush Neil Waters arrangement by Cameron Palmer and his extensive band plus the string section of the Moscow Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and tons of 1970s style jazz flute. Nubiyan Twist use several fine vocalists in their complex arrangement of Byrd’s Through the Noise (1963).

There are two lovely Wayne Shorter tunes. Singer/pianist Reuben James gives us a version of Infant Eyes from 1964, all shimmering piano and ethereal vocals. Bassist Daniel Casimir (who first came to my attention playing with Jean Toussaint) plays a charming version of Lost from 1965 with a terrific quintet: James Copus – trumpet; Richard Spaven – drums; Sarah Tandy – piano and singer Ria Moran (who also sings with Nubiyan Twist on this disc) – definitely a group of talents to watch.

I was surprised to come across one of my favourite Neil Young tunes – Harvest Moon, nicely performed here by Maya Delilah – apparently Cassandra Wilson recorded a version for Blue Note in 1995. The excellent Kay Young performs another unexpected song – an arrangement of Roberta Flack’s Feel Like Making Love, inspired by the Marlena Shaw version for Blue Note in 1974.

Honourable mention for Yazz Ahmed’s reinvention of a Chick Corea tune from 1969, and for Binker Golding’s energetic Joe Lovano reimagining. Together with the bonkers Theon Cross Monk arrangement, these three tracks to me capture the spirit of the old Blue Note innovators.

TRACK LISTING

1. Yazz Ahmed – It

from Chick Corea Is (1969)

2. Conor Albert – You Make Me Feel So Good

from Bobbi Humphrey Fancy Dancer (1975)

3. Parthenope – Don’t Know Why

from Norah Jones Come Away with Me (2002)

4. Swindle – Miss Kane

from Donald Byrd Street Lady (1973)

5. Nubiyan Twist – Through the Noise (Chant No.2)

from Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)

6. Ego Ella May – The Morning Side of Love

from Chico Hamilton Peregrinations (1975)

7. Oscar Jerome & Oscar #Worldpeace – (Why You So) Green With Envy

from Grant Green Green Street (1961)

8. Daniel Casimir ft. Ria Moran – Lost

from Wayne Shorter The Soothsayer (1965)

9. Theon Cross – Epistrophy

from Thelonious Monk Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1 (1948)

10. Maya Delilah – Harvest Moon

from Cassandra Wilson New Moon Daughter (1995)

11. Kay Young – Feel Like Making Love

from Marlena Shaw Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? (1974)

12. Venna & Marco Bernardis – Where Are We Going

from Donald Byrd Black Byrd (1972)

13. Reuben James – Infant Eyes

from Wayne Shorter Speak No Evil (1964)

14. Binker Golding – Fort Worth

from Joe Lovano From the Soul (1991)

15. Cherise – Sunrise

from Norah Jones Feels Like Home (2004)

16. Franc Moody – Cristo Redentor

from Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)

The post Various Artists first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Malcolm John (Mac) Rebennack Jr, AKA Dr John grew up in New Orleans in a very musical family, listening to blues, jazz and country. He decided to become a performing musician after meeting pianist Professor Longhair when he was fourteen. By the time he was fifteen he was working in recording studios, playing guitar and piano for various artists including Art Neville and Allen Toussaint, at which point he left school. In his long career he seems to have covered all the musical genres available in New Orleans – jazz, funk, boogie-woogie and rock’n’roll and those of Memphis and Nashville too. I first came across him in the 1970s when he was performing as Dr John the Night Tripper, making those fabulous voodoo funk hits.

I have had the good fortune to see Dr John perform twice. The first time was a gig at the Prince of Orange pub in Rotherhithe in 1984. I sometimes can hardly believe that it took place, it seems so unlikely – a master of New Orleans piano, for free, in Rotherhithe. It wasn’t busy and my friends and I sat just a few feet away from the piano. The support band were a local group led by a 22 year old Jon Cleary called King Kleary and the Savage Mooses who played New Orleans style music. We used to go and see them play whenever we could, as they were terrific. This time they also acted as Dr John’s backing band. I remember Cleary getting up from the piano stool and strapping on an electric guitar as a frail and intoxicated Dr John was led in to take his place. It was a superlative night of New Orleans music, which I feel lucky to have witnessed. Jon Cleary left for New Orleans soon after this, and worked with Dr John many times over the years, including on this new album.

The second time was years later at the Barbican. I was happy to see a bright-eyed Dr John, fully recovered from his addictions, stride boldly over to the piano, cane in hand, and play another tremendous gig, this time with his own large band.

I settled down with some trepidation to listen to the new record – much as I love Dr John, country is not my favourite genre and I was initially a little underwhelmed. Second time through, and I began to hear the New Orleans undertow. Dr John’s singing, in particular, makes the listener hear the lyrics of those trite songs in a different way, as any master’s take on an old standard should. Take the two Hank Williams songs here. Ramblin’ Man has been performed with a sort of “Look at me, I break hearts and then I’m on my way” swagger. Dr John’s take is simpler somehow, unheroic and with a touchingly plaintive train whistle at the end. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry is sung absolutely straight but so wistfully, with Shane Heriot accompanying on various guitars including lap steel.

The opening track is his old friend Willie Nelson’s Funny How Time Slips Away. It is beautifully played in a pared back New Orleans style with an understated 2^nd Line backing made up of fine New Orleans session musicians including two lovely backing vocalists. Willie Nelson appears again to sing and play guitar on Gimme That Old Time Religion in which Dr John touches on another musical tradition by briefly taking us to church.

Willie Nelson’s son Lukas and his band play on a reworking of Dr John’s 1968 hit I Walk on Guilded Splinters, which seems even darker than the original. If you ever wanted to know what that song is about, the accompanying liner notes provide the lyrics.

Bob Dylan has spoken warmly about Dr John’s cover of The Travelling Wilbury’s End of the Line. It’s another unpretentious take which rolls gently along with Dr John in fine voice. He is joined by guest vocalists Aaron Neville, New Orleans contemporary and old friend, and a young alt-country star from Nashville, Katie Pruitt. Those three very different voices together are a delight as they call and respond their way through the song.

There are three new country-inspired songs written by Dr John and guitarist Shane Theriot performed in a modest style – it will be interesting to see if they are picked up by Country and Western singers.

The final song Guess Things Happen That Way, which gives the album its title, was written by Cowboy Jack Clement, a prolific writer of country songs, in 1958. It was a hit for Johnny Cash, and has been recorded by lots of country stars. This is a melancholic reading.

As for Jon Cleary, now such a firmly established figure on the New Orleans music scene that he made a cameo appearance in Treme, the post-Katrina set TV series – he is there in the background, adding to the gumbo feel on several tracks with his B3 embellishments, and occasionally providing additional keyboards for his old friend and mentor Dr John.

PERFORMERS

Dr John – vocal, piano

Shane Theriot – guitars

Tony Hall / Will Lee / Corey McCornick – bass

Carlo Nuccio / Herlin Riley / Anthony Logerfo – drums

Jon Cleary – B3 organ, additional keyboards

David Torkanowsky – Wurlitzer piano

Mark Mullins – trombone, horn arrangements

Alonzo Bowens – tenor sax

Leon ‘Kid Chocolate’ Brown – trumpet

Yolanda Robinson – background vocals

Jolyinda ‘Kiki’ Chapman – background vocals

Matthew Breaux – background vocals

Also featuring

Willie Nelson – vocal, guitar

Lukas Nelson – vocal, guitar (and his band Promise of the Real)

Katie Pruitt – vocal

Aaron Neville – vocal

TRACK LISTING

1. Funny How Time Slips Away
2. Ramblin’ Man
3. Gimme That Old Time Religion
4. I Walk on Guilded Splinters
5. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
6. End of the Line
7. Holy Water
8. Sleeping Dogs Best Left Alone
9. Give Myself a Good Talkin’ to
10. Guess Things Happen That Way

The post Dr John – ‘Things Happen That Way’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

‘Round Midnight is a glimpse of the life of fictional American musician Dale Turner (played with great dignity and reflectiveness by legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon) who goes to Paris in 1959 suffering from various addictions and ailments – he is making a new start after losing a close friend to addiction in New York. He strikes up a friendship with Parisian jazz enthusiast Francis (François Cluzet) who helps him get back on his feet, and into the recording studio again. We first see Francis crouching in the pouring rain outside the jazz club where Dale is playing, too poor to pay to get in, but clearly loving what he can hear through an air vent onto the street.

The story is loosely based on the true tale of the relationship between commercial artist Francis Paudras and pianist/composer Bud Powell whom Paudras met on Powell’s arrival in Paris, alcoholic and unwell, in the early sixties. Paudras published his memoir of those times in La Danse des Infidèles in 1986. Gordon bases his character Dale Turner on an amalgam of (his contemporary) Bud Powell and of Lester Young, who allegedly drank himself to death in Paris in 1959 aged just 49.

This film is beautifully made and structured. The sets are by Alexandre Trauner, another master of his craft who designed for many classic French and American films including Quai des Brumes, Les Enfants du Paradis, The Apartment, The Man Who Would Be King and Luc Besson’s Subway. His street sets are particularly brilliant – evocative of both Paris, and, in the colour palette and lighting, of films of that time. The camerawork is fluid and the direction is wonderful. As Maxine Gordon, Gordon’s widow, recalls, “One of the remarkable things about ’Round Midnight is how much improvisation went into the development of the characters and the story line.” The acting is understated and realistic, and the pace is gentle and elegiac.

The music is of course the backbone of the whole enterprise. Tavernier wrote in the liner notes to the CD of the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: “For many years I had been struggling to make a totally free, genuine, and uncompromising film that would testify to my passionate love for jazz, especially bebop.”

The soundtrack is composed, arranged and conducted by a very youthful looking Herbie Hancock. Tavernier and Hancock had decided not to try and replicate the music of the fifties, but to take a looser approach to musical style. Hancock and Gordon chose most of the musicians, except for bassist Pierre Michelot who was suggested by Tavernier himself because he had played with Bud Powell and Miles Davis.

The musical performances are extraordinary, in that they were all filmed and recorded directly, so what you are hearing is being played live. It sounds and looks authentic because it is. An added thrill for the jazz fan is recognising the various eminent musicians who pop up. The rhythm section in the main has Billy Higgins, who played drums with Gordon for years – and Pierre Michelot, as mentioned above. Some musicians have speaking roles alongside Gordon and acquit themselves very well: there’s Herbie Hancock (as Eddie Wayne – bandleader), Bobby Hutcherson, the great vibes player as Ace (each time he appears at his door he has a pan of food in his hands), Lonette McKee (as Darcy Leigh – Turner’s former lover). Gordon, who stands at almost two metres tall, a literal towering presence, is rarely off the screen, and is as at ease as if he has acted all his life.

Gordon’s playing is beautiful, doing that familiar thing of taking well-known melodies and making them sound fresh and new – including the title track ‘Round Midnight, Body and Soul, How Long Has This Been Going On, and a very lively Rhythm-a-ning. Hancock contributes three new compositions, including one very pretty ballad co-written with Stevie Wonder, Chan’s Song (Never Said), for which Hancock wrote several arrangements. He won an Oscar for Best Original Score, quite rightly.

There are performances from Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Palle Mikkelborg, John McLaughlin, Cedar Walton, Lonette McKee and, off screen, from Chet Baker and Bobby McFerrin.

There are also guest appearances from a couple of well-known French stars, and a cameo from Martin Scorsese.

I loved this film when I first saw it at the cinema in 1986, and I am happy to report that it stands the test of time. It would be lovely to go and see it on a big screen again, preferably at the Rex in Paris, or an outdoor screening at some summer festival, but until that is possible, buy this splendid new Blu-ray, or persuade your local library to purchase a copy, and watch it at home. You are in for a real treat.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack
• Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, supervised by composer Herbie Hancock and presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
• New interview with jazz critic Gary Giddins
• New conversation with music producer Michael Cuscuna and author Maxine Gordon, widow of musician Dexter Gordon
• Behind-the-scenes documentary from 19TK[ck]
• Panel discussion from 2014 featuring director Bertrand Tavernier, Cuscuna, Maxine Gordon, and jazz scholar John Szwed, moderated by jazz critic and broadcaster Mark Ruffin
• Performance from 1969 of “Fried Bananas” by Dexter Gordon, directed by Teit Jørgensen[ck]
• Excerpt from the 1996 documentary Dexter Gordon: More Than You Know, by Don McGlynn[ck]
• New English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing 
• Essay by Mark Anton Neal about Round Midnight

(The CD Original Motion Picture Soundtrack “Round Midnight” Herbie Hancock/Dexter Gordon CDCBS 70300 is also still available for order)

The post Bertrand Tavernier’s ‘Round Midnight’ (1986) first appeared on UK Jazz News.

She founded Laughing with the Raindrops in 2013, and this is their second release. Lacour-Puiboube wrote, arranged and produced all the music. She studied for an MMus in Music Performance at the London College of Music, and for this album draws on her studies there, where she focussed on “the creation of narratives in song”. Voice on Shellac is a “concept” album, inspired by the lives of her relatives, from glimpses of old photographs, and family stories, including the tale of a wonderful sounding grandmother, who flew planes, played piano and whose voice survives on an old shellac recording.

And what a fine storyteller VL-P is! Each song is arranged in the appropriate musical style for the time period of the story, and the lyrics tell the stories in a deceptively simple yet highly visual way, reminiscent of Joni Mitchell.

The opening song Voice on Shellac is a delightful ballad which tells of the young VL-P’s discovery of the shellac recording of her maternal grandmother and goes on to a describe moments from this extraordinary woman’s life. The band are immaculate, VL-P’s singing is fresh and touching, and Paul Higgs plays an absolutely beautiful muted trumpet solo.

Perro Caliente is about her maternal grandfather. It begins in a funky Donald Fagen-esque style, with splendid guitar, and then segues expertly into a sprightly samba at the point in the narrative when the grandfather makes his outrageous departure to Venezuela. Honourable mention to Theo Travis for his wild tenor saxophone on this one.

There is a pleasant bossa nova Who is Eduardito? inspired by a photo of a small boy with a balloon in the family album, with the words “Para mi hermana” (“for my sister”) scrawled on the back, suggesting a possible half brother on the Caracas side of the family. This time Paul Higgs plays beautifully on flugelhorn.

The Letter tells the tale of VL-P’s parents’ divorce, and a family ruckus, in a 1970s rock ballad form with VL-P in lovely voice.

Two Runaways relates the story of VL-P’s mother and grandmother travelling the world, presented as a long Reggae Dub – it begins as an upbeat story of freedom and travel, but with a sad refrain from VL-P’s mother as a child “But Mummy when will we get there?” and ends with a strong soulful solo from Theo Travis.

The final sequence is set in 1974, in three parts. Part 1 is my favourite song on the album, the lyrics describe an idyllic moment in childhood. It’s a jazz ballad, a gentle waltz with the magnificent and very versatile Gabriel Keen channelling Bill Evans on the piano. The melody is glorious, the arrangement is a delight and the piano is gorgeous. Sadly the idyll is short-lived – Part 2 is written in an anxiety inducing 7/8, which is absolutely appropriate to the trauma the song describes. VL-P describes the style of Part 3 as “Lazy Funk”. It is a song about dealing with grief, and poor counselling, with Gabriel Keen providing a Prog Rock keyboard solo, and interjections of “Move on!”, “Get over it!” and other banalities from backing vocalist Lutfia. It’s a disquieting end piece. Fortunately there is a reprise of Voice on Shellac to calm the listener at the end of the album, this time with a fine guitar solo from Neil McBennett.

MUSICIANS:

Drums- David Ingamells, Bass – Alexander Keen, Piano/Keyboards – Gabriel Keen. Trumpet/Flugel/Melodica – Paul HiggsTenor Saxophone – Theo Travis, Lead Vocal/Guitar – Virginie Lacour-Puiboube, Guitar – Neil McBennett, Backing Vocals – Lutfia

Voice on Shellac is released on vinyl on 13 April 2022, but before then there is a live performance with a short film in Camden on 10 April for the launch. There will be further performances in London on 22 May and 10 June.

The post Laughing with the Raindrops – ‘Voice on Shellac’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.