When faced with the prospect of reviewing a contemporary piano trio playing original material I pre-condition myself to fearing the worst. I think back wistfully to concerts by Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner, Teddy Wilson, Brian Lemon or Dave Newton and before a note has been played I'm thinking up excuses to leave early.
I feared tonight might be just such an occasion. However, any clouds of foreboding that may have been present quickly vanished and it soon became evident that here we had a trio reaching out to beyond the jazz eggheads.
Three excellent musicians who I suspect graduated through a variety of musical genres such as classical, pop, folk and rock. Cowley, at times gently probing and deeply introspective contrasting with some ebullient, repetitive, rock and roll riffing. If there had been space I think the audience would have been up dancing when they hit the latter mode.
On drums, Jenkins was a revelation whether on mallets, brushes or sticks. It was a well choreographed routine which wasn't surprising given that they were promoting their new album Entity - always a WYSIWYG situation.
Horan isn't a member of the I can play more notes than you school of bass players. His forte is the right note at the right time, the less is more approach and it works.
Cowley engaged with the audience effectively without any of the currently fashionable expletives that pepper the vocabulary of many younger bands. It was left to me to (silently) do that as, despite his loquacity, he failed to give us 'the skinny' on the tune titles. However, I'm assuming all the compositions were from the album so I've listed them as such.
They're on tour - catch them at a town near you*. Lance
Ps: Apologies for the poor quality photo due to the lighting which effectively made the stage look like the start of a 20th Century Fox movie!
Marble; Those Claws; V & A; Father Daughter; Brood; Adam Alphabet; Photo Box; Lemon Meringue; Shoop; Sir Benjamin; Entity
* April 22: Bristol, St George's
- April 23: Birmingham, The Bradshaw Hall
- April 26: Gateshead, The Glasshouse ICM
- April 27: Manchester, Royal Northern College of Music
- May 1: Southampton, Turner Sims
- May 3: Saffron Walden, Saffron Hall
- May 4: Leeds, Howard Assembly Room
1 comment :
Spot on review. Most of the tunes were from Entity but not all of them.
Saw them at Brampton in Feb and now last night in Gateshead and still far from tired of their music. Catch them while you can.
Post a Comment