Energetic Synergy
First this month it was Storm Ciaria, then Storm Dennis, and last night it was Storm Ali blown into Devon by buttressing gustos of piano, bass and drums.
This jazzweather report therefore begins with
Blow, winds, and crack your trumpeter’s cheeks! Rage, blow! [dubious if apt quote], or as Nero expressed it more figuratively and manically [contested quote]
tortamque capitibus volumine.
One of the early waves of play we heard was prompted by a ‘geographical metaphor’, as quartet lead and on-fire pianist Nick Maclean put it, about true north and magnetic north, and geography also played its more literal part in the formation of the Nick Maclean Quartet with a topographical symbiosis of three players from Canada and one from New York, or more precisely, a storm centre twin-spiralling out of Toronto and Brooklyn.
That the numbers don’t add up to symmetry is a false calculation. The balance across the playing of trumpeter Brownman Ali and Nick Maclean was dynamic, with Jesse Dietschi on upright bass and Tyler Goertzen on drums adding to the equilibrium as well as being the backbone of any great jazz collective, whatever the numbers.
A further symbiosis is in the merge of Blue Note/Herbie
Hancock era jazz and Guru/Jazzmataz era jazz hip-hop. So we got standards and
ballads and hip-hop inflected currents playing their varying isobars, that
latter so often heavily fuelled by Latin rhythms delighting an appreciative audience
in Studio 1 at the Phoenix.
This gig began with Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island with its wonderful punchy two-note bursts in its
memorable melodic line. A little later, one Maclean-penned number was True North, as mentioned, and another a
sweet composition titled I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings. So in addition to
Herbie, literary and literacy references informed the night’s original music,
as with Ali’s Madness of Nero inspired
by his readings about Rome and the Roman emperors and, one would hope, unspoken
but relevant reflections on contemporary political madnesses. One particular
soothe was a cover of Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly
from his 1974 Thrust album, and this
had Ali on trumpet with echoing/repeat effects which I do particularly like,
though it must be said it is still all in the playing – here in the overall
beauty of it as well as the timings in and out and away from the effects-mic.
It was gorgeous, a calm before further – well, you know.
At the interval my friend and I had a chance to catch up
with Brownman and Nick, Nick so full of earnest as well as open welcome and
appreciation [and modest for someone so demonstrably talented], clearly on a
mission of spreading his exemplary jazz vision in this UK tour – ending last
night, the guys flying home out of Gatwick as I write – and Brownman Ali,
energy personified, still buzzing after a busy first set. His playing credits
are extraordinary – he had given up playing with/for Kanye West to be on this
tour – and he talked warmly about being mentored by Randy Brecker as well as
his influences like Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Brown and Woody Shaw. He does see
himself as representing an evolution of jazz – respectful of precursors, liking
especially my friend’s comment about Wynton Marsalis as a curator rather than creator, that respect a part of the urge to
progress and move on from the groundwork that is evolution’s platform.
The second session and night finished on Maclean’s superb Elasticity of Time and Space, a 14
minute extended jam on the band’s album track of same at 4.30 minutes,
demonstrating that very pliability in our special space for the evening. That
album, Rites of Ascension, which I
have listened to today is excellent and, as the band’s Bandcamp site states, ‘represents
Maclean's examination of the modern jazz ethos with all the intriguing
challenges, opportunities and possibilities that go with it’.
