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
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