Always difficult to write about Basildon, the weight of history, stereotyping and economic depression forever pressing down.  But for me, it’s a place permanently jazz-connected.  It’s where I learnt about the British scene from seeing The Westbrook Brass Band, Alan Skidmore, Abdullah Ibrahim and Loose Tubes often at Basildon’s Towngate Theatre. It was originally a 60s municipal pre-fab, transformed into a glorious, intimate Georgian style theatre, plus studio & modernist foyers. It’s had a chequered history since those heady days of adventurous programming in the 70s & 80, but the venue seems to be on an even keel now and is offering artist development schemes & scratch nights alongside its mainstream offer. Maybe they’ll even revive the 25-piece Scratch Orchestra that flourished there briefly, an open workshop, all-ability band whose framework was based on the Search & Reflect teachings of John Stevens…?

Meanwhile, the theatre has just instituted a Jazz Cafe, a bar-based lunchtime performance slot and first off was a trio led by John Seeley, Dartington graduate, locally-based clarinet & sax teacher, workshop leader and performer.  Superbly supported by Humph veteran Ted Beament on keys and Mark Rich on bass, they gave us a couple of hours of perfectly-pitched standards.  Seeley’s delivery of well-known themes on alto and clarinet was always measured, with subtle flourishes and emphases showing his command of the songbook material.  Opening the set on alto with a blues (in the closet), a couple of songbook tunes and a (recado) bossa, he returned to his first instrument for “the first ones you learn if you’re going to do jazz” and gave us Autumn Leaves and Georgia where his signature trills and a superb outro solo on the latter actually caused the casual users of the bar to stop eating and talking. Other standouts included I’ll Close My Eyes and Summertime which really took off, a highlight of the second set.  Beament’s work is probably more well-known to UK Jazz readers but his scope and comping experience only ever complemented Seeley, while Rich’s bass subtly underpinned both throughout.

A thoroughly fine set, and looking forward to more from this project. And Basildon’s artists, home-grown and visiting.

The post John Seeley, Ted Beament , Mark Rich in Basildon first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Long-standing favourites from the 70s (Ida Lupino and The New Funeral March/New National Anthem from A Genuine Tong Funeral) and a substantial core of 80s Big Band pieces were leavened with sensitive renditions of Útviklingssang, featuring a fulsome tenor solo from Zak Barrett, and Lawns, with the rarely heard vocal setting given by Ted Porter, whose trumpet work elsewhere was equally spare, fresh & exquisite. He was complemented in this by Geof Harris‘ ranging bass solo.  

It’s those Big Band numbers with their always surprising hooks that really grab your attention. With Dave Jago leading from the front and giving a damn fine impression of Gary Valente’s soaring, bluesy trombone, Song Sung Long, Real Life Hits and of course, the magsterial The Lord Is Listening To Ya, Hallelujah! shone through, capturing the seriously quirky Bley humour. He revelled in the Preacher-groove of Who Will Rescue You, bringing the band with him with really focused conducting. Tony Gooderham‘s keys delivered both Burton vibes & Bley-er piano, and he really rocked it in Sing Me Softly Of The Blues. Barrett and Porter blew fine solos throughout, but especially in Vashkar – Zak on soprano, Ted commanding on trumpet. They flew with Jago into a rousing encore of Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Sack Full of Soul – a preview of the band’s upcoming Kirk project. (not one of Carla’s, but felt pretty close). Throughout, Trevor Taylor‘s driving drumming was as persistent and on the mark as his long history of promoting jazz in the area. 

Southend has its pier. Which is great, but it is also very lucky to have the Jazz825 programme. Next week (drum roll…): Chris Biscoe plays Westbrook!

Mandala:

Zak Barrett – Saxophone
Ted Porter – Trumpet
Dave Jago – Trombone
Tony Gooderham – Piano
Geof Harris – Bass
Trevor Taylor (drums)

Every Wednesday, Royal Hotel, Southend-on-Sea. 

The post Mandala plays the music of Carla Bley first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Alto saxophonist Mike Chillingworth describes the set’s genesis “during a multi-day bus tour with fifty teenagers. With only headphones and an iPad for company I began experimenting with polyrhythms…” Now, some might call that the most euphemistic coping mechanism known to jazz, but whatever the impetus, he’s come up with six compositions that satisfyingly deliver on his intention.

Opening with the title track, the polyrhythmic spree gets well under way, displaying elements of Evidence in Mike’s precision alto lines and Jon Scott’s effortlessly timed shots. Mike’s full range is laid out on the following Kilter Filter, and there’s a stately ballad section here where Ivo Neame’s incredibly fulsome piano explores every niche. The pace slows for one of the album’s standouts, Narwhal, where Mike’s alto tone is at its most plangent.I can’t recall if I felt Tom Farmer was channelling his best Charlie Haden before I checked the notes to find the track was inspired by Paul Motian, but his bass work here and in the next track Sink Or Swim‘s feature solo is exemplary. Driving this one to its coda is a delightful freewheeling theme gently underpinned by Ivo.

In Steve Swallow’s intricate Ladies In Mercedes, the coiled excitement completely fits the album’s purpose. I’m sure Steve (and Carla) would smile on this superb rendition with its joyful, rising finale. Mike nods generously to Mingus in the whirling, bluesy theme of Keep It Simple and its (anything but simple) tight ensemble work. The album closes, appropriately with his own Coach Trip Special, where skittering rhythmic figures and headlong semitonal shifts keep you on your toes. Again, the rhythm section is exemplary in keeping it together, while Mike’s blowing is a masterclass of graceful precision.

I started by invoking Evidence and inevitably, it and Monk are often recalled throughout, but that’s not a bad shadow to be under. Mike has made an album that could be demanding, though is anything but: the pleasure in the exciting compositions and their exhilirating delivery by four top players is welcome. I suggest you get on board this particular coach trip.

The post Mike Chillingworth – ‘Friday The Thirteenth’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

No surprises in this upbeat set drawing mainly on 20’s standards, leavened with Ellington, Gillespie & Parker. We were served a great selection of horn-led heads and generous soloing passing round the band. The pace let up in Creole Blues with Braysher’s remarkably mature alto, while the second set opened with a terrific reading of Beiderbecke’s Jazz Me Blues that seemed entirely fresh and contemporary.

Horsfall introduced his own composition Blue Peter as “An original, but don’t worry about it” and the audience needn’t have: it fitted perfectly alongside classics like Dizzy’s Blue ‘n’ Boogie & Parker’s Street Beat. He certainly deserves a badge…

Horsfall’s soaring trumpet, Braysher’s tremendously tenor-y sound, and the relaxed fluidity of Mullen schmoozed an appreciative audience that included Southend’s two MPs, both looking visibly wowed. 

The festival is its 4th year and perseveres with the incredibly hard work of founder Darren Harper and his stalwart volunteers. A solid programme of dependable headliners – Derek Nash, Southend’s very own Snowboy & Digby Fairweather, newcomers like Tara Minton and Lucy-Anne Daniels – follows this great good-time set, along with community-based bands & workshops. Indeed, the next day I took in some local talent: Dave Warren (not that one, but still a fine guitarist in his own right) leads a Chelmsford-based band DWJQ, a standards-crammed set delivered with gentle panache. As this goes to press, I’ll be playing with Dave in local player & teacher John Seeley‘s Big Band – a community-based workshop, and jamming with Zak Barrett on Thursday while literally looking down the longest pier in the world.

So yes, I’ve got skin in this game, as a local enthusiast and fan, but this reminds me that Southend does have a pretty regular jazz presence in Trevor Taylor‘s weekly Jazz 825 sessions and those at Digby Fairweather’s Jazz Centre, the latter now happily secured by the Council. The cause of jazz has been long fought for in Essex, not least by musicians like Trevor and Digby and – when it was still administratively part of Essex – even through the County Council, which once supported the UK’s first (and only) jazz animateur in the much-missed persona of promoter Joan Morrell who helped to launch the Southend Jazz Co-op which has given a weekly workshop presence for 30 years and counting…

But we also have a great range of venues, from galleries, through theatres, clubs and even the ubiquitous Pier, a range that equals Cheltenham’s, but lacks its fortunate festival infrastructure. Now that Southend’s a city, it deserves a programme that reflects its status and what’s been achieved with an even more adventurous and progressive offering, as well as the benefits of an easily accessible city with great road, rail & air links.

Here’s hoping that Darren’s tireless work, with the support of the hard-pressed Southend Council & Community Investment Board will help to open a new era of Jazz in the City.

Mighty Like The Blues
Pete Horsfall – trumpet
Jim Mullen – guita
Sam Braysher – alto
Mike Gorman – keys/bass
Matt Skelton – drums

SET LIST
Wabash Blues – Isham Jones 1921
How Long Blues – Carr & Blackwell 1928
Creole Blues – (Ellington ballad 1928, alto feature)
Blue ‘n’ Boogie – Gillespie 1944
The Intimacy of the Blues – Ellington 67/70
+ + +
Jazz Me Blues – Beiderbecke 1924
Blue Peter – (Horsfall original) 2020s
I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good) – Ellington 1944
Tin Roof Blues – Rhythm Kings 1923
I Got a Right to Sing the Blues – Arlen/Koehler 1932
Street Beat – Parker 1945

The post Pete Horsfall’s Mighty Like The Blues at the 2024 Southend Jazz Festival first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Like so many seaside towns, Southend-on-Sea is wearing the malaise of over a decade’s austerity and *cough* certain political decisions, its High Street sprouting vape and phone shops while big names soldier on forlornly among the bleak and empty shopfronts. One of those was given a new lease of life recently as The Ironworks, an arts centre, small-gig venue  & community hub, which is set to close because of funding hurdles. Given the optimism that came with recently-conferred City status, this sits uneasily. However, there’s a little flutter of good news on the jazz front.  The Jazz Centre UK has managed to secure its base at the town’s Beecroft Gallery with a 15 year-lease and continues its weekly Saturday afternoon gig programme (programme link below). So after sadly packing my tenor at our final Ironworks gig, I nipped up the High Street to catch the Mick Foster Quintet with Jonny Ford. 

This was in association with Susan May and her Spike’s Place programme, an entirely mainstream set from acclaimed baritone player Mick Foster, who’s also a much-respected teacher in the area. His love of Gerry Mulligan was to the fore, using a number of his classic arrangements (“Jersey Bounce” and “All The Things You Are”), the trumpet parts being taken by the remarkably fluid tenor of Jonny Ford who excelled himself on “Body and Soul”, where that sound we heard was Coleman Hawkins’ ghost, smiling appreciatively. Simply beautiful, mature playing with a commanding, ringing tone.

No surprises in a set-list aimed squarely at an established audience, though Bronisław Kaper’s “Invitation” and Mick’s own composition, “The Grasshopper” drew much approbation.  Some superbly lyrical guitar solos came from the masterful Dominic Ashworth (enjoyably so on Tenor Madness, giving the horns a run for their money) and stalwart underpinning from Tom Farmer’s bass and Tristan Mailliot’s kit. Mick’s baritone has the gentle giant quality in tone and attack, something that extends to his affable contact with the audience: a fine player, arranger and host.

Nothing to write home about?  On the contrary, everything to write home about.  So, while we’re here, let’s have one of those affable rounds of applause for Southend’s latest solos…

Stalwart programmer, contemporary jazz historian and drummer Trevor Taylor (who’s appearing at the Jazz Centre 9 March) continues to mount his great Jazz 825 programme at the Royal Hotel on Wednesday nights; and the Southend Jazz Co-op is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary of weekly workshops and occasional gigs, albeit at Hadleigh Old Fire Station, a few miles out of Southend High Street. It’s led by another of the area’s excellent jazz teachers, John Seeley (and, full declaration: I don my L-plate there every Saturday to try and get to grips with 2-5-1s…)  As I proofread this, I hear that BBC Radio 3 is revamping its schedules to include a weekday nightly hour of jazz, fronted by Soweto Kinch, and produced by Southend-based Karen Pearson of Folded Wing.  

All that said, the City of Southend finds itself unable to support initiatives such as The Ironworks and like so many local authorities, is having to make unpleasant choices about its investment in culture. What a pity. Grateful the Jazz Centre is here, but not at the expense of the Ironworks. It shouldn’t be either/or. But while all this goes on, Southend – or indeed the world – is a better place because people like Mick Foster live here.

SET LIST

Fascinatin’ Rhythm – Gershwin
Jersey Bounce – Wright-Plater-Bradshaw-Johnson arr. Mulligan
Invitation – Bronisław Kaper
All The Things You Are – Kern arr. Mulligan
Moonlight in Vermont – Blackburn-Suessdorf 
Tenor Madness – Rollins
What Is This Thing Called Love – Porter
Recado Bossa Nova – Ferreira
Body and Soul – Green
The Grasshopper – Foster

The post Mick Foster Quintet + Jonny Ford at The Jazz Centre UK first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Despite the context, explained at length by the project’s founders Martin Terefe and Dave Okumu who appropriately defined the sessions and album as “a channelling rather than a re-interpretation”, tonight’s set was so powerfully driven by the collective onstage that this brew’s mix seemed rather too heady, losing the focus and clarity displayed on the recording. We were assured the set would be “entirely improvised” though I’m fairly sure the album’s structure, with its own re-tellings of the original, were at the heart of it. “We don’t know what’s going to happen” is fine by me (I’ve been thrillingly assaulted by Bobby Previte and Peter Brotzmann, and any number of free jazz gigs) but my disappointment in this brew was its super-saturated nature that never fully crystallised. 

Some of the familiar Zawinul & Shorter themes which emerged on the album were less apparent tonight. That’s fine, as was the project’s decision not to feature a trumpet: however distinctive that voice is on the original, Miles’ own focus was on his collaborators. So here, my head says it’s hard to want those individual voices to supersede the collective endeavour, but when treated to bursts of Nubya Garcia’s, Theon Cross‘s & Okumu’s solos, my heart craved more. Okumu, who admitted to being “originally, highly sceptical” of the project now clearly has his heart in it, and his amazing fretwork spills & thrills, as always. Complemented by Raven Bush’s violin, the spirit of John McLaughlin was firmly acknowledged without mimicking: I just wish they were even more prominent on the ramparts of the sheer wall of sound. Cross’ thunderous bass lines complemented Tom Herbert’s electric & double-bass, though they too succumbed. Robert Stillman took the place of the album’s Shabaka Hutchings, but his fine bass clarinet – such an iconic move by Miles, and beautifully rendered by Hutchings on record – was a singular victim of the sonic wall. I appreciated the novel addition of Eska’s vocal work and enjoyed the work of both drummers Dan See and Saleem Raman, the former propelling the voodoo up a notch, before this engagingly rocky take on the least-likely single of all time was overwhelmed. (Yes, a 3 minute Miles Runs The Voodoo Down briefly charted in the US in 1970 with an equally short edit of Spanish Key on the B-side…).

The project was never intended to preserve the original Brew and, like the album, the concert brought the delights (and some longueurs) of electronica, decks, dub & dance-based forms to the fore, entirely as I imagine Miles would’ve wanted; though I also imagine he’d have a few choice words with the engineer about levels…

My ennui was exacerbated by what seemed to me less-than-persuasive visuals; looming screens showing the onstage team of visual artists around a paint & materials play-table, dressed in protective forensic hazmat suits, delivering rather puerile imagery inspired by the band’s work. More compelling was the video mix of the musicians close up and the album’s original artwork, though to be honest, they too suffered from a sense of there being too much in the mix. Frankly, the most arresting sight on stage was Okumu & Garcia’s gorgeous choice of attire, she in a kaleidoscopic suit redolent of the energy in the London Brew logo, he in a stunning quilted red & black overshirt. Properly dressed for the occasion.  

I’m very aware that similar criticisms attended Davis’ own post-Brew live outings and hindsight has shown who was right. I’m encouraged by the enthusiastic reception the Barbican audience gave the work. So if, on this occasion, it didn’t fully crystallise for me, I’d really like to hear the ensemble re-assemble at some point to do it again, or an entirely new project, because the cause is right. Classic work’s role is to inspire and should be entirely subject to artists who do that. Getting the balance right is tough but the recorded evidence is that London Brew can – and I hope will – soar again.

Line-up:

Raven Bush violin
Theon Cross tuba
Eska vocals
Nubya Garcia tenor saxophone
Tom Herbert bass
Nikolaj Topp Larsen keys
Dave Okumu guitar/musical director
Saleem Raman drums
Nick Ramm piano
Dan See drums
Robert Stillman woodwind
Martin Terefe guitar

The post London Brew at the Barbican first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Well, that’s easy for Cécile McLorin Salvant to say (as she did to Jess Gillam on Radio 3’s This Classical Life, about the exigencies of virtuosity) but when you’re faced with another evening of her exquisite voice and Sullivan Fortner’s piano mastery, distract away, I say…

There was much beauty on offer last night, the pleasures of this superduo compounded with a superb rhythm section driven by another duo of Savannah Harris on drums & Weedie Braimah on djembe, congas etc, while Yasushi Nakamura’s double bass underpinned all with a generous sound and some dramatic soloing.

Compere Kevin Le Gendre warned us of the diva’s “amazing lime green shoes” but she must have changed, for she appeared in an equally amazing pair of stacked copper clogs and layers of colour, topped with a beautiful yellow African print jacket, reminiscent of the cover of 2018’s The Window. Braimah was almost her match while the more modestly attired Fortner sat in quiet command, a smiling wizard at the piano.

The 100 minute set was another eclectic journey through all manners of songbooks, with nods to the Great American one in Bob Dorough/Fran Landesman’s Nothing Like You & Frank Loesser’s Never Will I Marry (both from her 2017 live album Dreams and Daggers), and opening with with a barnstorming Don’t Rain On My Parade, as exuberant if not as frenetic as Streisand’s. McLorin Salvant relishes the sassiness in these songs, and writes them, too: Obligation (from last year’s Ghost Song album) was delivered with her usual subtle theatricality and featured the first of Nakamura’s commanding solos. She gave two more of her self-penned numbers from the fiercely independent recent album Melusine – the Brel-like Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent? and a furiously rhythmic reinterpretation of the joyful Fenestra where the torrential percussion interplay of Harris & Braimah soared. Later in the set, she swung into the Bacharach/David classic Wives and Lovers, her intelligent reading of it pointing up both the absurdity and mischief of the piece, while the QEH collectively held its breath on her astounding control at “ready…for love!” As she also remarked to Jess Gillam, “you can hear the smile in her (Aretha Franklin’s) voice, even if the song is sad”.  She has that selfsame quality.

Asking us if we’d heard of John Dowland, one wiseacre in the audience called out “the Jimi Hendrix of the lute”, but we were treated to the ethereal beauty of Flow Not So Fast Ye Fountains which in her arrangement and charismatic delivery was as passionate as any blues, and the sheer surprise of someone negotiating ethereal madrigal lines like a Coltrane seemed to transform this 17th century madrigal into one of the great jazz standards before our very ears. 

Her respect for the art of the songwriter seems paramount and while I don’t think she’d ever take a weak song just to make it better, she certainly improves on Sting’s version of Until. But the climax of the set has political weight, with the quiet power in Rhiannon Giddens’ Build A House given even more heft by it preceding Brecht/Weill’s The World Is Mean (aka “Was ich möchte, ist es viel?”). I swear she could perform the whole of Threepenny Opera herself, and the quartet’s Afro-Cuban inflection in this suggests a far-from European setting.

Of course there was an encore and of course it was McLorin Salvant’s beautiful version of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. It’s far from a novelty choice, and once again she transmutes it into gold: in this reading it’s as good as I Loves You Porgy. The song ended on a gentle cadence of “out…in” repeated to a whisper, the audience hanging once again on the sound of a sung breath.

She took mine away.

And as she also said of Aretha…”I love her more than anyone”.

Personnel:

Cécile McLorin Salvant voice
Sullivan Fortner piano
Savannah Harris drums
Weedie Braimah djembe, congas
Yasushi Nakamura double bass

Setlist

• Don’t Rain on My Parade (Jule Styne/Bob Merril)
• Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent? (Cécile McLorin Salvant)
• Nothing Like You
• Obligation (Cécile McLorin Salvant)
• Flow Not So Fast Ye Fountains
• Fenestra (Cécile McLorin Salvant)
• Wives and Lovers (Burt Bacharach/Hal David)
• Never Will I Marry (Frank Loesser)
• Until (Sting) 
• Build a House (Rhiannon Giddens)
• The World is Mean (Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht)
• Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush)

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With nineteen musicians on stage, it was a slightly smaller group than the 27 or so that spilled out at the Uncommon’s 2019 debut at Ronnies, but it was still a joy to be up close to this.  There’s a real sense of the audience and band sharing the space rather than being at concert-arm’s length. We get the jokes, albeit in a flashed smile or a thumbs-up from the terrifically adept MD/conductor Ben Cottrell when the sax section do the alpenhorns in one of the William Tell sections; and then there’s that stillness when you can hear a pin drop in an acapella moment during Kate’s Otello aria, or enjoying the relatively unfamiliar sound of a Frank Schaefer’s plangent cello in a jazz club. 

Of course, a regular fixture at Frith Street is now totally appropriate for the Westbrooks, whatever their incarnation, as small band or a hurtling orchestra. They represent the best in British jazz composition, showmanship and support for longtime collaborators such as Chris Biscoe, Pete Whyman, Alan Wakeman, Frank Schaefer & Karen Street.  Latterly, they have surrounded themselves with up & coming players such as trombonist Joe Carnell, trumpeter Sam Massey and hugely talented alumni from their south-western base, such as tonight’s rhythm section of Coach York & Marcus Vergette, plus saxes Sarah Dean & Ian Wellens.  

They continue to commit to the widest possible notions of what jazz can be, neither slavish adherence to specific forms nor modish experiment, but revelling in their collaborators’ skills and the theatricality of performance.  The enjoyment of each other’s work was genuine, and a delight. Two takeaways: a pair of solos from Mike reminded us what a singular piano-voicing he has; and every big band in the country should stop trying to play Caravan and adopt Mike’s arrangement of The Barber of Seville overture: that sent us bouncing out into a warm Soho night. 

But it was while listening to the penultimate number, the Hymn for Liberty (Tutto Cangia) from William Tell, a stirring agit prop recalling the days of The Cortège, that set me thinking.  Rossini Re-loaded first saw the light of day as a European commission – prophets in their own land have always a hard time, jazz prophets, doubly so – and the increased hardships of recent years that musicians have to bear make touring this kind of work, even over a year, unbelievably difficult. So, all praise to everyone concerned for ensuring we can hear it again.  But also reminding myself that it was first heard at the Proms in 1992, it struck me that this extraordinary music-making deserves the exposure that festivals command.  The Proms missed a trick in not celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Abbey Road with Mike’s Off Abbey Road setting; it could correct that by commissioning a reworked London Bridge (which I understand is in the Westbrook-works) or even a new Cortège to rouse us.  Like Rossini Re-loaded both explore our uneasy place in the world but at least do so with headlong arrangements & vertiginous soloing, courtesy of England’s finest living jazz composer. Wouldn’t it be good not to miss this trick? 

_______________________________________ 

The Uncommon Orchestra 

Saxophones: Chris Biscoe, Peter Whyman, Sarah Dean, Alan Wakeman, Ian Wellens;  

Trumpets: Graham Russell, Robin Pengilly, Andy Hague, Sam Massey;   

Trombones: Joe Carnell, Sam Chamberlain-Keen, Stewart Stunell, Ashley Nayler;   

Karen Street: Accordion; Frank Schaefer: Cello; Marcus Vergette: Bass; Coach York: Drums; Kate Westbrook: Voice; Mike Westbrook: Piano; Benjamin Cottrell: Conductor  

NOTE: Originally commissioned by the NDR Band in Hamburg in 1990 and subsequently toured by the Mike Westbrook Orchestra, “Big Band Rossini” has been played at Festivals all over Europe, and performed with big bands in Scandinavia, Canada and Australia. It was the first jazz work ever to be featured in the BBC Proms in 1992. Revived with The Uncommon Orchestra in 2018, Rossini Re-Loaded scored a hit at the annual Rossini Festival in Pesaro, the composer’s birthplace. The Orchestra returns to Ronnie Scott’s fresh from a triumphant appearance at the Rossini Open International Music Festival in Lugo, in the opera house where the teenage prodigy Rossini first performed in 1806. 

“In the city where Gioacchino Rossini lived, and in the theatre where he actually played, Mike Westbrook breathes new life into the immortal magic of the Italian maestro’s compositions”. Giancarlo Spezia Musica Jazz 

The post Mike Westbrook’s ‘Rossini Re-loaded’ with The Uncommon Orchestra at Ronnie Scott’s first appeared on UK Jazz News.

How do you keep hope alive in dark times? During lockdown, the Westbrooks turned to Ellington’s salve, to “write another blues”. It was his way of dealing with racism, and theirs to deal with solitude. Having had the anniversary performance of On Duke’s Birthday cancelled at Ronnie’s, Kate & Mike (with support from Jazz South) drew on thoughts and words and themes that first arose over 40 years ago with that momentous opus and remotely recorded “another blues” with The Granite Band, their core collaborators in the south-west.

It begins with a sound-and-word cloud of Ellington-related names and titles giving way to Coach York’s distinctive percussion-lope and Billy Bottle’s rolling bass-walk, underpinning Roz Harding’s alto lines beneath Kate’s extended version of a lyric blessing Paul Gonsalves & co. That original version was first seen among the liner notes on the 1984 recording of On Duke’s Birthday and now, heard here perfectly complements Mike’s ducal setting, which is full of allusions but avoiding direct musical quotes. Rather, his setting gives full reign to the soloists, with the acute inventiveness of Roz’s sax and Jesse Molins’ guitar reminding us of how well Mike’s work straddles and revels in the century of jazz styles: while there’s much of Ellington here, he’s being driven to the gig in a Solid Gold Cadillac. I’m not sure if there’s some double-tracking going on, but either way it’s a pretty mighty sound for 6 instrumentalists.

Released online in 2021, it’s also available as a CD single, complementing the orchestral version from the rescheduled Birthday gig which finally came to Ronnie’s in April 2022 with The Uncommon Orchestra, whose 23-strong lineup (twice the size of the 1984 original) included all the above Graniteers, but with Marus Vergette taking the bass stand. Running at just 10 minutes (little over half the length of the Granite version) this online track packs even more of a punch, not least through the heft of its 15-strong brass/woodwind cohort, which widens the palette enormously. Inevitably sounding more Ellingtonian, the live performance heightens both the edge of cabaret and a certain joyfulness in Kate’s vocalising (literally, with “Joy! Joy!”) while going for broke in her lower register, relishing more swoops than whoops. Regular Westbrook alumni Alan Wakeman and Pete Whyman provide crackling tenor and haunting clarinet solos to top and tail the solo sections, and once again, there’s welcome alto bravura from Roz Harding, while Sam Massey & Graham Russell’s trumpets bring even more colour to this most exemplary-sounding big band. Again, it’s a measure of Mike’s own unassuming genius that gives his soloists the space that his idol did, and that he creates a sound that’s both a tribute and has his own inimitable stamp on it.

This single is only a glimpse into what was, by all accounts, a marvelous gig (See review link below) and I can only hope it presages the full album release of the 2022 On Duke’s Birthday which, 40 years on from the original, still lives, still rejoices in its potential, and which I still love, madly.

“Everybody: look handsome!”

1. Says The Duke (2023) The Uncommon Orchestra

from the suite On Duke’s Birthday dedicated to Duke Ellington
music Mike Westbrook words Kate Westbrook
with quotes from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn
Released April 29, 2023

The Uncommon Orchestra
voice Kate Westbrook piano Mike Westbrook
saxophones Chris Biscoe, Roz Harding, Sarah Dean, Alan Wakeman, Ian Wellens clarinet/saxophone Pete Whyman
trumpets Graham Russell Robin Pengilley Andy Hague Sam Massey
trombones Joe Carnell Sam Chamberlain-Keen Stewart Stunell Ashley Nayler
violin Dominique Pifarely cello Frank Schaefer guitars Jesse Molins Matthew North
bass Marcus Vergette drums Coach York
directed from the piano by Matthew Bourne

engineered by Miles Ashton, mixed by Matthew North and produced for Westbrook Records by Mike Westbrook, Matthew North and Chris Topley, courtesy of Ronnie Scott’s Club.

2. Says The Duke (2021) The Granite Band

Recorded October 2020, released January 18, 2021

A single-track release, 18 minutes long.

The Granite Band

music by Mike Westbrook / words by Kate Westbrook / with quotes from Duke Ellington

Kate Westbrook voice, Roz Harding alto saxophone. Jesse Molins guitar, Matthew North guitar soundscape. Mike Westbrook keyboard. Billie Bottle bass guitar, Coach York drums

Recording Engineered, mixed & mastered by Matthew North

Produced by Matthew North in collaboration with Billie Bottle

October 2020 / Recorded in Devonshire / Commissioned by Jazz South

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This new collection stays firmly in the 30-year golden period before pop, though 1958’s Its’s All In The Game gets a rightful boost towards classic status, closing the album in a most dramatic way.

Before that, we get 9 songs all channelling the Duchess’s uniquely affecting drawl, her fondness for playing with a line’s rhythm and hanging thrillingly behind the beat. Given that the album was completed over 5 days, I sense these are one-, or possibly few-take recordings, capturing the singer’s delight. Little exclamations and breaths round off verses evoking her obvious pleasure in performing. You can hear her smile. Faux-naif? I think she’s pretty sure she knows what’s what, not least from the decisively provocative cover image: this album’s on her terms. But we also get a sense of what it takes out of you to tell these songs truthfully.

However much Mike Manieri’s masterful vibes introducing Just In Time might recall the opening tones of the TV satire Toast of London, the track is a serious statement of intent: you do know Ms Jones is here to extract the most from these pieces of gold. Her rhythm section is rock solid, and a few string arrangements notwithstanding, the album effectively creates an intimate club setting. Guitarist Russell Malone contributes a perfectly honed solo to a similarly exuberant There Will Never Be Another You but there’s an arresting change of gear as Ara Dinkjian’s oud and a brief muezzin-like vocal figure from Jones preface a Nature Boy that seems truer to its countercultural roots than most. It seems in keeping with Jones’ liner notes that tell us about “golden suns and circles met” and being “younger now than I was last winter”. As that may be… the natural loucheness in her voice on One For My Baby brings us firmly back to the club, while They Can’t Take That Away From Me swings even more joyfully, her finger-clicks and take-you-to-the-edge phrasing seeing her soar. Scott Robinson’s baritone does too; I’d have liked more sax and swing in this, and in more songs, but I suspect this is Jones reuniting with her original producer Russ Titelman, both ensuring each tune has a distinctive sound. So, indeed does the rest of the album. Jones seems given to rounding off albums with a slow number and here the second half of this all-too short album is a set of five ballads. It’s no less bold than Joni Mitchell’s relatively stately and more expansive Both Sides Now (decidedly not a club set) and actually works quite well as a brief autumn-of-my-life song-cycle.

Returning to work with the producer that set Jones on her career 40 years ago has the ring of reconciliation that soaks through these songs, and there’s undoubtedly a chemistry. Titelman’s enthusiasm for his muse’s skills in the field (“she was a be-bopper, a real jazz singer…her aging voice sounds even better than the youthful one”) is exemplified in a soulfully sad All The Way, where we get to imagine Ms Jones as Miss Dubois, her voice just on the edge, relying on the kindness of strangers. A similarly doleful Here’s That Rainy Day also teeters between smiles and tears but she’s realistic about loss now. September Song makes the perfect reflective segue, the “resonance and warmth in her register that wasn’t there before” that Titelman notes gets rather beautifully foregrounded in his production. More smiles than tears, her drawn-out vowels in the final verse and the little reflective laugh make for perfect Weill, and into a supremely gorgeous On The Sunny Side Of The Street. The mood has lifted, with nothing more than (I assume) Jon Herington’s delicately picked acoustic guitar for Jones to improvise with, ending on a joyfully long and lilting note. And so it ends with It’s All In The Game which shouldn’t really be the high point among these wonderful Songbook classics, but turns out to earn its place through Rob Mouncey’s gentle chords, sparse strings and something like a whole life’s worth of range in Jones’ voice. The coda of sobs and intakes have replaced the joyful exclamations at the start of the record, but you certainly feel there’s a life’s work behind her telling of these songs. Another set would be most welcome.

A toast, from London, to the Duchess of Cool.

TRACK LISTING AND RECORDING DETAILS

1. Just in Time (Jule Styne, Betty Comden, Adolph Green)
2. There Will Never Be Another You (Harry Warren, Mack Gordon)
3. Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez)
4. One for My Baby (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer)
5. They Can’t Take That Away from Me (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
6. All the Way (Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn)
7. Here’s That Rainy Day (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke)
8. September Song (Kurt Weill, Maxwell Anderson)
9. On the Sunny Side of the Street (Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields)
10. It’s All in the Game (Charles G. Dawes, Carl Sigman)

Recorded at Sear Sound Manhattan, produced by Russ Titelman

Rob Mounsey piano; Russell Malone guitar; David Wong bass; Mark McLean drums; Mike Mainieri Mike Dillon vibes; Jon Herington acoustic guitar; Scott Robinson baritone & alto + trumpet; Ryan Roberts oboe; Ara Dinkijian oud; Rickie Lee Jones vocal & horn arrangements; Gil Goldstein string arrangements.

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