Bill Laurance (keyboards), Michael League (double
bass, electric bass & Moog synth), Robert ‘Sput’ Searight (drums) with the
West Side Trio: Vera van der Bie (violin), Isabella Petersen (viola), Annie Tangberg
(cello) + Katie Christie (French horn)
(Review by Russell).
Michael League and co came, saw and conquered. That
was a little over a year ago. The Snarky Puppy phenomenon shows little sign of
abating with this Bill Laurance return to the scene of their triumphant debut appearance
– at Sage Gateshead. The keyboards man has been on a European tour promoting
the release of his latest CD and this last leg – the British dates – has been a
homecoming for the Brooklyn-based Londoner.
Snarky Puppy gigs often feature upwards of ten
musicians on stage (forty and more have been known on more than one occasion!)
but for this tour Laurance has brought with him his regular rhythm section
partners – bassist Michael League and groove machine Robert ‘Sput’ Searight
(drums). Hire a string trio (the West Side Trio), add a brass player and an altogether
different sound emerged…at times. Full on, high level volume, subtlety isn’t a
priority for these boys. Strings and horn plugged in to the power supply.
Chamber music? Not a chance! Groove merchant Searight hammered his pneumatic
bass drum, giving the others no option but to crank it up. Laurance’s new album
– Swift – featured heavily, and a couple
of cuts from his debut CD Flint made
it onto the set list.
December in New York, a trio work out on The Good Things, a League arrangement of an Indonesian-inspired The Isles (Snarky Puppy’s reach embraces
festival dates in the Indian Ocean) and Smokers
Castle elicited huge applause from the Hall Two standing crowd of devoted
followers. Laurance surveyed the scene from his three-sided control room of six
or seven keyboards (including a house Steinway, Fender Rhodes and his new toy
capable of pitch-bending notes – ‘the future for keyboards’, claimed the main
man).
The second set offered more of the same (a French horn
solo offered something different) with Denmark
Hill perhaps the pick of the night. The
Real One (a pitch-bending feature), bassist League alternating between
electric and heavily amplified double bass, some West Side Trio features and, to
close the set, the opening track on Swift,
Laurance’s Fjords.
The Snarky Puppy lot tour relentlessly. Laurance and
League have come a long way from their days of post-gig fish and chips in
Bridlington (they had a Chet Baker tribute band!). Laurance’s Swift project will be filed in the archive, Snarky Puppy will write many more
chapters before they are done.
Russell.
No comments :
Post a Comment