Sara Colman
(vocals); Rebecca Nash (piano); Henrik Jensen (double bass); Jonathan Silk
(drums) + Iain Ballamy (tenor sax on Noble Heart & Gardener); Percy
Pursglove (flugelhorn on Ribbons); Trish Clowes (tenor sax on Little Light);
Steve Banks (guitar on Sophie’s Song); Ruth Hammond (bass clarinet on Night
Traveller)
The two principals are
new names to me but there are a few better known big hitters in the ‘full
supporting cast;’ Colman and Nash, meanwhile, show why they have top billing.
Colman’s voice is full, rich and warm and she can be forceful at times and
light at others. Nash is simply excellent, combining heavy chording with fluid,
rippling excursions. Her timing is perfect, filling and leaving spaces,
creating tension and joyous release as she goes.
Opener Noble Heart sees Iain Ballamy enfolding Colman’s voice in a warm blanket before she drops away and he solos onwards. Nash gives us light chords and delicate runs. The voice and sax combine again to great effect later in the piece with Ballamy’s phrases answering in rapid response to Colman’s voice, the two entwined in a rising spiral.
Some of the tension Nash
creates is in evidence on Turning Over
Stones as two distinct piano voices introduce the piece, one soft voiced in
the background the other, chording, foregrounded. After Colman’s deep voiced
vocals (“Don’t go turning over stones, Don’t go looking for trouble, You might
not like what you find,” is her advice) Nash’s solo is built on the weighty
piano chords, using them as an occasional launch pad for something more florid.
Pursglove’s rich,
restless, mournful flugelhorn on Ribbons Prologue
is threaded through the main song itself perfectly framing and echoing the
tragedy in Colman’s voice. It follows her winding vocal line, breaking away to
lift and add some air under the voice; Nash’s chording is the foundation for
the more ethereal voices of Colman and the trumpeter.
On Gardener Ballamy and Colman carry off the same magical sax/voice
duet they essayed so well on Noble Heart
as Colman sings “Give me a pencil, teach me how to write, Let me write the
story of my life” before a brooding desperate sax seeks the same escape as the
singer from the weight of the world, created in Nash’s heavy as rolling
boulders piano playing.
Little
Light brings Trish Clowes off the subs bench. It’s a
lighter piece, less dramatic than its predecessors with some of the least
challenging scat singing you’re ever likely to hear; there’s no showboating
this time around and Clowes’ floating sax is lovely. Sophie’s Song is a cover of Wayne Shorter’s Night Dreamer with added lyrics by Colman. A mellow piece built off
a brief piano figure and garnished with Steve Bank’s fluid guitar runs. Nash
turns herself inside out, musically, on this one with staccato notes taking us
a little further out than we have been so far, ably supported by Jensen’s
muscular, ‘take-no-prisoners’ double bass.
The album closes with Goodbye, a solo piece from Nash, which
the sleeve notes tell is ‘For Jean’ her Grandmother. It’s a celebration of a
life, alternately delicate and rich, full voiced, rolling in like waves.
I first sat down to review this album a couple of weeks back and found myself just listening to it rather than trying to analyse its strengths and weakness and constituent parts and influences. It was a tonic to sit in a darkened room and listen to this album and try and avoid the ways of the world outside. (And don’t get me started on the weather!) As distractions go, few work as well as Ribbons, Volume 1 which is out on Feb. 27. We look forward to Volume 2. Dave Sayer
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