This album is definitely a grower. It has moved from acceptable background music to the front of the stage with every listening. There is some very fine playing, especially from Julian Costello and John Turville and it was nice to ‘catch up’ with Turville after not hearing much by him in recent years. Costello has, for the most part, a lovely flowing style, forceful but not overwhelming. Don’t be misled into thinking he’s a smooth operator, though. He has a big voice and his sound, unless he is sharing the metaphorical front line with Turville’s piano, dominates. Turville is the other star of this session. I remember him from a concert at Newcastle University back in 2013 and was hugely impressed then. This recording only serves to increase my admiration for his playing.
Opener, Why, is
the first of two tracks featuring Georgia Mancio’s voice, which is a thing of beauty in itself. She rides the lyric line perfectly and Turville’s piano rises and
falls alongside her vocal line. Costello matches her for lyricism when his
tenor arrives.
The title track comes next and is a game of two halves. We
open with a long blowing section from Costello full of Dexter-esque force
before the band stops on a sixpence and a brief, ominous, bass solo leads into
a passage with Turville out front and centre all heavy chording and angular
runs.
The smaller horn is unpacked for The Octopus, a track that sounds more avian than sub-aquatic. While
the sax lines float, Turville, again, does much of the heavy lifting behind
with more dense, elegant runs. With the bass pushed into the background, Costello and Turville’s instruments fly freely, closely intertwined, rising and
falling together.
Gecko is a slab of
jazz of the highest quality with the band romping away joyously for much of the
track. It opens with a punchy riff on tenor, picked up by the rest of the band.
It seems more introspective than the previous tracks, with Costello initially
subdued but building from this softer opening, the other pushing him on as he
spirals upwards into a wail. As Costello drops out, the rhythm section show
just how tight they are. Hooper is rolling in the background, sometimes
stuttering as if he is almost losing his step, but never doing so, solid bass
fills in the gaps as Turville’s solo leads us back to the opening riff.
Mancio is back for Sunflowers,
which features her voice in a perfect segway with Costello’s sax as his
horn picks up her intonation and phrasing and carries it into his solo. She’s
part of the team, passing the baton on. Turville’s solo is light and elegant,
Costello returns and shares the lead line with Mancio again. It’s a joy to listen
to.
Hooper is unleashed for the opening salvos of London is Blue before a punchy probing
solo from Costello, still in full voice on the tenor. Turville’s solo is dense
and knotty, but always with a narrative drive behind it. He’s matched in
complexity by Hooper’s drums which could have been higher in the mix to really
make them crack.
Song For Anna is a
lazy, late-night ballad for those occasions when you wear a bow tie and let it
hang loose in a dimly lit night club, smoke (from a vape?) rising from the ash
tray. There are further echoes of long tall Dexter in Costello’s languid
solo.
The (surely) ironically named There’s Always One Track You Fast Forward is a departure in that it
is all angles and is a clear left turn from the ballad that preceded it.
Costello sounds like he’s playing round corners and the drums and piano are the
walls he’s trying to get round, both match each other for the percussive weight
of their playing while Costello swoops and dives on soprano. After that angular
interlude we are back in the Club for No
Dinosaurs Here with Costello on full fat tenor and Turville’s crystalline
solo elegant and intricate enough to distract Rick Blaine from Ilsa Lund. I
suspect that Costello and friends were getting a bit demob happy in their
titling as the closer follows thematically on from No Dinosaurs. Dippy the Diplodicus takes the pace up slightly from
the cellar bar but drops back into relaxed indolence, punctuated by high
pitched wails as Costello essays his closing comments on tenor.
All The Birds Were Set Free is out now. You can get a taster on Julian Costello’s website, on the Homepage of which there is a video of the band performing the title song from the album. Dave Sayer
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