One vocal artist pondering this is the Swiss Andreas Schaerer, whose voice is of course a remarkable instrument, and who habitually sings in several languages, or none. On this latest release from his quartet with drummer Lucas Niggli, guitarist Kalle Kalima and accordionist Luciano Biondini, six years after their debut A Novel of Anomaly (link to review below), he takes this a step further. There are wordless vocals here, but also tracks where Schaerer sings in an improvised language. This is made up of non-words that nonetheless use phonemes that suggest the listener is hearing one or more European languages.

That is quite effective in some ways, lending the sometimes quite complex written lines an improvised quality, and allowing Schaerer to extemporise freely in the same vein using a teasing repertoire of sounds that is a vocabulary only in the musical sense yet comes across like he might be using actual words.

It also aligns conceptually with the sentiment that informs the quartet’s musical project here, a wish to move beyond borders, transcend territories, and emphasise cultural expression that conveys our common humanity – hence Anthem for No Man’s Land.

Some might feel music does that anyway, just as group improvisation always benefits from open-hearted communication between the players. And in truth the new album does not sound radically different from the quartet’s first offering. That’s a good thing, as this is a tremendous group. Niggli and Kallima have a long sympathy with Schaerer’s dizzying variety of vocal styles, and Biondini’s exuberant accordion flights are an inspiring match for the singer. As before, there are diverse folk strains, jazz rhythms, and touches of prog rock – with Schaerer’s bass synth added to soaring electric guitar, cuts like the title track here or the rocker Bad Eye would not disappoint fans of Yes, especially if they were looking for more interesting vocals than that group supplied.

But they operate in several other modes, often subtly reflective and with just two or three of the players interacting with some delicacy. It’s a beguiling mix, sometimes tending to the slightly melancholic but always engaging. The tailpiece Sogna Belimo, is a simple wordless song that is both those things. Wordless? Well, it features Schaerer’s language-that-is-no-language and on this one it does become a little distracting. On reflection, that affects a few other tracks too. Ironically, unlike the first album, where your monoglot reviewer was content to ignore the words of songs in other languages and just hearken to the voice, the slow vocal here sounds as if it is wrapped round words you ought to able to discern, but cannot. The effect, for me, is not so much universal communication as a moment of post-Babel bewilderment, in which all languages have become incomprehensible. Which is to say that Schaerer’s linguistic experiment here is certainly interesting, but not perhaps entirely successful. Musically, though, it detracts only a little from another splendid album from a unique quartet.

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Her sound, which at the beginning of her career was an attractive little girl voice, matured into an instrument for which the adjectives ‘ravishing’ and ‘glorious’ were invented. She had the ability to switch her tone from liquid honey to a throat-ripping rasp within a hemi-demi-semiquaver. Her expressive range across every mood and every tempo remains unmatched. Downhearted or celebratory, she never sounded less than sincere.

Excessive overclaim? Not when you’ve heard this live album recorded on June 29, 1967 at the Oakland Coliseum accompanied by the full Duke Ellington Orchestra with pianist Jimmy Jones substituting for the Duke. Impresario Norman Granz, who shaped Ella’s career, taped the concert and we hear seven selections covering emotions from poignant dejection to unfettered exuberance. You know that phrase ‘on song’? This performance defines it.

After drummer Sam Woodyard splashes every cymbal within reach, she launches her set with Scott and Satterwhite’s up-tempo The Moment of Truth, a brash piece ostensibly written to open Las Vegas acts. Her version overcomes the brashness by stoking the excitement with intense swing, her virtuosity leaving few syllables unembellished.

Edgar Sampson and Mitchell Parrish wrote Don’t Be That Way and Benny Goodman made it famous. Ella decelerates the tempo previously set on the indispensable Ella & Louis Again album she made with Louis Armstrong, and, with superhuman breath control, sustains tones for longer than any normal singer would regard as dangerous. Backed by Duke’s pugnacious brass and a driving backbeat from Woodyard, she weaves fanciful melodic variations. The audience can hardly restrain its applause before the final note.

You’ve Changed, a ballad of lost love by Carl Fischer and Bill Care, was closely associated with Billie Holiday, but Ella assumes possession of the lyric when, over the tight trio harmonies of the Ellington trombone section, she invests the lyric with fresh pathos, expertly controlling her vibrato as she unwraps her luscious contralto register.
In its time, Cole Porter must have horrified puritans with his witty ditty Let’s Do It, possibly the raunchiest of all list songs. Ella seldom sings a written note, recasting the melody over and over again in live performance, risking liberties few other singers would consider, let alone attempt. Her vocal micro-acrobatics on the phrase ‘even baby jellyfish do it’ defy death.

Ray Henderson and Mort Dixon wrote Bye, Bye Blackbird around 1926 and jazz musicians have jammed on it ever since. Ella calls it ‘one of the old tunes’ and, over five minutes of leaning behind the rhythm section’s beat, subjects the melody to an exhaustive workout through every register. She has the facility to divide even a single syllable into multiple parts, assigning to a different note to each. In the third chorus, she starts by scatting over Bob Cranshaw’s supportive bass, then winding up to an uninhibited knockdown and drag-out finale.

As Jimmy Jones caresses the keyboard for a delicate intro to Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s Alfie, Ella can be heard stage-whispering an instruction to the wings: ‘sexy lights here’. The mood is restrained and she produces an intimate ballad sheen to smooth the extremes of the melody’s choppy form (by way of an unexpected detour to You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You). When she sings “I believe in love, Alfie”, we believe her. And we believe in her.

Duke Ellington wrote In A Mellow Tone and Milt Gabler added lyrics making it, in effect, a song about a song. By the second chorus, over the band’s insistent riffs, Ella is immersed in the beat, scatting, slurring, scooping pitch and swinging ferociously reminding us of the Duke’s alto saxophone star, Johnny Hodges (Charlie Parker called him ‘Lily Pons’, at the time a well-known opera singer). She holds onto the final word ‘tone’ for a long time, like someone who’s loath to leave the party.

Eager to demonstrate she was abreast of changing fashion, Ella chooses Music To Watch The Girls Go By, a big number in the 60s written by Sid Ramin, in an arrangement that has her switching rhythms, even interpolating Happy Talk from the long-running musical, ‘South Pacific’.

In 1928, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht wrote Mack The Knife for ‘The Threepenny Opera’. During the 60s, now equipped with lyrics in English, it became a monster hit for both Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong with Ella following third. Third, maybe, but she embraced Mack and made it her own, graciously adding references to the first two performers (including a witty representation of a Satchmo growl). This version, packed with passion, bounce, regular half-step modulations and the Ellington band in rocking form, prompts Ella to discard any vestige of vocal inhibition and let rip for the concert’s big finale.

So far, so brilliant. But here’s the mystery.

Why did it take 75 years for such artistry to surface? Only recently, we’re told in Will Friedwald’s informative sleeve notes, the tape boxes were discovered languishing in the late Norman Granz’s effects. Why didn’t he release them? Were they forgotten? Did he think they weren’t up to scratch? Or did they simply get lost, lodged invisibly between a couple of Granz’s original Picasso etchings?

Whatever the reason (and it’s unlikely to be lack of quality), we’re grateful that this evidence was found to reinforce Crosby’s belief: “…Ella is the greatest”.

To which we mortals can only add the word ‘amen’.

TRACK LIST

1. The Moment Of Truth
2. Don’t Be That Way
3. You’ve Changed
4. Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)
5. Bye Bye Blackbird
6. Alfie (first Ella recording)
7. In A Mellow Tone
8. Music To Watch Girls By (first Ella recording)
9. Mack The Knife

‘The Moment of Truth – Ella At The Coliseum’ is released on 28 February 2025

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The suite was originally intended for the Irish National Ballet choreographed by Domy Reiter-Soffer who, Doherty wrote, “confessed to knowing nothing about jazz and I confessed to knowing less about ballet, so it was agreed that I would write a jazz dance project.” Doherty’s wry humour aside, it may be a blessing in disguise that funding fell through for the theatre performance, because making this music danceable may have compromised what’s a dazzling set of ballads, Latin, bop and the blues.

One trace of the suite’s jazz-dance origins is that Doherty was inspired to create a “boy meets girl” narrative across the tracks and assign a persona to each soloist. The opening track “Nordic Maiden” has Stewart on guitar as the girl, and is a romantic ballad with a lush Gil Evans / Miles Davis feel to the horn arrangements and a beautifully lyrical solo from Stewart.

“When Two People Meet” has Bobby Shew representing the boy, first on flugelhorn for a quartet performance with the rhythm section, interspersed with lush horn fills. What follows is a “dance” between the full band and guitar/trumpet counterpointing, the band twice discreetly withdrawing for two beautiful guitar/trumpet duets.

The personae on “Bertha D. Blooze” are a madame called Bertha (alto sax) and her pimp El Sponzo (tenor sax). None of that matters, though. This is essentially a rhythm-changes workout with scorching bebop solos on alto then tenor saxophone, delivering the pulse-raising excitement of earlier great saxophone battles on rhythm changes. I was particularly reminded of Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins on “The Eternal Triangle”, Bob Sheppard’s alto suggesting to me a softer-toned version of Stitt.

“El Sponzo” is a Latin number that starts with a clave riff on piano (a rare moment of exposure for the self-effacing Doherty, who assigns himself no persona or solos) and drums supplemented by congas and a shaker, before settling into a samba groove featuring Gordon Brisker’s tenor saxophone. Tenor and alto then trade fours, before Brisker leads out on the head before a punchy ending.

“Sergeant Bones” (persona, a Keystone cop type character) showcases Randy Aldcroft on trombone playing a major blues that briefly quotes Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time” – it’s fleshed out with some great horn fills, and more trading between alto and tenor sax.

Rounding off this most satisfying set is “Maybe It’s You”, which features cheerful ensemble playing on the head, and solos from trumpet, guitar and trombone. The horn arrangements are great, and include a tight unison passage towards the end.

All in all, it’s a corker of a session, recorded in just one day (mainly in single takes) after a rehearsal the day before – and despite its age, it sounds freshly minted. Congratulations to Livia for bringing it back to life – and (as with all other Livia re-releases since the label was reactivated in 2021) for wrapping this gift in beautiful packaging. The artwork on the front is a colourful homage to Henri Matisse’s Jazz art book (a vast improvement on the 1986 cassette cover of gold lettering on a plain black background), and the cardboard gatefold cover contains a 16-page booklet with photos, sleeve notes (both new and from the 1996 CD release), and bios for all the musicians.

In four words: great music beautifully packaged.

‘Spondance’ is released on 28 February 2025

The post Jim Doherty – ‘Spondance’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Tom, of course, isn’t the first musician to draw inspiration from life in a big city. Elgar, Gershwin, Bernstein and others have all captured its bustle and excitement, as well as the potential for poignancy and isolation which can also be part of the urban experience. In jazz, the Ellington-Strayhorn partnership translated their impressions of place into the sound pictures of their Far East Suite.

Ellington would often surprise his public with new compositions which transcended the usual limitations and expectations of big-band writing, and from the first few bars of the title track of ‘A Year in the Life’, Tom lets us know that he too won’t be bound by anything predictably ‘jazz’. It becomes clear that the music will draw on many styles and genres. Our journey through his cityscape starts with nicely scored sax and brass voicings, reflective and haunting, followed by beautifully judged acoustic guitar and piano work (Jamie McCredie and Will Barry) before we’re fully up and running. Even then, the force of this big band’s blowers is patiently held back to past the 3-minute mark. The rest of the chart is full of ebbs, flows and space before building to a satisfying coda, capped by Tom Walsh’s fabulous lead trumpet.

This is a generous album, 9 tracks coming in at around 70 minutes, and so I’ll pick out just a few other highlights. Also in the press release for this debut album, Tom talks of his admiration for Pat Metheny and on ‘Breathe’ (YouTube below) , this influence is superbly and respectfully acknowledged with lyrical lines of melody and improvisation set against lovely block chords in the brass and saxes. Great writing – terrific playing.

‘Atlas’ is all tone and texture, with the ensemble passages setting the scene for Freddie Gavita’s wonderful trumpet solo. The late Kenny Wheeler would, I’m sure, be delighted to know that his legacy is secure and being taken to new heights by such a consummate master of the instrument. ‘Aplomb’ motors along effortlessly and we’re left in no doubt that this band can also really swing. From the outset, ‘Somewhere Far From Here’ is moving ever forward as it deploys jazz waltz tempos interwoven with clever bridge sections to take us on a scenic journey towards a celebratory, life-affirming destination.

Many of my favourite instrumental pieces are those which tell a story or describe a scene (often referred to as ‘programme music’ in classical music circles). In jazz and light classical, as well as the Ellington, the place-linked pieces on Gerry Mulligan’s The Concert Jazz Band ‘63 album come to mind, along with John Williams’s Holland Walk, written for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra in the early 1970s and indeed, some of Robert Farnon’s orchestral sketches of London in the 1950s – such evocations can be so skilfully vivid, that suddenly, you’re there! A Year in the Life is a very welcome and worthy addition to this formidable collection.

A Year in the Life is released today 21 February 2025

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Happy (2022) hinted at this direction in having pop/soul/funk influences, and even has the same line-up of Elliot Galvin on keyboards, Magnus Hjorth piano, Conor Chaplin electric bass, and Anton Eger drums and percussion. But Cabaret goes even further, partly due to Neset playing not only soprano and tenor saxophone but also an “EWI” (electronic wind instrument), a synth controller with a saxophone-like body and keys, and a mouthpiece that’s sensitive to both breath and bite pressure.

In the right hands – and mouth – an EWI can combine the unlimited sound possibilities of a synthesiser with the expressivity of a saxophone. One of its finest exponents was Michael Brecker, as exemplified by his EWI performance of “In a Sentimental Mood” on the Steps Ahead album Magnetic (1986). The EWI fell out of fashion after the eighties, but I for one welcome its return – and Neset is a worthy successor to Brecker thanks to his virtuosity, muscular tone and musical taste.

But Cabaret has much more going on than a simple homage to earlier acts. Yes, the album has its Brecker / Steps Ahead moments such as Neset’s tenor solo on “Hyp3rsonic Cabar3t” (which starts with a Steve Reich-ish riff of overdubbed saxophones and piano); and the spirit of Weather Report, with a tungsten hardness of edge, permeates “Cabaret” and “Quantum Dance”. There’s a feel of the Pat Metheny Group when “Lizarb” starts with strummed acoustic guitar and a mouth-organ synth patch, and a moment when “Wedding in Geiranger” sounds a bit like Jan Garbarek. But then the music will race off in new directions, tossing out new ideas like quotes in a bebop solo.

It’s not all frenetic showmanship. “Forgotten Ballet” has melancholic piano backed by keyboard synth washes (having two keyboard players really expands the tonal palette), tinkling keyboard textures and soft drumming, even hints of birdsong, before a tender soprano/piano duet backed by barely discernable cymbal splashes; and “The Ocean” starts with a deep bass synth line and long tenor-sax notes, creating a mood as mysterious as the view from a bathyscaphe’s porthole, before picking up pace with fat-toned electric bass and drumming that starts with the metronomic drive of a drum machine, building to a beseeching tenor solo, dropping back to sequencer synth and drum-and-bass style drumming, then introducing a delicately expressive soprano solo that builds towards a euphoric finish.

The closer “Wedding in Geiranger” offers another build from a quiet start (piano, cymbal splashes, drum rolls) to a triumphal ending, the procession of ideas including the sounds of church organ and chiming bells. The wedding of the title is Neset’s own, last summer. Perhaps Neset’s recent marriage goes some way to explaining the sheer joyfulness of this exhilarating album.

Release date is 28 February 2025

The post Marius Neset – ‘Cabaret’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

There’s no real overarching theme other than what it says on the tin and as Heining’s intro makes a point of saying, the music creates its own narrative: you just have to listen to it. On that basis a very few relative duds or departures from the fragile subjectivity of one’s own personal taste are more than made up for by a high proportion of absolute gems. These include obscurities that must have required real crate-digging – check Wynder K. Frog‘s boogaloo-flavoured “Harpsichord Shuffle”, or music biz all-rounder John Cameron‘s “Troublemaker” – as well as classics of the period like Harold McNair‘s “The Hipster”. If there’s anything you don’t like – and warning, there’s a fair bit of flute – don’t worry, another will be along in three minutes.

But what is really impressive is how good most of the selections sound, how various their methods and stylistic models, and how well they fit together through sequential listening. The opening track, “Storm Warning” by the Dick Morrissey Quartet (written by the cult composer and big band leader Harry South, who plays piano) sets a formidable example, being no less swinging than Horace Silver. That it’s followed by Davy Graham‘s great guitar and tabla version of ‘Watermelon Man’ shows how knowledgeably broad a sweep the compilers are taking. As well as the expected Rendell/Carr, Garrick, Hayes and Harriott, we also get into the R&B groove with Graham Bond‘s version of Wade in the Water, a U.S. B-side no less, and Georgie Fame on another B-side. ‘A Greeting’ by the Westbrook Concert Band, from 1967’s Celebration album on Deram, which I didn’t know, already sounds like the work of a master.

The second CD has a fabulous first half with a very congruent run of Graham Collier, John McLaughlin (from Extrapolation), Rendell/Carr (again) to the New Jazz Orchestra, Mike Gibbs and Kenny Wheeler with Dankworth, before we move more into jazz-rock territory with the likes of Keef Hartley, Colosseum, Nucleus and Brian Auger’s Trinity. Whatever the setting, it’s all interesting. The selections are chosen with flair and there are enough obscurities to satisfy all but the most demanding collectors, who may justifiably moan about the lack of full personnel details.

The third CD edges us a little further into prog territory, with Auger’s Oblivion Express, If and a very free interlude by Chris Spedding but overall retains the catholicity of the previous discs. It includes relatively avant-garde offerings by John Surman‘s trio with Stu Martin and Barre Phillips, McLaughlin (whom Colin Harper has written a book about) with Surman, Holland et al, plus the near operatic mash-up of Garrick’s Fairground with Norma Winstone, and Mike Osborne‘s ‘So it Goes’, which concludes the compilation. Halfway through we also get the wonderful track that gives the box-set its title: Julie Driscoll‘s A New Awakening , from her solo album 1969.

As compilations go, this is a class act whose constituent parts offer enough sufficiently interesting material for a solid month’s listening, and more.

The post ‘A New Awakening – Adventures in British Jazz 1966-1971’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Well, I do like it, and it’s for two reasons. Firstly, the sense of musical generosity amongst his band members, who provide the perfect accompaniment for a kind of leisurely unfolding of the leader’s ideas. But secondly, it’s Allen himself who seems to be pushing his bandmates, ensuring things never get too comfortable. For someone who spent 35 years with Sun Ra, perhaps the nature of comfort is not that of the typical centenarian.

Marshall Allen has been a veritable trooper for decades. And that comes over in his sound, a mature kaleidoscope of tones ranging between flute-like serenity and spluttering outbursts: like another great altoist, Henry Threadgill, the palette seems to deepen with age. Notes emerge rather than being produced, as if emanating from the gut more than the diaphragm, every tone seems, on closer listening, to have within it a world of overtones. The band sound here is luxurious, almost like a giant sonic duvet of acoustic grooves, strings, tasteful touches of delay and dub-like drum sounds, and some futuristic sounding lead synth. Having searched the credits and, with a bit of extra research on YouTube, I realise those synth sounds actually come from the Steiner EVI, a wind instrument often used by Michael Brecker (to very different effect). In Marshall Allen’s hands, gestures jump out at us like a black mamba in a mindfulness class. Indeed, it’s these playful interjections that give the music that extra depth and unpredictability.

“Prologue” opens with Allen’s beautifully recorded kora playing which, gradually overwhelmed by electronics, moves into the Ellington-esque “African Sunset”, where the EVI almost hovers above the music as well as being in it. Neneh Cherry guests on “New Dawn”, a drifting ballad that frames her unmistakable voice beautifully against Allen’s moving interjections. Cherry here has touches of Abbey Lincoln and Christine Tobin to my ears, but also has that timbre that identifies her like a fingerprint. “Are You Ready?” again references Ellington in its blues shuffle, with Allen sounding like Paul Gonsalves caught in a time warp between the past and the future, slipping and sliding. “Sonny’s Dance” opens with solo alto: Allen seems to evade the rules of pitch, like Ornette, Lockjaw Davies and others before him – it’s my favourite moment of the record. Textures are freer and looser here, pulse ebbs and flows. In “Boma” the band lays it down, with the main soloists allowing their leader to poke through with wild pirouettes. Again, it seems that he prefers occasional pointed commentary to extended solos, and at 100 I might feel the same. Still, each note he plays grabs the ear. “Angels And Demons At Play” revisits a classic of the Sun Ra days, drums and bass sitting on a beat while Allen and trumpeter Cecil Brooks allow a gentle exchange to unfold, with dub effects adding to the sense of the “cosmic” that Sun Ra embodied.

After my first listen of “New Dawn”, I went back and listened to Marshall Allen on Paul Bley’s album “Barrage” from 1964, the only other recording I know away from the Arkestra. And yes it’s different, but it’s not that different. It’s not sixty years different. Allen continues to be a real musical force, sounding as irascible and unpredictable as ever, and while this relatively accessible setting will gain him a lot of new fans, which can only be a good thing, the avant garde aspects of his sound are just as prominent here. If anything, set against a more modern production with solid grooves, Allen implores us all the more not to get comfortable…you never know what’s coming. Maybe it’s the embracing of that one idea that has kept Marshall Allen so youthful for so long: the living of life might just be what prolongs it.

Musicians:
Marshall Allen – Kora, Steiner EVI, Alto Sax
Knoel Scott – Baritone Sax, Congas, Drums
Cecil Brooks – Trumpet
Michael Ray – Trumpet
Bruce Edwards – Guitar
Jamaaladeen Tacuma – Bass
Richard Hill – Bass
Timothy Ragsdale – Bass
Owen Brown Jr – 1st Violin
Akiko Arendt – 1st Violin
Cristina Ardelean Montelongo – 1st Violin
Derek Washington – 2nd Violin
Elias Feldmann – 2nd Violin
Dimitra Karageorgopoulou – 2nd Violin
Michael Ireland – Viola
Vasileios Vasileiadis – Viola
Joseph Richard Carvell – Bass
Ilektra-Despoina Stevi – Cello
Jorik Bergman – Flute
George Gray – Drums
Jan Lankisch – Percussion

Special Guest:
Neneh Cherry – Voice

RELEASE DATE 14 February 2025

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This latest release finds Molley’s group fully immersed, working with a quartet of leading Rajasthani traditional musicians in a custom-built studio in the western Rajasthani desert.

It’s a productive and rewarding relationship as both sets of musicians are able to express themselves in their own musical languages and to interact with one another, trading phrases, combining on extended melodies and improvising together with a genuinely mutual understanding.

Asin Langa is a marvellously agile, soulful vocalist and a master of the sarangi, the three-string, bowed instrument that gives the album a very distinctive quality. His fellow Rajasthanis bring various drums and percussion instruments including the khartal, a wooden clapper, and the jew’s harp-like morchang to the ensemble sound.

The effect can be both sedate and animated as the music flows between Molley’s essentially melodic compositions and the variously loping and supercharged rhythms. The opening Cottonpolis/Dhologee combines a groove reminiscent of Molley’s youthful interest in Manchester’s indie music scene with a lilting traditional Rajasthani song and features typically concise tenor saxophone phrasing as all eight musicians drive towards the coda.

Kama finds Molley operating as a fifth member of Langa’s group, luxuriating in its folk song melody, and Journeys in Hand in Hand, a track originally found on Molley’s second album and redolent of Indian music melodically, features the superb Tom Gibbs digging in on piano as the two groups resume their conversation.

Gibbs is also to the fore on Parapraxis/Livar Jivaro, another Scottish-Rajasthani medley that features a wonderfully intense vocal from Langa and a full-bodied call and response between Molley’s tenor and Langa’s sarangi. These tracks, along with Two City Tales, which depicts the musicians’ respective hometowns of Glasgow and Jodhpur with contrasting characteristics and strong interaction, represent a musical relationship that works very effectively and sounds as if it has much more still to be discovered.

Journeys is released today 7 February 2025

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When I was about 18 I went to see Jim play with Mike Carr for the first time and was simply blown away. I approached him in the break and asked what I should be practicing as I’d only recently started to try to fathom out how to play jazz on the guitar. He looked at me and said one word – TUNES!

And therein lies the secret to Jim’s wonderful playing. Every note he plays is in the pursuit of something melodic. That, coupled with an innate sense of swing and a profound feeling for the blues, make Jim one of the greatest of all jazz guitarists.

This latest release, although under Jim’s name, is in fact a true group effort with American organist Ben Paterson alongside saxophonist Jan Harbeck and drummer Kristian Leth, both from Denmark, playing WITH Jim and not merely behind him.

One is reminded of those classic Grant Green or Wes Montgomery recordings from the 50’s and 60’s as the band work their way sensitively through a selection of great standards (the solitary original being Jim’s own Medication). In this day and age of jazz needing to be constantly ground-breaking it’s a relief to listen to an album that is more ground-affirming!

Nothing outstays its welcome here. The heads are shared, the solos are short and concise, the arangements are simple yet perfectly crafted and the whole thing, 11 tracks in total, demonstrates that often-missed dynamic of ‘bubbling’ away without ever descending into bombast.

It’s unnecessary to single out any track on this record; each follows the last so well that it really should be listened to more as a suite than a collection of individual numbers. One gets the sense that the quartet are firmly ‘on the same page’ throughout. There’s no competition here; no grandstanding. Each and every selection is performed in the pursuit of something way beyond ‘check me out’! What a refreshing thing that is for listeners who love “tunes”!

As for Jim himself, this album proves he is playing as well, if not better, than ever. All those years at jazz’s coalface leave us with a musician at the peak of his craft. At an age where many musicians might start to slow down, Jim just keeps on going; out there night after night, serving the tune and improvising at the highest level.

For Heaven’s Sake is a very welcome addition to Mullen’s recorded legacy and will surely introduce the rest of the group to a wider audience. They certainly deserve it. If nothing else, it will serve as a reminder that jazz, in its purest form, is safe in the hands of musicians like Jim Mullen and this fabulous quartet. Will somebody, please, bring this group to the UK?

The post Jim Mullen Quartet – ‘For Heaven’s Sake’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Technically, Koo’s early schooling in the classical piano repertoire is apparent, and there is a Debussy-like fineness to the compositions, which also often evoke the angularity of Keith Jarrett as well as the quiet thoughtfulness of Bill Evans. Koo’s occasional singing is strong and well-modulated, as on the piece “Slowly”, released as a single in November 2024. At this and several other points in the album, such as the track “Elements” you sense that Koo’s aim is to make you forget yourself and be carried along trance-like for a short while, until you regretfully realise the tune is over. There’s a lot to be said for being able to lose yourself in this way.

There is also a filmic quality to some the music, most obviously perhaps on the track “Eagle of The Sun” with its whistling entry and an overall feel of a western movie, all carried along by Koo’s vocal and the great repeating riff. This somehow bespeaks an awareness of how our music is so often consumed, sitting in a train or car, watching the city or landscape roll by, characters in our own movie.

And that visual sense is repeated in the track “Jonass”, also released as a single and dedicated to one of Koo’s childhood friends who tragically passed away. It is probably the highlight of the whole album. In the opening melodic riff section, you can almost see the happy riotous play of youth. It gives way suddenly to a deeply felt passage of loss and sadness, beautifully delivered through Koo’s delicate playing and Akinmusire’s solo, gradually building back and returning to happier memories of earlier times. It’s a masterclass in evocative playing that is very affecting, in a way which is rare in modern music.

The album concludes with the title track “Blame it on the Chromosomes”, which opens with a wonderfully deliberate solo from Heyndels before building to a complex rhythmic piano and drums climax and authoritative finale. I almost stood up to applaud.

Release date is 7 February 2025

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