The more perceptive amongst you will
have worked out from the title that this is a pandemic lockdown album and I am
advised that 7 of the 8 tracks were composed for online livestreams during
various lockdowns.
Trish Clowes is one of an ever expanding bunch of still fairly young composers and performers who are doing things in the UK that keeps jazz interesting and evolving. I feel that much of this music has left behind most of what is coming from the American colonies that doesn’t sound too far removed from the sounds of the 1960s. Within the financial constraints of the British jazz scene she has been a regular recorder and her tours have usually included a date in the north east. I fondly recall a date in the Northern Rock Hall at the Sage when she was touring one of her albums, probably In The Night-Time She Is There or Pocket Compass.
For this album she is
joined again by fellow members of her ‘My Iris’ Quartet who have featured on
her recent albums. Time was when a jazz group without a bass player was an
unusual beast; not so much now. With this group there is either the space for
the soloists to work into or there are drones on the guitar or long held notes
on the organ to provide a wash for the others to work their artistry in front
of.
The opening title reminds
us of the constraints of lockdown in its stiff marching snare drum and matching
piano opening whilst successive solos on sax, piano and guitar suggest freedom
beyond the curtains. Clowes then comes back in with a brasher, bolder more
expansive solo; the escape at the end of lockdown.
At times she has a warm
round tone which harks back to the early players such as Ben Webster but she
can also add a harshness to her tone and it’s that contrast that works so well to
provide different ideas across her two solos on A View With a Room.
Next up, The Ness is a seascape inspired by
images of a film shot along the Fife coast and the group have captured both the
peace and the fury of the seashore before gentle waves close it out.
Amber
is for Amber Bauer, CEO of Donate4Refugees and its angularity is suggestive of
someone who probably needs more than a regiment’s quota of elbows to get
anything done in a world where the Home Office in its current form operates.
Ross Stanley’s left hand on the piano provides the elbows and his and Clowes’
solos provide further spikiness. I may be doing Ms Bauer a grave injustice here
in ascribing certain personal attributes to her, but I suspect I’m not.
Morning
Song is a pastoral ballad that eases us through soft, early
sunrise into the day. Clowes gives us a full, warm tenor tone and Stanley a
trickling, ruminative solo before Montague’s guitar builds on the atmosphere to
take us home.
No
Idea lets the guitarist loose in the space that the sparer
rhythm section creates before he drops out and Stanley joins in to push Clowes
into some of her strongest blowing on the record. Ayana, by way of contrast is quieter, exploratory. This time it is
the sax providing the insistent rhythmic motif on which the guitar and piano
overlay long runs of notes, together and separately before the piano drops back
and the sax comes forward. Structurally, it’s very clever the way that the
instruments move back and forth in the mix whilst maintain the mood and the
pulse of the piece.
Time
has
a lovely pastoral feel to it, suggestive of time standing still, as it did for
so many of us in the last two years. Languid, in waltz time. The closer, Almost, starts with as a series of
disconnected fragments that stealthily stitch themselves together as the themes
develop. Is this another exploration of what opening up means as people come
together after the lockdowns?
In summary, I really like
this album and would give it lots of stars if we did that sort of thing on BSH.
Trish has a website HERE and you will see her tour dates on there, including a visit to The Globe in Newcastle on the 15th of May, and you can get tickets through The Globe website AT THIS PAGE - Dave Sayer
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