Matt Carmichael @ St Mary’s Church, Wooler - June 23

Matt Carmichael (tenor sax); Fergus McCreadie (piano); Charlie Stewart (fiddle).

It’s a funny old world. At the moment we have Rothbury seeking to establish itself as the Jazz Corner of the World and then we have, courtesy of Wooler Arts, one of the biggest names in British jazz (Fergus McCreadie) playing in a Matt Carmichael led trio on a Sunday afternoon in a church in the village. Truly it is an interesting time to follow jazz in Northumberland.

I spoke to a fellow audience member about how impressed I was at the turn out for a jazz gig and her comment was along the lines of ‘We’ve had some great music here recently and if someone puts on something good we’ll all come to it’. Can’t argue with that! It’s worth mentioning the good sound in the church as well.

McCreadie is highly regarded in this house and Carmichael’s Marram album was one of my ‘Best of 2022’ so there was a lot of anticipation surrounding Sunday’s gig for which Carmichael had brought two of the quintet that recorded Marram. The others being left at home in Scotland to enjoy (?) the football. 

The first set opens with a Scottish lilt, typical of the Marram album; a gentle ballad of mists and spaces with delicate piano, spare, plucked fiddle notes; McCreadie plays runs and rills. As the piece develops it’s clear that no one is soloing and everyone is soloing. Stewart’s fiddle grows from faint scratches to a dominant voice over McCreadie’s fluid piano; Carmichael blows rich round notes evocative of open spaces and rural images while Stewart’s fiddle conjures the calls of the birds of the air. This is a full sound, panoramic, that ebbs and flows, the lead role passing seamlessly from one musician to another. A full voiced solo from Carmichael over delicate, rolling playing from McCreadie fades away and Stewart adds a flavour of Scottish Jazz, Folk-Routes & Landscape before the wave flows back and breaks again. It’s wonderful, unanchored improvisation.

The first piece flows into a second which is even sparer than the first; floating and pastoral, with a lurking menace, led by McCreadie and Stewart with the, by now, familiar Scottish essence. Carmichael’s burnished, mellow tone is melancholic, nostalgic and wistful. A duet between sax and piano builds and builds to a wave that rolls down the nave of the church. The mood of loss and yearning is overtaken by an uplifting solo from McCreadie, dancing and, dare we say it, jaunty. The others follow him. This is the real folk jazz. McCreadie’s piano is ringing and singing out and all three are intensely listening and picking up hints of where to go next.

The second set starts with subdued scratching from Stewart’s fiddle; Carmichael blows a mournful line which rolls into a solo that rises in volume and mood. Circular notes become more expansive and lilting and are answered by McCreadie’s dancing piano lines. Beyond the music, this performance is all atmosphere, textures and layers; the flow rising and falling like a bird in flight. The three move into a reel; Stewart plays a repeating motif and lifts off for a solo while McCreadie vamps behind him. Carmichael’s solo also takes flight. This is what Sonny Rollins would sound like if he was from the glens. Softer notes, gentle and breathy, evoke Lester Young.

We flow into the next piece with a beautiful, elegant solo from McCreadie rising and falling, full of right hand runs and fills. His solos carry a melody within a tumbling cascade of notes; an orchestral martialling of forces. Carmichael breathy tenor comes back in and raises its voice again as part of a rich full sound from the trio.

Carmichael tells us that we have been listening to On the Gloaming Shore and Road to the Sea.

The next piece opens with more mournful evocations of open space from Carmichael’s sax, underpinned by McCreadie’s flowing piano. He takes us through a passage of short phrases, almost ecclesiastical, with McCreadie adding some rolling thunder in between some heavy chording and poetic flourishes. Carmichael surrenders the stage to McCreadie and Stewart who carry the elegance onwards to evoke another landscape, open and storm washed. Carmichael steps forward again, the tenor voice blending beautifully with the other voices. He blows a complex, knotty, building solo as the others rise behind into a combined celebration of release. 

The encore, again, evokes open landscapes, though this time of the Midwest in a country hoe down meets Broadway (but not via Oklahoma!). Heavy duty right hand vamping from McCreadie beneath Carmichael’s dancing sax; Stewart adds extra structure. Carmichael’s solo rises out from beneath the piano line, forceful and building on the mood.

The poster outside had promised ‘Jazz, Folk and Landscapes’ and this trio had delivered. Carmichael is doing what many of those Scandinavian musicians, such as Jan Garbarek, have done for their homelands over the years, usually on ECM or Edition Records. One thinks, as well, of Charlie Haden’s evocations of America on some of his later albums, such as Beyond the Missouri Sky, recorded with Pat Metheny. Matt Carmichael has set out to evoke his love for the land of his birth. It’s an endeavour in which, alongside the others in the trio, he fully succeeds. Dave Sayer