Review: jade/Krake/Harriet Riley, Cafe Kino

As the evening unfolded it was evident in the audience’s response that, in picking this venue and those collaborators, jade trumpeter Nick Malcolm had got it absolutely right. It was a very comfortable fit all round that ensured an interestingly eclectic programme got the hearing it deserved.

Harriet Riley – stick-blurring wizardry

First up was Harriet Riley, a diminutive figure behind the sprawl of her marimba, with an acoustic set of music she has derived from Mexican, Indonesian and Balinese traditions plus a cheeky transcription of Dave Samuels’ jazz-rock solo Footpath. The traditional music ranged from structurally complex cross rhythms to closely disciplined almost mathematical progressions, while Footpath swung between moments of stick-blurring frenzy and periods of cool jazz development. It was hard not to be simply focused on the darting and weaving of those sticks but Harriet’s evident understanding of (and passion for) the music ensured it wasn’t simply a display of virtuosity.

KRAKE – Pete Judge, Jim Barr, Pedro Oliveira and Jake McMurchie pedalling away

Next up, new combo KRAKE had come from an encounter between Portuguese percussionist Pedro Oliveira and Bristol’s Get The Blessing, resulting in a collaborative improvised album (without GTB drummer Clive Deamer). This was supposedly the album launch, giving saxophonist Jake McMurchie the chance to air the well-worn “that was another track from our completely improvised album” joke. Each of the four musicians was deploying an arsenal of electronic effects, meaning that Jake, bassist Jim Barr and trumpeter Pete Judge spent much of the set crouched low over flickering LED lights, while back in the shadows Pedro prowled around his kit and pored over his own case of electronica. He is a drummer of the toy box school, deploying an endless litany of things that clank or whirr as well as his drum kit, all making source sounds for digital reinterpretation.

KRAKE’s first number built from the screech of bowed cymbals loop-layered into swoops and howls, the minimal rhythm eventually generating a strident bassline of Wobbly proportions that grew into a bass and drum duet to close. It was like The Necks doing the Grateful Dead. A later piece would coalesce into an elephantine prog riff worthy of Amon Duul and their ilk, while another had the cartoonish percussion soundtrack of a Spike Jones larkabout given a sinister edge by Pete’s plaintive trumpet (eventually overruled by melodically assertive sax). Throughout the set all four musicians seemed meticulously selective about their sonic contributions as part of a whole, letting the music take shape organically with glorious results.

jade’s Will Harris, Nick Malcolm and Jake McMurchie

It was Nick Malcolm who pointed out that an amalgamation of the two band names jade and KRAKE would get you Jake and, indeed, Mr McMurchie appeared in both, joined for jade by Will Harris on bass and drums/electronics from Ric Yarborough. Their set was derived from Nick’s more elaborate album project Real Isn’t Real, inevitably stripped down (the CD has many vocal numbers, plus keyboards) but used as the thematic basis for the band’s always highly spontaneous approach. This more closely observed structure was an interesting contrast with KRAKE’s evident freedom yet was far from damping the playing or the effectiveness of the music. The contrasting voices of sax and trumpet were deftly used, one burning while the other moderated, one fluent while the other stabbed, yet both coming together for sweeping themes in numbers like Silent Grace and Green Eyes. The latter was a kind of R’n’B remix, with Ric mashing up samples alongside deceptively simple backbeat drumming and solid bass while the elaborate melodic theme unwound to an elegant ending.

As ever for a good bandleader Nick’s presence was as much in the musical whole as in his powerful instrumental part. It was interesting to hear how Jake’s playing readjusted into jade’s sound and style after KRAKE. He delivered a brilliantly flailing solo on Silent Grace that veered from A(Ayler) to Z(Zorn), combining the technical and the emotional to perfection in a reminder that he surely is one of the best contemporary jazz saxophonists in the country. Nick’s equally smart rejoinder was a staccato sketchpad deconstruction that reclaimed the melody through impressionistic hints, deftly taking control of things with the help of assertive drums and bass. Ric and Will had plenty of other moments, too, including a lightly dubbed spell with deep echo percussion under an eloquent bass solo in Spiral. Their collective imagination combined with Nick’s original compositional scope to deliver a pleasingly varied set of contemporary jazz with real freshness.

All in all it was a very satisfying evening, reminiscent in its spontaneity and eclectic spirit of the Rare Music sessions Keith Tippett used to gather further up the road in the 90s, and while Nick probably won’t be launching another album in the near future (he’s still touring the UK for this one, after all) maybe his acumen at event programming could lead to further nights like this in the Kino basement.