Chris McMurran (piano); Arvin Vaghela (bass); Andrew Blackwell (drums).
(Review by Lance).
This one's been hanging around since April but, such is the nature of the game that, just as I'm ready to give it a listen, something else drops through the mailbox, First Flight is rescheduled, and so it goes on. However, I've belatedly got around to playing it and, already, I'm changing my Gareth Southgate waistcoat for a suit of sackcloth and ashes whilst hanging my head in shame.
My initial misgivings were brought upon by the knowledge that the three musicians were also Cambridge scientists. McMurran's a neuroscientist, Vaghela's a physicist and Blackwell cuts it as a biologist.
Given the demanding nature of acquiring such skills, how on earth did they find the time to practice and become jazz masters? That they did, as evidenced by the music contained in the album, and the fact that McMurran is a Dankworth prize-winning composer, becomes apparent from the opening bars of the opening track.
With the exception of My Favourite Things, all tracks are originals 4-2-1 by McMurran, Vaghela and Blackwell respectively.
The compositions, they say, are inspired by their scientific background - they say. Scientific, to me, indicates music by numbers, calculated, pre-arranged and cold as a corpse in a cemetery. This is none of those things. The music is warm, sometimes abstract but always with an underlying pulse that fully embodies the feeling you get from music where the head doesn't overrule the heart - or vice versa.
Being a jazz trio, they admit to drawing influences from Peterson to Mehldau to Avishai Cohen as well as nodding in the direction of Beethoven, Alfred Schnittke and Jimi Hendrix. A huge melting pot but, delivered in the right proportions, makes for a very satisfying result.
Apologies once more for my procrastination.
Lance.
Available on Spark Records.
No comments :
Post a Comment