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.

Mary Spender - support for the Walker/Thompson gig, St George's, Bristol, 17th February, 2016

Brilliant In and From Bristol

Her Vigier guitar in Revolution Green will for the moment serve as a partial metaphor for the elegant as well as sassy talent that is Mary Spender. It is a pretty guitar, yet that is mere show if played with little skill – I imagine my amateurish attempts – but when Mary picks it up at the start of her support slot, the immediate fluidity of her setting-up is impressive as well as tempting. There is a blues run that is suggestive too, and when she sings, this is where the promise is fully realised.

Supporting Ryley Walker with Danny Thompson at last night’s St George’s gig would seem a daunting task – as it so often is with an expectant audience – but Spender instantly performs with confidence and clarity: a voice that is pure and ranging; her guitar playing with such felicity, a slap and picking that has a jazzy characteristic as much as the blues. Her fine songs are often sung in tandem with the guitar work deftly picking out the key melodies, and her vocal tone resonates wonderfully – especially in the fulsome acoustics of the venue. There is a beautiful self-harmonising [I am guessing] vocal work-out on her The Electric EP I picked up with two others last night.

I was generally impressed, and having picked up and listened to those three available cds [two studio eps and one live recording in Philadelphia] as well as all the music on her web site – which includes a sweet video cover of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit – I feel excited to have heard this emerging talent on that stage.

To anyone reading this review, I would recommend an immediate visit of Spender’s site here to listen to the music available. And it is all in the listening, and I can confirm that she excels both live and in recording [if you can make her The Louisiana gig in hometown Bristol on the 31^st March, she will be playing with a band and that will be interesting, but the soloing is damn fine enough].

I don’t think I quite accounted for the ‘sass’ I wanted from my opening metaphor. This is for me always a positive quality, and I take from it the essence of being confident. I liked her confidence in making it clear to the audience last night that she has taken her journey: she has travelled, played in America, recorded in Nashville, and this has taken some years. She is now ready and releasing her debut album in October of this year, and I look forward to that. I look forward to seeing her play again and sharing this discovery with a wider audience.

Ryley Walker with Danny Thompson, St George's, Bristol, 17th February, 2016

Ryley and Reverie

Ryley Walker is a young American guitar artist, his artistry clearly in the instrumental work across a variety of open tunings and finger-picking dexterity that is quite outstanding, and also in the jazz-infused songcraft where, on record - especially his most recent Primrose Green - his backing band augments those inflections, and, in live performance, the extended jamming as with last night at the wonderful St George’s in Bristol. That he was accompanied there by the legendary Danny Thompson on double bass augmented this performance to levels of bliss.

Midway through last night’s gig Walker referred to one of the instrumental improvs as a ‘boogie jam’ which I quite like as an upbeat assessment, but it struck me that they were most like ragas, and his performance of these seems characterised by a trance-like immersion in the soloing where sudden bursts of chord strikes are balanced by delicate finger-picks and occasionally the sweetest minor chord sequences.

All the time Thompson played his exquisite bass where dropping into the lower notes resonates with such soothing power, and then he bends glorious notes to meander within the tunes. The audience was clearly gathered to see Danny playing as much as Ryley – judging from his reception – but it was palpable how Walker asserted his presence in a mutually assured construction of folkjazz symmetry, this their first gig of a tour and perfectly at ease in the virtuoso partnership.

Walker is also a consummate folk artist, this also more evident I would guess in a live performance of acoustic guitar – though amped – and double bass, compared with on record, though his first All Kinds of You veers more to this than the jazzier and at times psychedelic PG. His singing is also heavily influenced by a folk tradition, the obvious echoes of influences like Nick Drake, Bert Jansch and John Martyn. In his more trance-vocals, one can hear Tim Buckley and Van Morrison with yelps and hollers and grunts and other guttural expressions of emotion. His vocal variations on the singular word alright were hypnotic.

The main set last night ended on Primrose Green, and its distinctive riff remained with me long afterwards. Most affecting personally, however, was the first song of the subsequent encore, a gentle acoustic playing and singing of Sweet Satisfaction, the most poignant of the John Martyn echoes of the evening. Walker doesn’t use his voice quite like the instrument Martyn eventually made his own distinctive sound, but he did sing with the beautiful clarity of earlier Martyn, and the chord sequence, as well as slap playing, could have been a song from JM’s early period too. All the time this was being performed I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of nostalgic reverie was going through Thompson’s mind, such a long-time musical collaborator and great friend of John Martyn. I think I saw these two play live together twice many, many years ago, and Thompson must have a sense of fond memory when performing with the youthful Walker, reminding of those days. I have no doubt that any such sentimentality – nothing wrong in that – is wrapped in a profound professional regard from the senior legend to the emerging talent of Walker, whose volatile life exploits and experiences would seem to mirror some of the boisterous existentialism of the Thompson/Martyn years! 

Review/comments previously on Ryley Walker on this blog can be found here.