Nick Maclean Quartet with Brownman Ali, Exeter Phoenix, 17th February, 2020

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’.

Get it here.