MUSIC

(Bebop Club, Bristol, Fri 23 Sept) For free jazz to hold an audience to the end of an evening you either need musicians of towering genius or a degree of compositional preparation that ensures a structured framework. Trumpeter Loz Speyer has a knack of snagging exceptional musicians but also provides some canny and attractive compositional ideas to start things off. This quintet is a sparkly bunch, with highly acclaimed sax players Rachel Musson and Jake McMurchie, formerly-of-this-parish bass player Oli Brice and the practically unavoidable Mark Whitlam on drums. The lack of a ‘chord’ instrument ensures a spacious sound with harmonic opportunities aplenty on offer and the pieces generally begin with a snappy melodic statement before evolving into new shapes. Thus ‘New Thing’ has a complex bebop opening, three brass voices in unison, before Speyer’s crisply enunciated trumpet starts to think aloud across the changes (rigorously wrung out by Brice’s emphatic bass). The two tenor saxes become a counterpoint with the trumpet and then each other, both Musson and McMurchie quick to seize and respond to cues and openings. Just as the whole thing ravels into a new and colourful tapestry there’s an imperceptible shift and the original theme returns as a perfectly logical outcome of the process. It’s a fine example of how the group has both the skills and collectivity to think together and the evening unfolds to confirm that impression. On ‘Tip Of The Iceberg’ Speyer introduces the theme on trumpet but then slips aside to play congas, working on a subtle rhythmic undertow with Whitlam’s imaginatively restless hand-played drums and Brice’s resonant bass. The call-and-response of the saxes, meanwhile, has a decidedly Spanish accent, weaving and writhing like Albert Ayler washed up on a Cuban beach. What’s impressively present is a warmth often missing from the rigours of freer playing, and it’s only on the rhythmic complexities of ‘Rocket Science’ that there’s a sense of the technical – and that’s dispelled by a bass blow-out at the end. All in all it’s a very satisfying evening that more than merits the packed Bebop room and it would be great if the club could persuade Rachel Musson to bring one of her bands down sometime… (Tony Benjamin)

Copyright Tony Benjamin 2011