Artephis @ The Globe Jazz Bar, Newcastle – September 7. A joint venture by Jazz North East and the Jazz Co-op in connection with Jazz North 'Northern Line'

Aaron Wood (trumpet, flugelhorn, electronics); James Girling (guitar); Ali Roocroft (keyboard); Alasdair Simpson (bass guitar); Matt Brown (drums)

(Review by Ann Alex/ Photos courtesy of Ken Drew).

Well, what a brilliant evening of music is all I can say, and I'm sure the full house Globe audience would agree! This was listed as 'contemporary progressive jazz' so I was unsure if I'd latch onto it, but by the second piece I was hooked. See the quotation currently shown in the Bebop Spoken There box above, something about harming musicians by categorising them, how true in this case. This was simply (but not simple) great music, describe it how you will.

Mostly original pieces and the first tune Feroz (composed by Aaron Wood) took a while to bed down in my brain; it began with grooves and a trumpet line, then a keys one, a slowing down into snatches, guitar and trumpet call and response, trumpet leads, then all play to a sudden stop, the kind of sudden stop you get from many rock bands nowadays.

Tabula Rasa (comp. Girling) began with a beautiful cool, calm 'landscape' type of feeling tune on keys, building up to a heavier, louder sound as the whole band joined the theme, with steady drumbeats towards the ending.

I hope these descriptions give readers some 'feel' for the music played. The next piece was Chagrin; Know Her (comp. Girling) and was mainly drums led. The first set concluded differently and more traditionally with a boppy number Inner Urge (Joe Henderson), which could have been sung by the likes of Sheila Jordan, and with solos all round.

I was kindly supplied with the set list during the interval and my informant declared that he would announce the tunes in the second set, which he did in an amiable manner, so full marks for communication as well as music. So he first announced Glow (comp. Aaron Wood) a slow build-up of layers of sound with a skilled guitar prog rock type solo which took me back to 1970's evenings of music and wine.

 Treading Water was influenced by a musical partita (sounds more like an Italian meal) and ended with an interesting gruff-sounding guitar. Herbie Hancock's Eye Of The Hurricane ended with a superb drum solo; February (comp Girling) was loud and wild like that month's weather and Quinoa (comp. Girling) started with rumbles, then a strong tune and 'growling' guitar. That tune came about when Girling visited a quinoa-growing region of the world and realised the problems that the farmers had to deal with.

We all demanded an encore, which was the band's take on Caravan, over a strong Latin beat.

Then we all went home, very musically satisfied.

Ann Alex