MUSIC

El Rincon, Bristol (Fri 9 Dec)

Tonight El Rincon is a place of two halves, with a large and happy birthday party out back and a smaller but equally chirpy crowd squeezed into the front room. Venn is a new saxophone quartet and tonight’s debut programme is an eclectic exploration of the sound palette available. Thus Kevin Figes’s ‘Is What It Is’ is a classic, melody-driven chamber jazz work-out, while Jake McMurchie composition ‘Fringe Shift’ gives freer rein to various pairings of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxes, moments of bickering spittery subsiding to a gentle sea-swell before scampering off elusively. The tireless drive of Hugh Johnson’s baritone, regularly called on as anchor, is impressive, especially on Get The Blessing’s swaggering ‘Can’t Believe In Faith’ (dedicated to discreetly efficient bar-tender and GTB trumpeter Pete Judge), with Andy Tweed’s glittering soprano wrenching genuine bathos as he cascades through the piece. Individually they’re each masterful players but it’s their collectivity that makes this a really special musical experience, locked tightly into the arrangements like a classical string quartet. Even a knotty Graham Fitkin piece can’t throw them off, with moments of four-voiced sonority like an amazing organ played by a single pair of hands, dazzling counterpoints weaving with impeccably timing. It must have been a huge effort to get this together but the general view in the front room is that it’s been well worth it. Quite what the diners think is anyone’s guess but they still look happy, too. (Tony Benjamin)

Copyright Tony Benjamin 2011