Francis Tulip (guitar); Ben Lawrence
(piano); John Pope (double bass); Matt MacKellar (drums)
Tyneside's jazz calendar continues to
present difficult choices with Sunday evening a case in point; Gerry Richardson
playing a Jazz Co-op gig would ordinarily be a 'must', the Customs House Big
Band's twentieth-anniversary concert at its Mill Dam HQ in South Shields
similarly unmissable, and upriver at Blaydon on Tyne, the 'new wave' set out to
show what is happening in the many and varied hothouses across the country and,
indeed, overseas.
The Black Bull in Blaydon won the day
with your correspondent (BSH Editor-in-Chief rightly opting to review the 'big
do' at the Customs House). The Francis Tulip Quartet comprises bandleader,
guitarist Francis Tulip (Birmingham Conservatoire), pianist Ben Lawrence
(Durham University, mathematics!), drummer Matt MacKellar (on vacation from
Berklee, USA) and, on this gig, a more than able dep on bass, John Pope. JP
graduated from Newcastle University a while ago so this jobbing gig held few
fears.
Kenny Dorham, John Lewis, Mulgrew
Miller, Trane, Joshua Redman, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Terence Blanchard,
Herbie Hancock, these the composers in the pad. Historically Blaydon Jazz Club
is more GASbook than 'modern/contemporary' in outlook so would this evening's
gig take some of the regulars out of their comfort zone?
Short Story (Dorham), Milestones (Lewis), Like
Sonny (Coltrane), it soon became clear that those present were liking
what they were hearing. The band's soloists - all four of them - dazzled, not
least the rapidly developing Ben Lawrence. It seems like five minutes ago that
Ben was a fledgling muso finding his way at Paul Edis' Saturday morning
workshops at the Lit and Phil in Newcastle. Here at the Black Bull, the reserved
young man exhibited a fine understanding of the music; the structure of the
composition, group interplay, dynamics, the lot.
Like Sonny went in and
out of swingtime as easy as you like - this from three twenteens and JP who is
just a few years their senior. Joshua Redman's waltz-time Soul
Dance closed an absorbing hour-long first set. Raffle time. A winner!
A bottle of Shiraz from Oz, thank you very much! The Black Bull's friendly
patrons had enjoyed an afternoon gig in the bar and hung around to chew the cud
as the jazz heads emerged from the adjacent lounge to recharge their
glasses.
Matt MacKellar's shimmering cymbal
work - a la Max Roach - introduced All or Nothing at All to an
attentive crowd, no one was going anywhere, all were impressed with what had
gone down first set. Time for a blues said Tulip. Sonny
Rollins' Solid the vehicle, slow tempo, our guitarist skating
over the fretboard with enviable ease. This one could be called a 'no hurry'
blues, JP's double bass walking the quartet through it, simply
tremendous.
A couple from Weather Report
co-founder Wane Shorter (The Big Push and the ballad Penelope),
one-time Jazz Messenger Terence Blanchard's Breathless featuring
a fine solo, perhaps the solo of the night, by Tulip and a
GASbook ballad - Body and Soul - thrown in for good
measure made for a memorable night of jazz from four superb practitioners
of the art. To close proceedings Herbie Hancock's One Finger Snap, taken
at a pace Keith Nichols would describe as 'tear-arse', left no one in any doubt
the next generation is staking its claim. Jazz Lives!
Russell
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