CD Review: Leo Appleyard – Pembroke Road

Leo Appleyard (guitar), Duncan Eagles (tenor sax), Neil Yates (trumpet/flugelhorn), Max Luthert (bass), Eric Ford (drums/percussion).

(Review by Hugh C).

Pembroke Road is the début album by twenty-five year old London-based guitarist Leo Appleyard. The album is a testament to the strength of enduring musical relationships. Appleyard states: “I have played in bands with Duncan Eagles and Max Luthert for more of my life than I haven't”.

These musicians have well-honed habits of working together and loose tempos, rapid transitions of mood and tricky time signatures become as natural as breathing. Leo Appleyard is marked out as a musician by his deep understanding and care about sound. He was given his first mixing desk at the age of fourteen – just a year and a half after he started the guitar and he has been working as a sound engineer professionally since the age of 17. This experience enables him to integrate electronic effects into his sound, but at the same time fully exploit the resonances of the hollow-bodied guitar he invariably uses.

There are nine tracks on the album – coming in at just over 52 minutes in total. The Homeless Wizard is named after one of Appleyard's friends (not in the band) and features drummer/percussionist Eric Ford. Wales-based Neil Yard (trumpet/flugelhorn) guests on the album on three tracks, including the second, Mass. This has a deliberate filmic quality and in places has a folky feel, reflecting Yates' talent in that genre. The Cleaver features the paired lyrical tones of Yates' trumpet and Eagles' sax. Anywhere South started as an exercise on Coltrane's 'Giant Steps' and has contrasting sections of fast and energetic forward motion and repose. Mantra contains some of the most atmospheric material on the album and incorporates different styles – a blues element, a Bach chorale and a modal vamp. Appleyard's musical mantra is to combine different elements, forging them into one.

The album was recorded in StudioOwz in the middle of rural Pembrokeshire. The studio was set up by a friend of Appleyard's and the sense of space and isolation, together with the rural surroundings, captured Appleyard's imagination. The title track Pembroke Road (sixth on the album) was actually composed after a visit to the studio (accessed by a dusty off-the-grid track) by Appleyard five years before he returned with the other musicians and eight more compositions. Intro to a Waltz features a sombre bass solo from Max Luthert before the revelation of the happy tune in Walsio. The final track I Remember is a different take by Appleyard on a standard by Victor Schertzinger.

This album comes with the imprimatur of the F-IRE label, which to the older jazzer can have slightly scary connotations! There is however nothing scary about this album. It is beautifully melodic throughout and elegantly demonstrates the musicianship of all participants. The sensitive interplay of the five musicians on the album is a delight.

Pembroke Road is released on Monday November 10 (Today).

CD Launch Gig: November 16 (12am), EFG London Jazz Festival, Pizza Express, Dean Street

Pembroke Road is on the F-IRE Label No. F-IRE CD75

Currently listed tour dates feature nowhere North of Birmingham.

Hugh.